Today however, we decided that sleep is somewhat important and stayed in bed 'till nine. Nine hours of [almost] straight sleep. This will probably never repeat itself for a long time, but still it felt great. So, after having breakfast, consisting of some bakery we bought at the nearby store and some water with powdered coffee and powdered milk (no, it can't be called coffee...), we bought a one day bus ticket and went to visit the Golden Pavillion. Actually you can get to any important point in the town using the bus. Be prepared, however, to wait for a long time for your bus. The first bus arrived shortly after we got to the bus stop. So far so good. Unfortunately, there were no direct connections from our hostel to the Pavillion. When we changed the line, buses from other lines kept arriving. But not the one we needed. There was a nice panel where you could see where the next bus of each line was. There were three circles, which represented the three stops before the one we were at. When a bus arrived at one of those stops, a little image of a bus appeared inside the circle. Also, the times needed between the different stops were written between them. Between the last stop and ours, the bus we wanted to get on was supposed to take 3 minutes. I've got a 6 minute long video showing how the circle on the station before ours had a little bus inside it. Actually, I wanted to film how the bus shown "moves" from one circle to the other. Nothing happened...
When we finally arrived at the bus stop before the Golden Pavillion we saw what we expected. Crows of tourists. Also, we met a lot of school classes there. In japanese schools, summer vacation starts in a few days, so this is probably something to kill some time. That's at least what they did at my school. The last days, when we were through with all the topics, we simply went on some excursions and watched movies....
When we passed near a group of schoolgirls, I noticed they were looking at us and talking about us. I did not understand what they were saying, since I don't really speak Japanese. But when we got near them, they started whispering, and one pointed at me and said "him!" (this is the only word I could understand).
Soon after, they rushed to us and asked us if they could take some pictures with us. Doing the typical "peace" sign, of course :D. It was fun. Completely crazy, but fun!
The Golden Pavillion was really impressive. We managed to take some very nice pictures even though the crowd of turists blocked the good views almost constantly. Unfortunately, today there was too much wind. We've heard that in days when the wind is calm you can see the reflection of the temple on the water surrounding it. That would have been a really nice thing to see...
After the Golden Pavillion we did the thing we seem to be best at: walk randomly through the city. We had some Udon at a small restaurant in the area, and walked around for some time until we found a bus stop again.
Next stop: The Silver Pavillion (really original chice of sites, right? :P). The temple itself was under restoration, so it didn't look as it should (it was still very impressive though). But the view over Kyoto from the top part of the path around the temple was really beatiful. The sun coming down between the clouds made a really cool effect over the city.
Finally, we went to see the Nijo Castle. By the time we arrived there, it was already closed, but at least we saw the outside wall and the gates... Hey, we can't really expect to see everything in such a short time, right? Anyway, as I said when I was in Tokyo, even by just moving around in the town you already get to see a lot of great things. Actually, in Kyoto you see a shrine or a temple every 300 meters. Almost all bus stops got the names of the nearby temple. When you're in the bus, your constantly hearing "The next stop is [enter temple name here]". So, you just have to look outside to see lots of great spots.
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[UPDATE] Taking a picture with the schoolgirls at the Golden Pavillion
The Golden Pavillion
The sign on the mountain in front if the Golden Pavillion
Looking at Kyoto from the path around the Silver Pavillion. The mountains in the background look really impressive.
The Niji Castle's walls
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