Kyoto by Train, Subway, Bus, Taxi...
While in Kyoto, I think we took every form of transportation possible to get around the city. We wanted to make sure we saw as many of the famous Japanese "National Treasures" in Kyoto as we could possibly see! Here are a few highlights from our trip:

The Golden Pavilion is Kyoto's most popular temple and its garden is one of the most authentic Japanese gardens. Particularly important to Japanese gardens is the beautiful reflection of nature in the water. The pagoda is actually covered in gold leaf.

The Imperial Palace was the Emperor's residence from 794 to 1869.

Heian shrine has a famous garden where the movie Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed.

Then we walked to Gion, the Geisha district of Kyoto and along a street lined with a lot of shops including big names like Tiffany's, Cartier, Gap and Brooks Brothers.

Saturday, determined to see the rest of the many famous sites in Kyoto, we set out on a city bus to visit the Ryanji Temple, famous for its Buddhist Zen rock garden. Although it was created with 15 rocks (because this is considered a perfect number), from any vantage point you can only see 14 (because humans are imperfect). You are supposed to sit and meditate and figure out what the rocks mean to you--this took only about 30 seconds for us! I think Sydney was particularly inspired and I know she was hoping to get her hands on the gravel!

Then we went by taxi to Toji Temple, which is famous for its 5-story pagoda since it is the highest pagoda in Japan measuring 187 feet.

From there, we walked to visit the 1,001 statues of the Buddhist deity "kannon," which are housed inside the Sanjusangen-do Temple, which was quite a site. This building is the longest wooden building in Japan and the statues are made of Japanese cypress.

Then on our way to Kiyomizu temple, I shopped for some pottery that is from Kyoto, called Kiyomizu-yaki. Kiyomizu means "clear waters" and the temple is situated above water that is said to have healing powers if drunk. The terrace of the temple was built off of a cliff with no nails (only pillars below) and was crowded full of people when we were on it! People used to jump off the terrace and it was said if they survived, their wish would come true and that they were bold. Well, in a "gaijin moment," Brian told our Japanese tour guide (a college student studying English) that they weren't bold, they were stupid!