Day 11 - Northern and Western Kyoto

I wanted to blog yesterday, but I dropped my phone in the tub while I was soaking my feet. My calluses have started to crack, which led to me having to soak my feet in the first place. 

We started off the day by doing laundry. Last time, I placed my slightly wet laundry into my luggage, leaving and extremely damp smell a couple days later. This time, I took the hair dryer inside our room and dried out any pieces that were still wet. 

After that, we headed down to Arashiyama to find the bamboo grove. We rode bikes again, but just to find the groves. It was a bit of a pricy ride, but it did save a lot of time for our next destination : The golden pavilion. 

Unlike last time, we opted to take the bus. I had a fear of taking the bus since I didn't really know how they operated. It turned out to be a lot easier than it looked. Thus, we saved time and my heels didn't have to crack some more! 

The Golden Pavilion didn't have the wow factor for me this time around. I took a couple of snaps and moved on to our third and final destination: Kitano Tenman-gu for the street market. When we arrived a bit before 5, we saw a lot of the vendors packing up. I thought that they finished at 9 during the once a month festival, but it turned out to be a lot sooner than 9. We managed to grab a bite of Takoyaki at a stand and I put Ina prayer to whom the shrine was built for. The story goes that the man was once exiled due to political reasons, so they built this shrine to appease his spirit. Students would go pray to him for luck since he was known to be a scholar.., or so if I read the information correctly. 

We took a bus that led us back directly to our hotel. I took a nap before we headed out for ramen. And that literally marked our 10th day!