Kyoto

Since every tourist in Japan has to visit Tokyo and Kyoto, we took my parents there too. We stayed in a nice hotel near the Imperial Park, but due to lack of time, we never actualy went there!

We stood outside the Kabuki theatre. Did we go see a show? Reader, we did not.

We did cross the river and go to the Gion district, where there are many well-preserved old buildings. Including one with a tree!

This tree has no special significance -- it just looked nice.

Gion was thick with tourists. The Yasaka pagoda marks the start of the climb up to the famous Kiyomizu-dera temple complex. It was very slow progress through the crowd.

Eventually we got to the top. There were a lot of people. But you can see why.

As a general rule in Japan, if something is well-known, it's over crowded. If something is not famous, you might be the only one there. Kiyomizu-dera is one of the most famous sights in the country. There were a lot of people. Everyone trying to take the same photo as everypone else.

The next day the weather was a bit gloomy in the morning. The views from the hotel roof were not as nice as we hoped. Should have gone the previous day!

We went to Nijo castle, which was the Shogun's residence when has in Kyoto. There were a lot fo fancy but mostly empty rooms. Not big into furniture these samurai lords.

They were into gardens however, and te castle had a very nice one.

We headed back to Tokyo that night, and my parents (and also me!) flew back to the UK the next morning, all thoroughly exhausted by a marathon of tourism.