A mix up with tour bookings led to the three couples going in different directions.

The Wilsons wandered locally , the McGregors did the Palace and Castle tour and Steve and I headed to two shrines

We caught the number 59 bus for lots of stops which gave us a good look at the suburbs our yo the east side of the city.

We started with Ryoanji temple. This is home to the most famous zen rock garden. It’s simple and it’s quiet and quite mesmerising.

This garden has sand which is raked meticulously. There are 15 rocks in the space.

We moved from this space into the gardens and loved the lake walk and the bamboo poles holding up the trees.

There are little corners with running water and statues of Buddha. I loved it.

We moved on to the Golden Temple. It’s probably the most famous of the temples here in Kyoto. Truely beautiful.

A quick taxi ride took us to the tour we were doing if the Imperial Palace and Castle. On arrival we found that the palace and gardens were closed as the Royal family were in town.

Our guide Jasmine was young and had the biggest eyes! And long blond hair well it really was black like all the other Japanese girls we’ve seen but she had dyed it blonde!

She broke the news that as it was closed we would instead go to the art gallery in the castle grounds.

We had a good tour of the castle and Jasmine explained the history of the shogans and their relationship to the Emperor.

The painted panels were beautiful especially the peony room.

We finished the evening with a tea ceremony. A young 19 year maiko explained her world as a trainee geisha. Very strange life in this day and age.