Day trip to Kyoto Part One

Having woken up late, I moved heaven and earth to get to the train station on time. I had to be on a specific train since we were all catching it from different stations on that route and thankfully, after a tense walk-run later (see below)  - I made it and was very relieved to be on the train on time.
 

Shawn joined me and we were onward to Kyoto. Tawanda didn't make the train, so we agreed to meet up with her later in the day which meant we were free to wander around until she arrived. We wandered out of the station and pretty much immediately into a really beautiful temple.

 {We washed our hands with the dragon water - not sure what that does but probably something spiritual}

 {No photos were permitted inside but the carvings and decoration inside were incredible.}

There was a gallery too and I took a picture of my favourite quote: 

{The English translation: A foolish being I am, so foolish that I'm unaware of my foolishness}

When we left, we were walking along when I saw a big orange temple at the top of the hill quite far away and decided that we should go there - so we started the pilgrimage. It took a lot longer than we foresaw. On the way, we saw many people dressed in traditional fashion, wearing yukata (summer time clothes like kimono). I took some sneaky pictures and also some of the temples we passed on the way.

Rain had been forecast, but so far, it had been sweltering heat with fluffy painters clouds in the sky, not a rain cloud in sight. Somewhere along the way, I left my umbrella at one of the temples, so I was glad there was no rain even though it had been forecast. As we wound our way up the hill and closer to our orange goal, we found a really quiet temple on the hill side next to a vast graveyard. We went in to have a look and discovered some really old paintings on the outside of the temple and a really quiet place which seemed to be an existence all of it's own, blocking out all sounds from outside.

 After this temple, we rejoined the graveyard path which was a nice quiet way to reach the orange temple on the hill. It's called Kinosomethingorother and is very busy as it's quite the tourist attraction. After the solitude and quiet of the little temple and graveyard walk, it was teeming with people. The main part of the temple was undergoing construction so the outside was covered which was a shame but there were many other stunning buildings all bright orange. Watching the women in yukata taking pictures was almost as fascinating as the buildings themselves.

After taking in the colourful sights, we started to head back to meet up with Tawanda. The main street back was really crowded, so I was glad we'd had the quiet graveyard route up instead. On the way, we found a little side alley which had misters spraying water in and it looked intriguing on the other end so of course, I had to explore. Here's what I found:

 {The busy road down from the temple}

 {The beginning of a lucky adventure}

Through the bamboo walkway with mist raining down was a small courtyard with two buildings separated by a small water feature. At the other end of the courtyard, colourful fortunes fluttered in the breeze. I was intrigued. I wandered through the shop first and found a sign about collecting a fortune.

Step 1 - put a donation in the box 

Step 2 - pick a fortune (try to get a good one which gives you lots of luck!)

Step 3 - walk through the stone of thousand blessings to double your luck

Step 4 - tie the fortune up with the others or take it with you

Naturally, the only thing to do was to get a fortune and go through the thousand blessings stone. At this point though, I had no idea what my fortune was, so I'd either doubled good luck or bad! I have since looked it up and I got a very good fortune so my gamble has paid off!

I also found a Studio Ghibli store which I had to walk around very quickly to stop myself from buying the entire shop contents so I only got a few photos:

And on the walk back into town, I found this amazing street art on the side of one of the shops:

And then we went to meet Tawanda for the second half of our adventure!