Kyoto - Day 2 - Southern Higashiyama Walking Tour Part I

David did fine yesterday so we made our second day in Kyoto a big walking day. Our guide book recommended this 3 mile walk through Southern Higashiyama if we only had one day in Kyoto to get a sense of the city. We took a lot of pictures so this day will be divided up in to at least 3 parts. We'll see how our memory serves us. It seemed that we did a lot more walking than that especially since we were carrying a stroller up and down stairs.

We took a bus to this area and walked up a hill to our first stop - Kiyomizu-dera. Affiliated w/the Hosso school of Buddhism, this temple was first built in 763 but the present structures date from 1633. The map on the left depicts all the buildings on the grounds. This temple was much more crowded than the ones we saw yesterday. You actually had to pay an admission fee. It's here where we observed others cleansing their hands. David wanted to try too. J and D paused to take a look at one of the altars inside the temple and observed others paying their respects. Once we got to the top, there was an excellent view of Kyoto. Our hotel is in the dark gray building just to the left of the red and white Kyoto tower.

Sorry for the formatting - there are so many pictures and this blogging program isn't that user friendly.