Our Trip to Japan - Kyoto

From Tokyo, we took the 3 hour shinkansen train to Kyoto, using our Japan Rail Pass pictured below.  Like the Eurail pass, it is good for unlimited rides on the JR rail lines (except for the super express Nozomi trains).  Everything you have heard about the trains in Japan is true.   They are clean, fast, and on time.  The pass we got was $307Cad and was for regular class for 7 days.  There is also a "green car" pass for a premium (like a first class car I guess), but the regular cars are so nice I don't know that it would be worth the extra money.  Like the Eurail pass, you purchase an exchange order in your home country and then exchange it for the Rail pass once you get to Japan.

Japan rail pass and train ticket, sorry not the best photo

We only alloted 2 days to Kyoto, and given jetlag and the fact that we kept getting lost, I would definitely have changed that to 3 if it were possible.  But it wasn't (we booked all our hotels in advance), so we made the best of it.  Kyoto is beautiful and a definite must see in my books.

Kinkaku-ji - The Golden Pavilion

Everywhere we went there were huge groups of students

Kiyomizu-dera

We ran into these lovely ladies in the Gion District on one of the many occasions we were lost.
Note it was 33 degrees (celcius) that day.

And we ran into this little Kitty too

We were only in Kyoto long enough to hit a few of the main sites, but it's a great walking city and if you find a well situated hotel, you can walk around to many sites.  The temples, however you would have to get to by bus or taxi.