Wednesday, July 8, 2009

End of May-family visit (part 2-Kyoto day 1)

2 hours on the Shinkansen and we are in Kyoto!



Day one starts off in full force (my mother said I was running them like crazy around the city...which isn't entirely untrue).

We started the day off with a tour of Kyoto Imperial Palace. It was beautiful. I would have loved to explore more but we weren't able to go into any rooms, of course.

This was the guest entrance:


This was the waiting room. There are three different rooms. Which room you were to wait in varied was based on your status.


And this is the Emperor's room. There were changing chambers, sleeping chambers and a space for morning prayer.


beautiful buildings...


and beautiful gardens...


and our tour guide was adorable...so why not take her picture...



And after the Imperial Palace we headed over to Nijo Castle.
We got to walk through this castle. It was a long and thin. This was a defense tactic so that intruders could be easily spotted. The floors also squeaked as a defense tactic!


More castle:


and more...


The castle had the most beautiful gardens. There was both a Japanese style garden and a western style garden.


There was also a huge line of maple trees-BEAUTIFUL!


We also went to the Yuzen-en Kimono Gallery. Her we could see hand painted kimonos...


close up...


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