Today was quite a packed day. I started out the morning with an 8 am traditional Japanese breakfast at my Ryokan, then I hit the bus line for Higashiyama where I started on a walking tour layed out by the Lonely Planet and walked by a lot of tourists. Still, it was nice because it pointed out the best spots to see along the way and definitely showed the highlights of the area in a small amount of time. This ward of Kyoto borders mountains, so all the temples are right on the feet of the mountains. Visiting one usually means climbing up a lot of steps.
My feeling now, after seeing a few temples and shrines on Saturday is that they all are very similar... still pretty but if I try to remember the distinction between them in a year, I bet that I won't be able to remember which one was which. This seems true in general except for Chion-Ji in temple, where everything was huge. I saw this in the afternoon and had decided to make it my last temple in Kyoto because I was simply getting templed out. My book told me of a bell at this place which was the biggest bell in all of Japan. I was going to go in, look at the main hall and the bell, and then leave. Unfortunately, it didn't quite happen that way. The entrance was at the bottom of a hill (of course) and I must have done the stairs to the main temple looking for the bell about three times. It was an hour of walking around before I found it. But it was well worth the effort.
After a day of temples, I went for some food and watched the sumo wrestling tournament on TV at a bar I found. I wandered around the Imperial Palace Park and then caught the shinkansen back to Tokyo. I took it easy at my hotel tonight and relaxed.
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