Day 9: Nijo Castle

Today we walked about half a mile from our hotel to Nijo Castle, a large palace from the era of the shogunate (1600s) located right in the middle of Kyoto. We bought our admission tickets and made our way across the outer moat and through the first gate. It was a beautiful (but hot) day. Following the crowd, we found ourselves face-to-face with the outer palace. The castle complex contains two palaces, but only the outer can be entered. No pictures are allowed inside, so I'll try to describe it. The whole thing is wood inside, excluding the magnificent & famous walls of the inner rooms and the tatami flooring. The walls were painted with various scenes such as tigers, pine trees, hawks, and peonies. The hallways have wooden floors that "sing" thanks to nails hidden underneath. With so many people in the palace at once, it sounded like birds were sitting in trees outside singing! The inner rooms were open for viewing from the hallways only. A couple were set up with "mannequins" dressed in Edo period clothing. One was a large reception room where the shogun would have met with feudal lords. The figures were so life-like it was a bit startling. :) After leaving the palace itself, we wandered through the rest of the grounds. There were several gardens, an inner moat, and more gates. It was nice to stroll along even though I had to wipe sweat from my neck and face every minute or so! Thankfully there was a cool breeze.

For lunch we headed to another chain restaurant where you buy a ticket from a machine and then hand it to a waiter. There was a friendly old Japanese man who tried to communicate with us a little, haha.

We had planned to head to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) in the afternoon, but it was so hot that we didn't have the energy. Instead we checked out a store similar to Big 5 near our hotel and picked up dinner at 7-11. I took a picture of some of the treats we've been discovering: Milk tea (kinda like chai), melon bread (filled with honeydew-flavor cream and AMAZING), and rice balls.

By the way, last night I was surprised I had made it through Fushimi Inari with no bug bites. Well, today I woke up with about 12. -_- They really love me, haha.