I ended up waking up before everyone else, so I decided to go on a morning excursion to the nearby Toji-to temple.
Turns out you had to buy a ticket to get in, and it didn't open until 8am. I wandered around the city a little, but ultimately came back at 8 to do the tour proper.
Unfortunately, overcast days like this are difficult when using a DSLR, so I spent some time messing with ym camera settings trying to find a good balance of visible detail and brightness.
Photography is hard
I found some settings that seemed good at the time, but in hindsight I probably would have been better off leaving it on auto.
I got to go into both the big temple buildings and the tower, which had various big Buddha statues. However, it specifically said I could not take pictures, so I did not. It was very impressive though.
I walked around the temple grounds for a bit taking pictures, and I walked past a group of western people hanging out on benches. As I left the area, I realized that they were all meditating. Or at least they were trying to, in spite of my disruptive bumbling around. I felt a little bad, but only a little.
I became the final boss of meditation
I got some souvenirs and made my way back to the house
Back at the house, the rest of the group were up, while someone was out getting breakfast for everyone at the nearby convenience store. They got some stuff for me too, and we had breakfast.
After gathering our stuff, we headed out. Before getting on the train, we stopped by Bookoff; a used bookstore. The rest of the crew had gone there yesterday, but it was my first time.
I did end up getting an anime figure here, but I did not take a picture of it at the time. I had no idea what the character was from, but it was a steampunk catgirl, so really, whats not to like?
The original plan was to spend the second day in Kyoto touring the various temples, most of the crew were wiped out after Mt Inari yesterday, and decided to just head back to Tokyo early.
The ones that stayed were me, Jackson, and Tyler. The return group did take my luggage with them, which was nice.
We found a locker for the rest of our stuff, and made our way to Kinkaku-ji.
After multiple trains and busses, we arrived at the entrance of Kinkaku-ji. I found the same building we had stopped at before where I first tried Aloe juice. I got the same kind of aloe juice from the same vending machine.
We were not allowed to bring in drinks, so I had to chug the aloe juice. Good thing it was a small can.
Anyway, behold the golden temple boy.
I was pretty lucky to get these pictures past the tour groups.
carp diem. (please don't)
Lots of good moss as well.
Also, according to a random tour guide person, this specific waterfall is the origin of the myth about a carp jumping up a waterfall and becoming a dragon.
Lot's of nice fall foliage.
There was a place where they were serving traditional tea and cakes for 500 yen. It was served under umbrellas, and very pleasant.
The little cake was extremely sweet, in order to balance out the bitterness of the tea. You are supposed to alternate, but Jackson just ate the entire cake first.
Also, I got a red bean paste thing from a street vendor and accidentally paid for a 10000 yen bill, which the person just accepted without batting an eye.
We made our way back to Kyoto station, picked up our stuff, and did some sick skateboard tricks before getting shinkansen tickets back to Tokyo.
For lunch, I got an rolled omelette sandwich, which was tasty but structurally insufficient.
Also, while I was sitting in the aisle seat again, as we were passing Mt Fuji, for which we had a fantastic view, I worked up the courage to ask the the salaryman I was sitting next to if I could take pictures past them, which they graciously allowed. They also started taking pictures themselves, which was very heartwarming.
After we returned, Tyler Jackson and I went out for dinner at an okonomyaki restaurant. Neither of them had any idea what it was, so I was excited to share the okonomyaki experience with them.
After going into an alley behind an alley behind an alley, we arrived at a small hole in the wall restaurant that was clearly not intended for baka gaijin visitors.
When I had okonomyaki during the last trip, they would prepare it most of the way and then bring it out for you to finish to your preference, but this place worked a bit differently. The old lady just brought out a bowl of ingredients, and we were clearly expected to take it from there. She did show us a bit of how to do it, but for the most part we were on our own, and our first attempt did not go particularly well.
Thankfully, there was a mixup where we had tried to add some ingredients to our order, but she had interpreted as an entire second order. This gave us a chance to try again, and it turned out quite a bit better, if a little burned.
While the food was not the tastiest (our fault), I'm glad I was able to share such an amazing experience with Tyler and Jackson.
To round out the night, we had a cake at the home base to celebrate the birthday of Phil.
