First day in Kyoto

Kyoto is a very unique city in Japan. Kyoto was once the capitol of Japan, until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, where the Shogunate was overthrown (ending the Edo period) and power was restored to the Emperor (beginning of the Meiji period), and the capitol moved from Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo). Also, Kyoto was one of few cities in Japan that was not completely carpet-bombed/destroyed during WWII. Because of this, there are still many buildings that predate the war, thus adding more to the abundance of antiquity to Kyoto.

Justin and I arrived in Kyoto around eleven-ish, no problem at all. Getting around Kyoto, however, is much different than getting around, say, Tokyo or Osaka. Kyoto has only two subway lines, yet the population is 1.5 million. So, how does everyone get around this city? Buses! The bus system here is extensive; after we left the station, we encountered "bus terminals", similar to getting on a train line. We bought a two-day pass that gives us unlimited use of the bus and subway system here, which was 2000 yen (20 bux).

After getting off the bus, we wondered around looking for our hostel (the instructions we were given were ridiculously abstract), but ended up finding it. After dropping off our stuff, we headed out to find some lunch, which ended up being gyudon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C5%ABdon).

Justin and I really only walked around, I believe, the eastern-part of the city. Even then, the number of shrines and temples are innumerable. The antiquity of the city is pretty hard to comprehend at times. As we walked from the hostel, we walked besides roads, buildings, shops, all the usual things that you would expect from a normal city.

Then, we saw this at the end of one of the main roads:

We advance to the red gate/building, and then the landscape quickly changed. Here is a sample of our adventure:

Kyoto is breathtaking. The last picture was taken from Kiyomizu-dera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera). The view from there is spectacular (you can see the entire landscape of Kyoto). Even though the path to there was slightly steep, it was lined with shops, so by the time we got there, I hadn't noticed that our elevation had increased tremendously. 

Another funny thing I forgot to mention about Nara (where we were yesterday). Both at Nara and Kyoto are many school children, who I assume are on a field trip. They all where characteristic yellow hats, which makes them pretty recognizable that they are with a group or school. They also like to practice their English, apparently. While Justin and I were in the worlds largest wooden building, checking out the daibutsu, a group of children walked by. One of the children said HADO!!! (hello), to which we both replied with an equally friendly hello. Then, the kid yelled out "Yatta!" (I did it!), and after that, we were bombarded with hello's from the entire group. Then, as we were leaving the daibutsu, a kid came up to us and asked "Hello, what is your name?" "Where are you from?", and so on. 

Today, the same thing happened. As Justin and I were resting at a park, a kid, probably at the dare of his group of friends, ran over to us and started shouting HADO!! HADO!!! He asked us some questions, and then ran back to his friends, laughing all the way. Later during the day, many kids with the yellow hats (school children on a field trip), came up to us to ask our name and nationality, and then asked us to sign a sheet of paper. It's pretty funny every time it happened, because the kids seemed pretty shy about it (except for the kid yesterday; he's gonna grow up to be John McClane, no doubt about it). Also, two times, a group of kids with an adult came to us, and one of the kids, in English, asked if they could get a picture taken with Justin and I. This was our response:

Japan is cool.