京都

Yesterday I went to Kyoto!

Yesterday morning my host grandma and I went to Nagoya station. It was raining, which it did for most of the day, but I didn't mind too much. It wasn't as terribly hot as it usually is, so I was fairly happy with how the weather was.
Anyway, we waited behind Nagoya station for a while in the rain (with our umbrellas of course) before boarding a large bus with a big group of people. I had been under the impression that we were taking a train to Kyoto, so again I wasn't sure what was going on.
The bus ride was so nice! Not that I remember much of it. I slept for most of the way to Kyoto. I was asleep for much of the time I was on the bus that day. I don't even remember falling asleep, so I guess I really must have been tired. I may have been sleepy, but it was very peaceful. My host grandma and I had the entire last row to ourselves, and I sat by the window on the left.

First we stopped at a gift shop place that had lots of nice Japanese things. I was confused though, because people (including us) left some of their belongings on the bus, and we weren't at a big train station or anything. Eventually I figured out that it was like a tour bus. It drove us to some places and we had a designated time to be back in the bus by.
Our second stop was a Holiday Inn for lunch, where everything was prepared. Then we went to a train place. Everyone boarded a train that had big windows. We went on a scenic ride through the mountains, basically, and saw forests and rivers and so on.
After that we went to another place, but I'm not entirely sure what it was. There was a sign that said "cake factory", but it didn't seem very relevant. We all went upstairs to a dining area where plates were set out for everybody, each with two small gelatin cubes and a small piece of cake and a big cream puff. There was also a big gift shop that we visited.

At the next stop my host grandma and I went to the Byodoin. It's this famous temple, and its Phoenix Hall is on the back of ten yen coins.
(I can't put up pictures right now, but I plan on adding a lot in about a week.)









That's pretty much all we did. I had fun though.