After arriving at the Palace Side Hotel in Kyoto last night, I took a shower and completely crashed.  I didn't even remember to turn out the light.

My roommate is Tess.  Now that I know everyone's names, I can say who I'm here with: Tess, Megan, Kristen, Becky, Eric, Tim, Franco, Dr K and his wife Youlin, and Prof. B and his wife Ellen.  We were told to meet at 8:30 this morning and before we did, we had a buffet breakfast in the hotel lobby.  I had scrambled eggs, toast, a piece of sausage that looked and tasted like a short hot dog, fish, yogurt, fruit, and rice with scallions.

After leaving the hotel, we walked down the street to the Sugawarian Temmangu Shrine.  One of the enshrined deities there is known as the patron of learning so, according to Dr. H, many students will go there to pray about exams.  You use the rope to hit the gong, bow twice, clap twice, and then bow one more time.

Next, we took a bus to Ginkakuji Temple.  The temple itself was really cool (each wooden shingle on the roof is made from Japanese cypress and is about 30cm long, with 3cm showing at the bottom end, fixed with a bamboo nail), and there were designs made out of raked sand outside of it.  The temple is made out of wood that is very weathered and looks like it could use some repairs.  The Japanese love things that look natural to them, so the decaying wood is very beautiful to them.  In this case, I can see what they mean.  Anyway, Ginkakuji Temple is also known as the Silver Pavillion.  After passing the temple and sand designs, we walked into this beautiful garden.  The flowers weren't really in bloom yet, but the greenery was stunning.  We walked along a bamboo path, saw a small waterfall, a bamboo forest, and a spectacular view of Kyoto!  Along the path, we also saw a shrine dedicated to the deity of music.

To get to the temple, we walked along the Philosopher's Path.  It's a stone pathway lined with cherry blossom trees and follows a stream for a bit.  It is called the Philosopher's Path because it is said to inspire people.  When we left the temple, we continued along it a bit further.  We passed many beautiful homes along the way - I would love to live in one.  They generally aren't very big, but they were decorated with plants, staying with Japan's love of nature.  We saw a group of stray cats along the way, which the other students got really excited about.

Eventually we got to this huge Buddhist temple and I saw three monks walking by.  In the same area was the Nanzenji temple.  It was pretty.  It had a pond and nice gardens, so I really enjoyed it.

Our next stop was kind of like a small mall.  Dr. H said we could have two hours to walk around.  The eight of us stuck together about half of the time.  We found an arcade full of crane machine games, but none of us were able to win anything.  We also went to this little restaurant for lunch and chose to sit at traditional Japanese tables where we could kneel to eat.  I got tempora udon - thick noodles in a broth with a large piece of tempora shrimp (meaning it's fried).  Tim knows Japanese from learning it in high school, so he shocked the waitress when he spoke to her.  We split up after that.  Tess, Kristen, Becky and I just walked around.  I got some kind of strawberry drink that I thought was going to be strawberry milk, but I'm not sure that it was.  It was yummy.  Kristen and I saw kimonos on sale, which we wanted, but didn't have time to look into.

Next, we went to the Golden Pavilion.  After a long, crowded bus ride, we arrived mid-afternoon.  The pavilion itself was amazing.  It is in the middle of a pond and is covered in gold leaf lacquer.  We saw geisha while we were taking pictures, but when I asked one of them for a picture, she politely declined.  Our walk around the pavilion grounds was kind of disappointing.  It was full of vendors and didn't really have the gardens that I had expected to see, especially in comparison to the Silver Pavilion.

Our last stop was Ryoanji Temple.  The main attraction seemed to be the rock garden.  There were fifteen rocks surrounded by sand with designs raked into it.  It was very relaxing.  After walking by that, there were more gardens and a pond.  At the pond, there was a small shrine.  Dr. H said it was for the deity of the ducks - I think he was kidding.

We went back to the hotel after that and we told we were free to do whatever we wanted.  Meg, Kristen, Franco, Becky, Eric and I decided to go to the McDonalds down the street because it would be so cheap.  We had also heard that it would be different in Japan.  When we got there, there wasn't a menu over the counter like there would be in America, just a couple pictures.  So we stood around for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do.  Eventually, the guy at the counter caught our attention and showed us there was a menu on the counter, just a large laminated sheet of paper.  We all laughed and went to go look at it.  It was in Japanese.  So once again we were confused, trying to figure it all out and the guy at the counter came back over a few minutes later and flipped the menu over to the English side.  We practically died laughing!  I ended up getting Chicken Selects, a small fry, an apple pie and a medium drink.  Everything was different.  In America, the options for sizes for the chicken is three or six.  In Japan, it's one or two.  The french fries seemed the same size, but they tasted a bit different.  Kristen and I couldn't quite figure out what it was, though.  A medium size soda in Japan is the size of a small in America, and the apple pie I got was a tempora apple pie.  Oh, and the chicken tasted kinda funny.  It was dark meat and the breading was different.  I didn't really like it.

It's still early, but I'm absolutely exhausted.  Goodnight!