Day 6: Eastern Kyoto

It's my final full day in Kyoto before moving back to Tokyo as my hub for the remainder of my days here so we're off to hit up the eastern shrines and temples I missed the last time I was here.

Starting off the day, I'm heading off to the sister temple to the Golden Pavilion: Ginkakuji, The Temple of the Silver Pavilion. Ordered constructed by the grandson of the Shogun who built the Golden Pavilion, the intent was to build his own retirement villa and plate it with silver but this was not completed before he passed. The grounds and buildings themselves are still quite beautiful, and the landscape garden stands out for it's raised graded rock/sand garden.

From here, I head south to the Heian Shrine and Shinen Garden where I tour the grounds:

before stopping for lunch:

Moving on, I go to Kiyomizudera; a large temple on stilts off a cliff face where there's a grand view of Kyoto from the veranda:

before finishing up my temple rounds at Sanjusangendo Hall: home to 1001 statues of the thousand-handed Kannon:

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This building is huge but I'm sadly unable to grab a shot of it before the battery goes on my camera again.

Quick jaunt back to the hotel room and an hour charge on the battery, I kick off to tour the covered mall to finish off the evening by grabbing dinner:

before touring some shops and eventually ending up at one of the local arcades which are still thriving and getting new games ranging from touch screen rhythm games, an online Fantasy Game from Square that makes use of Magic style cards, a networked GUNDAM simulator, an updated version of the game I played last time I was there: Border Break Union, and some sort of photobooth thing that seems to attract girls by the dozen:

Makes me wish someone would bring this stuff over: Border Break alone would eat all my loonies.

Forecast for Tomorrow: Sunny and spun dry.