Kyoto - a wonderful mix of old and new. Sept 20-25

Kyoto was the 2nd of 4 stops on our two-week trip to Japan/US. After a weekend of relaxing in Niijima, we headed to Kyoto partly because a friend of ours was doing a sabbatical at the University of Kyoto and also partly because this city, so wonderfully foreign, just seemed interesting.

In the reading we did prior to leaving for our trip, we had read much about the insanity of Tokyo. We could easily imagine the exoticism in Niijima but we couldn't quite form a clear expectation of Kyoto. And as a rule, blank canvases preconceptions make for interesting trips.

While we were aware of some history, we couldn't fully appreciate that Kyoto remains a tangle of graceful Shinto temples...



a place where old traditions somehow remain largely mysterious...



a city that has some depth....



and beauty...


and surprising youthful edge...


and finally, contains a living dichotomy that is harder than you might think to nail down, or categorically identify.



Kyoto was both everything that one might expect...


and amazingly, just a little more...



We made but two quick day trips outside of Kyoto, to places that still house castles that you might remember seeing in your childhood dreams. It was hard to reconcile not having two more weeks to do even more exploring.
(Himeji, an hour from Kyoto)




As happens frequently when we travel, we both identified with Kyoto as a place where we could actually live...


If only....



one could ever make the leap...



5 days was entirely too short....




Next stop - Tokyo.