Day 5 (Kyoto)

Unlike the previous day, this time we woke up early enough for breakfast.

After breakfast, we took a bus to the Silver Temples, accompanied by a class of middle school students. The temple seems to be quite popular for school trips. Two boys from another class approached us and asked if they could speak with us briefly in English, which is not uncommon here. The students had some questions and sentences in English that they wanted to practice in a conversation with foreigners. At the end of the interesting conversation, I received a small card from one of them and gave him a card with some well wishes. After that, we leisurely explored the ginkaku-ji and the entire grounds.

Our next destination was the kiyomizu-dera, which was an hour's walk away. On the way, we passed several Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, which we naturally visited. We also got lost in a small forest next to one of the temples, hoping to see some monkeys that are said to live there. We also encountered some girls on the way, dressed in traditional yukatas. Two of them were kind enough to take a photo with me.

In between temple visits, we had lunch at a small restaurant where we had no idea what any of the dishes were. We ordered blindly, and luckily both Nico and I liked what we got. For dessert, we had delicious crepes, which are quite popular in Japan. Here, they are different from what we're used to. They can be savory with cheese, bacon, or similar toppings, or sweet with lots of toppings like ice cream, whipped cream, fruits, and more. But that wasn't enough for me, so I also grabbed a small fruit ice cream from a roadside stall shortly after. But even that didn't satisfy me, so I had another ice cream shortly afterwards.

On our way to the kiyomizu-dera, we passed through the Geisha district where more women in yukatas were walking around in the traditional style. Speaking of which, we Germans can learn something from them. Not only are the yukatas more elaborate, colorful, and (in my opinion) more beautiful than traditional German attire, but also the hairstyles of the women are artfully designed with a lot of effort and decorations.

After visiting the kiyomizu-dera, we went back to the hotel to drop off our things, and shortly after, we went to the shopping street to buy anime stuff for Nico.

That evening, Nico insisted on going to Shake Shack, which is a Japanese fast food chain. At first, I was hesitant, but I was so hungry that I just wanted to eat and not argue. The food there was better than expected, but it's still fast food from a chain and nothing extraordinary. Compared to our McDonald's or similar chains, it was much better.

But one burger wasn't enough for me and I was still hungry, so I chose an Indian restaurant nearby that I had found hours ago when looking for a place to eat. When I saw it, I suddenly had an incredible craving for naan bread, so there was nothing I wanted more in that moment of hunger. But since we didn't arrive there on an empty stomach, we ordered just one serving for both of us. However, it was a serving of cheese naan bread, two curries, a salad, and a drink. The cheese naan bread made us so full that we had trouble finishing everything.

With a full stomach, we returned to the hotel room, where I spent over an hour writing the entry for today and yesterday, finally ready to sleep and end another day.