Around the world -part 2 Japan (Kyoto)

Stayed at the guesthouse of the Shunkoin Temple in Kyoto. The place was 425 years old but the guesthouse was new with a traditional tatami room with futons. We found the beds really comfortable so now I want a Tatami room and a capsule for our apartment.

We explored the grounds a bit and then wandered the streets around Kyoto And found a little cafe for dinner. Eclectic x100… To describe this place. This photo is from the bathroom.

In the morning we wandered the grounds and then attended a zen meditation with Rev. Takayuki Kawakami. He was great, a modern perspective with some great words to help apply meditation and zen into western living.
After the meditation he showed us the Japanese garden. I had no idea that in addition to being meditative, the raking was a way to represent water in the garden. He also showed us some very old gold screen paintings. Topped it all off with some tea and cookies.
In the afternoon we wandered (some call it getting lost) through the streets on our way to visit the Golden Pavilion. Saw some cute homes and ran into this celebration parade where these guys were dancing with this heavy shrine with bells and coins on it. They would shake it to make it rattle but it was so heavy they had to switch out men every few seconds.
The pavilion was great… Very gold.

After the pavilion we went for sushi. It was fun but the sushi we had that night with Michiyo and Maki was so much better.
After a lot of confusion we caught the bullet train to Maibara (250 km an hour). Everything is in Japanese so takes a little longer to figure things out. We did hear some English over the PA when we were taking pictures of the train… A little too close I guess.