This is starting to sound like the scene in Naked Gun (I think) where Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley have their first date, and the movie cuts to a montage showing them frolicking on the beach, shopping in NY, at a bull fight, skiing, and ten other things, at the end of which Priscilla thanks him for a great first date. But to continue, after touring the construction site/temple, we went into the little town of Uji, which is famous as the source of the country's best green tea. We bought a bag, notwithstanding it tastes terrible. I'm also surprised that it comes in powder form rather than leaf like Chinese and most other green teas. This looks like instant to me, but it was expensive so I bought it. We then went down to the river and hung out a while watching the sun set, then back to Kyoto for dinner.

22. Uji

Stubbornly I'm sticking with the timeline I laid out for the day, i.e. Kyoto temple, then I guess go to hotel and change clothes, train to Nara for a long day of hiking and temples. It gets a bit more complicated, because I'm sure that on the way back to Kyoto we stopped at the small town of Uji, pictured here. This is Byodo-in, built in the 10th century as a home for one of the Fujiwara clan. As usual, it was converted into a Buddhist temple after his death. It's incredibly elaborate for a Japanese building, which generally lean heavily toward minimalism. Unfortunately, it was also under renovation, so it was pretty much a big construction site when we were there, so I'm impressed we were able to cover up most of the ugliness in these photos.