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Started off the weekend on Friday night with a sake too many at dinner with my hosts. You won’t see the raw chicken on the table there in the photo, we’ve eaten it already. The next morning I got up when I was able, and headed back in to the city. I walked from the Imperial palace, though Nijo Castle and towards the west.

My wanderings inspired me to buy a map the following day. It turned out, after an hour of wandering, that between where I was and where I thought I was was another temple and an adjacent community of some sort with stunning gardens. Bonsai everywhere. No great photos though, as my camera battery was starting to feel sleepy.

Made my way up to a rock garden, but by the time I reached the Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kyoto’s most famous attraction) it was closing up time.

Met up with C again the next day, we decided to head up Mount Hiei to to see Enryaku-ji. The cable car we had planned to take up the mountain appear to be on vacation until March. If my feet had known track they would have taken vacation also.

After reaching the top of the cable car track there was still another hour or so of walking in some direction, which happened to be the direction we took, towards Enryaku-ji. I was rather surprised to see so many people around at the temple. It’s quite a tourist attraction, where the attracted tourists arrive in cars on a road. We took a bus home.