Kyoto Day 2

Our first stop on the second day in Kyoto was to Kinkaku Temple to see the Golden Pavilion. Kinkaku Temple is a Zen Buddhism temple which is famous for the pavilion that is completely covered in gold leaf. This was one of the places I was most excited to visit in Kyoto, as it is very famous and I had seen so many pictures from other people visiting. I absolutely loved it and I kept wishing I could be a monk in the 16th Century or something so I could live here!

Our second stop of the day was also a zen temple, called Ryoan Temple. This is the home of the most famous zen rock garden in Japan. While the rock garden didn't impress me that much, I thought it looked rather barren and not necessarily pretty, it was still a cool temple to visit! 

Our final stop of the day was to yet another zen temple, Tenryu Temple. This temple is in the Arashiyama district of Kyoto, and has the cutest station ever. I would recommend going to see this temple purely so you can see the station and walk around the shops! Don't get me wrong though, the temple is also worth seeing! It is the home of an absolutely gorgeous dragon painting and a beautiful zen garden. I liked this zen garden since it did not look barren at all. I thought there was much more life to this garden compared to the rock garden at Ryoan Temple. The final must see if you are at Tenryu Temple is the bamboo grove. I had never been to a bamboo grove and I was amazed by this one! The bamboo is so tall, and it is much harder than I thought it would be. Walking through the grove made me wish I could go to a bigger grove and weave my way through the trees.

That is all we did on our second day in Kyoto! I have one more post coming for you guys, hopefully I will post that later today or tomorrow!

P.S. the tea of the day is lemon tea ^_^