Jan 12-17 Visit to Japan (2) City of Kyoto

Imperial Palace
All of the roofs are made of cyprus bark. They use small strips laid on top of each other, several inches thick. It's very resistant to the bugs and elements but needs to be replaced every 30 years. The problem is that at the Imperial Palace, it takes 25 years to replace all the roofs- so makes for a never-ending job!Several other places we visited also had this type of roof, keep an eye out for it.

The empress's gate. There were quite a few gates for certain people or classes of people.

Orange is a lucky color in Japan.

Nijo Castle

This castle has neat paintings inside (we couldn't take pics though) and floors that are made

to squeak, so that no one could sneak up on the shogun.

This picture is carvedout of 1 piece of wood that is about a foot thick and has the next picture

on the other side. Pretty neat!

The gardens

The view overlooking the castle and on to the city and mountains

Hike up a mountain to overlook Kyoto- it was great to get out into a true woods!

Some of the bigger bamboo we saw.

Nanzenji Temple

Patterned after the Roman aquaducts

Kiyomizu Temple

This temple is more popular to visit due to the view of the city and the many

cherry blossom trees planted below it. Too bad we missed the blossoms!

A market place that sells everything from ceramics to octopus tentacles!

A typical clean and narrow street in Kyoto. Thanks to Aiko's guidance we were able to

see more in less time due to cutting through the small streets.

A geisha wanna-be

It was neat to see another country that is so different from where we grew up.

The diversity of the world is amazing.

Thank you, Aiko, for taking all the time to be our guide and show us where you grew up.