An old high school friend, Anette Bonelli, and her daughter were visiting some people in Tokyo and decided to come and see me for a couple of days. They arrived while I was still at work and went to see Hikone Castle. Then we met up for dinner and again the next day (Saturday) for a quick tour of Kyoto. There's so much to see in Kyoto but we only had a few hours so I decided to take them to Kiyomizu Temple. I've been many times on past visits to Japan and these days I usually avoid the 'big/famous' sites because they are so crowded. But there are a few 'must sees' for visitors and this is one of them.We decided to walk from the station - probably a mistake - and it took a long time, I should have checked but I think it was about 2 miles... Anyway, we got there and it was spectacular as always.
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| We walked from that tower. |
There are many different shrines and pagodas on the grounds as well as the main temple.
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| Shopping street. |
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| Pretty intricate dragon statue. |
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| Jishu shrine - for luck in love and marriage. |
We found a okonomiyaki place for lunch, walked through a newer area of Gion and made our way back to Kyoto station even though I had us go too far so we had to retrace our tracks and transfer to a different train (we should have taken a bus). But we were back in plenty of time for them to make their train back to Tokyo and to the airport where they would stay for a morning flight home.
It was really nice to see Anette and to meet her daughter. Strange that after 28 years of not seeing anyone from high school / Valley Stream I saw Anette twice in one year! Once when our old group got together when I was in NYC last winter during a visit to see Peter in Boston and again in Japan! And both times it was like we had seen each other yesterday. Anyone else want to visit me here? I have an extra room!
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