Kickin it in Kyoto!

 For some silly reason, we decided an overnight bus would be a good idea, so we didn't waste a night in a hotel or a day travelling to Kyoto from Tokyo. 

The bus left Tokyo late and we arrived in Kyoto just before 7 am.

LIES. Cute dog, why won't you give me wifi!?!?

It was a little cozy

Because I took my motion sickness meds, I was pretty much out the whole night, which means I didn't mind the night bus experience, but given the terrible cramp in my neck the next few days, I probably shouldn't do it again...

Kyoto Tower! It was gloomy, but it didn't ruin our
spirits!

We headed up to the top of Kyoto on the bus after the helpful information lady basically laid out our schedule for us.

Our first stop was Ryōan-ji, which is a temple with a famous zen garden. We were disappointed to find out that the cost to enter the garden was like $5. In Seoul, most things are 1,000-2,000 won at most for palaces and things. I don't think I've ever paid more than that to enter a temple. Alas, Japan is not so easy on the wallet...

It was still a beautiful walk, even though it was a gloomy day.

Ces being a jerk

Model of the zen garden.

Pretty excited about some rocks

we had to wear special shoes to walk around the area near the
zen garden

We got free tea on the way out. It was warm
and delicious!

Next, we headed over to the Golden Pavilion (aka Kinkaku-ji)

This also cost us like $4 and you couldn't just walk in and see it.
You had to hike all the way around, which turned out to
be pretty fun

friends in front of the pavilion!

Excited to be here!!!

It was smaller than I had imagined, but still beautiful!

the area is gorgeous and very serene

weird faces cause we can

using all of our useless 1 cent coins

make it in and get a wish!

Ew. They wanted us to pay for toilet paper AFTER we already paid
to get into the pavillion grounds? Okaaaaaay. No.

We headed over to Gion, the old area of Kyoto that used to be famous for being like, the homeland of the geishas.

we knew we were in the right place when we started
to see a bunch of kimonos.

Exploring

So many flavors!

You can rent a kimono for the day and walk
around, hence we saw lots of people
wearing them

Kimono Hello Kitty!

After browsing the shops, we finally got up to Kiyomizu-dera

The colors in Japan are super cool!

cute bathroom sign

being cute~

I guess this may not seem like much, but we did spend a lot of time wandering the streets looking at shops, as well as a lot of time on the bus. While Tokyo was cool in that things looked far on the map but were actually close, Kyoto was the opposite. Things that looked close took nearly an hour by bus to reach. The bus was also odd, cause you got on in the middle and got off in the front, which usually caused some confusion and traffic jams on the bus. Weird.

 Still, it was nice to see the famous city. I'd love to go back and check out some more temples and some of the other sights there!

We headed back to Kyoto station to gather our bags and head off to find our hostel in Osaka

Sunset on the way to Osaka~

We only relaxed and ate dinner near our hostel that night, and then we got ready for bed and prepped for our next adventure, Nara~

~~

I'm on an OST kick lately, so I've been fluxuating between a few. Today's pick is from Hyde, Jekyll, Me, a sweet song about falling in love. I also love it cause it plays during the adorable moments of the drama, so I'm obviously gonna be partial to it.