Day 35 - Temples, temples and more temples!

Famous rock garden.

Charlene's friend David was super nice, he hung out with us on this day (aka used his Japanese skills & knowledge to take us around).

First stop was Ryoan-ji, an almost 600-year-old temple which contains one of the most famous Zen rock gardens!  The rock garden contains 15 rocks, but from wherever you sit in the viewing area you can't see all of them at the same time.

Ninna-ji followed next.  A series of buildings with picturesque rock, and real, gardens.  Had some udon for lunch (ahh the handiness of having someone be able to read the japanese menu!) and then carried on.

Can you spot the Golden Pavilion?

Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Pavilion, was our first stop after lunch.  A super impressive pavilion made out of (duh) gold!  Or at least gold-leaf on the outside...  very picturesque.  About this time it started to sprinkle with rain, but not enough to cause us difficulties.

Headed downtown for bit and then had a great shabu-shabu dinner (again something we would have had much difficulty with on our own).  Yum!