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Japan Day 2

Today was about two things: Cycling & Culture.

Amanda organised an excellent day out for us: a half-day cycle tour around Kyoto (via the back streets.) Kyoto is a dream to cycle around: flat, cycle friendly and today the weather was designed for cycling; a lovely 17°C and clear blue skies.

But before we get to that I’ll show you what we had for breakfast.

Japanese Style Breakfast

Smoked salmon, rice, egg, salad (with ham) tofu & miso

I think you’ll agree that is a breakfast of champions! Shortly after breakfast we headed out on our bike tour of the city. If you’re ever in Kyoto and you’re looking for a good way to catch the tourist type stuff then you should absolutely take the bike tour.

Rather than try to write about each place we visited on the tour I’ll post a bunch of photos with a short description.

At the train station

We had to catch one of the local subway lines from our hotel to Kyoto station where our bike tour left from.

Sanjusangen-do Temple

According to our guide this temple is the largest wooden structure in the world. However another temple claims to be the largest… so lets just say: it depends on who you ask.

The Back-streets

Geisha

We spotted these two walking around one of the two geisha areas we cycled through. Our guide ensured us that they weren’t actually the real thing — just good imitations.

Heian Shrine Torii

Imperial Palace Garden

We didn’t actually go into the Imperial Palace… we could have, but we couldn’t really be arsed… We were on, like, 3 ½ hours of cycling and the arse-cramping had kicked in. Instead we decided to call it a day and find some food.

On the way to find food