Kyoto, part 4

At the end of my stay in Japan, I had two days left to visit all the places in Kyoto that I had neglected or put off until spring. Too bad that these two days had to be right in Golden Week, a series of public holidays that many Japanese take as an opportunity to travel.

So everyone I talked to before made me expect crowds, and big ones at that. The first of my two days fully lived up to my expectations. There were long queues everywhere, and public transportation was packed as well. I didn't really get a lot "done" in terms of sight-seeing.

My first stop was Nishiki market which is basically a very long, very narrow shopping street where all kinds of wares are sold. The market is very colorful, but was a little too crowded for my tastes.

Next, I went to see Kinkaku-ji, the famous temple with the golden pavillon. The crowds here weren't that bad - the only places I really had to queue up were the usual photo spots. After all, everyone wants to take that shot with the golden temple reflecting in the pond - me too of course.

 

 The next temple on my list was Ginkaku-ji - the famous temple with the silver pavillon ;-) The crowds here basically formed one long queue from way before the entrance all the way to the exit.

These are coins that people tried to throw onto a small rock. Must bring luck, or something (for the few that hit, at least ;-))

The silver pavillon from above. The view from up there was really great - especially the view of the queue winding through the temple grounds...

After that, I just had time for one more stop before the opening hours ended: the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto. They had an awesome exhibit on Paul Klee, focusing on the techniques he used to create his work. This is something you don't get to see every day, and I found it really fascinating! A funny detail was that, Paul Klee being a German/Swiss artist, many of the descriptions were available in German and Japanese, but not English - so I didn't have to get the English audio guide to understand the exhibition :-)