Mom visits Japan! Part 3

For the next part of our trip, mom and I took the Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Kyoto. I was ready for the worst crowds yet, it being sakura viewing and all, but it really wasn’t too bad. Oh, and I almost forgot, on Wed night in Hiroshima, we still didn’t have a room reserved in Kyoto. I tried everywhere, but there was nothing available. I tried one last place, the ryokan that I stayed at with Dad and Georgie when they were here. There are only 5 tatami rooms in the whole place, but I asked the Hiroshima hostel owner to call anyway. Turns out that 30 min earlier, she had a cancellation for the two nights we wanted. What luck! So after checking in to the place in Kyoto, we went to Kiyomizu temple. Not much blooming there, so we walked over to the Gion district, which I hadn’t been to before. Gion is famous for it’s Geisha, but we only saw a few. There was an area that we went to that must have been a park, but I don’t know the name. There were many trees in bloom, but the weather was quite cloudy, so the pictures didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. That night there was a huge deluge complete with thunder and lightning. It woke mom and I up, and I had earplugs.
















The second day we went to the Golden Temple, Nijo Castle, and did lots of shopping. Mom liked Nijo Castle the best because their “security system” is floors that chirp like a nightingale when you walk on them. For lunch, mom indulged my pizza craving and we went to Shakey’s. It was so good!
On the last day, we went to the Heian Shrine, which was actually my first trip in Japan that first weekend, but my camera ran out of batteries, so I had no pictures. If you look closely, you can see me standing at the base of the huge torii. In the Heian Shrine, there was a couple getting married. Everything was blocked off, but with my super camera, I think I got a pretty good shot of the two. How beautiful they looked. It was a perfect wedding scene.
Saturday afternoon, mom and I came back to Wakayama and got some much needed rest.