Today, we went up to Kyoto. It was just a short train ride away and soon, we had bus tickets and were headed up to the Golden Pavilion. When we were heading in, we got stopped by a group of students who had some questions and wanted to have their photo taken with us. There's a chance the kids were playing dumb with us about not understanding us so we may end up as stars of a viral video making fun of us.

The Golden Pavilion was quite lovely. It's covered in gold leaf so it really is gold! The guidebook claims it the world's most ostentatious retirement cottage since it was built by the shogun in 1393 as a place to live when he left politics. From there, we walked down to Ninna-ji temple, which had an amazing 5 story pagoda and a palace that was really very beautiful. After that, it was time for lunch and then a bus ride over to Ginkaku-ji, another temple with lovely grounds that we toured through. Once we were done there, we followed the Philosopher's Path, which follows beside an old canal and has numerous temples and shrines along the route. Then, I got a chance to check out a rather fancy department store before we grabbed some dinner and headed back to Osaka.

Tomorrow, we're planning on checking out Osaka castle and the aquarium. It should be a nice day in the city!