My express visit to Kyoto [京都] on the 11^th was fueled by a jump into a rabbit hole – the first time I drank canned coffee. It would not be the last, definitely.

I started off with Fushimi Inari Taisha [伏見稲荷大社] and is dedicated to Inari, the God of Rice, whose messengers are considered to be the foxes or kitsune [狐]. It is a temple with a gazillion plus one torii, since in early Japan Inari was seen as the patron of business. Thus each of the torii is donated by a Japanese business. Sorry for the sun reflection, this was the best picture of the main building I could take:

A line of torii (have I mentioned that I looove torii?) the Senbon Torii [千本鳥居], or line of a thousand torii:

After Inari, I crossed the whole of Kyoto via bus and train and visited the Kinkaku-ji [金閣寺], the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. While I went to visit it because it was a must-see I found it amazing, and liked it more than I wanted to admit.

Bus again, towards the Imperial Palace, Kyōto-gosho [京都御所], of which you see… the outer wall and the cops that guard the door XD

And a thirty-minute walk after that, I found myself entering the castle Nijō Jō [二条城]. Can you feel the rush? XD

Two buses later I was in Chion-in [知恩院] which was being repaired, so you can only see park entrance gate, which technically might belong to a nearby temple. I mean… there are too many temples to keep track of them! (Edit: after a bit of processing, that’s actually the entrance to the Yasaka Jinja [八坂神社] complex.)

And going down those stairs to the left there was… Gion [祇園], the traditional geisha district. Found no geisha though D:

Finally, after another temple or twenty, or among them, I managed to sneak into Kennin-ji [建仁寺] just before it closed to see the twin dragons:

By then I was so dead that I headed back to the station and was catatonic for the Shinkansen ride to Tokyo. This is not by far all I saw, but I lost track of the names for a bit. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but this is the gist of what I did that day. I would need more time to sort out the pictures, and I am trying to keep you guys generally updated, not write a thesis on ancient Japan XD (ETA 2017: Wow, that frame of mind changed a lot)