Culture
It turns out that Kyoto is a lot bigger than it’s maps would have you believe. We thought we were walking a mere 4 blocks to the Toji wooden pagoda but it ended up taking well over an hour in the muggy heat. It was worth it though. The halls of wooden statues covered in gold leaf were amazing. Each one was carved out of a single block of wood and the biggest had to be over 3m in diameter. We also visited Nijo castle and walked around it’s beautiful gardens. I thoroughly intend to create the same effect with my own garden at some point in the future. The actual rooms in the castle palace were rather strange. There were many and they were huge, but all were empty save tatami mats on the floors and beautiful paintings on the sliding walls. The best bit was the design of the floor boards in the hallways. Each plank was suspended on a metal cylinder in order to make a sqeaking noise whenever any unexpected visitors walk by…
