May 19th

Today we spent the day in Kyoto, Japan. We took the train to Kyoto and took a city bus around to view the cultural sites. First we ate lunch and I have to say it was one of the best meals during this trip so far. The resturant was quite an experience seeing as no one speaks Japanese. Luckily all of the restuarants so far I have seen all have plastic models of their food sitting in a window outside of the door. This helps in more ways than one: first you know what you are getting and two, if you do not know the language you can take the waitress outside and point to what you want. The only problem with the food in Japan is that it is very expense! I mean everything is expense! I seriously spent 320 yen on a half a glass of coke! That was not even worth the relieving of thirst. Afterwards we visited two temples, the first begining the Nijo temple. The architecture was pretty amazing. The floors were built to squeek like birds when someone walk on them so everyone was aware if someone tried to get in. The next temple was absolutely beautiful! It was colored gold and the grounds and gardens around it were also beautiful. At around 7:15 we caught another bus and went to a traditional Japanese performance. All of the performers were dresssed in beautiful traditional clothing. The first part of the performance consisted of a tea ceramony, which Fatima was able to participate in, flower arrangements and a musical piece. Next there was a comedy sketch, which probably would have been funnier if I could understand the language. Then there was a dance and lastly there was a puppet performance. The puppet performance was impressive but creepy at the same time. Three men, all were wearing black and two of them were wearing black hoods, controlled the puppet. this puppet was doing things no puppet should be able to do. I am kind of afriad the stuffed panda bear i bought is going to come alive tonight :) Walking back to the train station we saw geishas in the street, it was a pretty cool thing to see.

-Lauren
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