Temples & Castle

We made good use of our subway and bus tickets today gadding about Kyoto. First we went to Chion-in which has numerous temples, buildings and gardens on a hill - extras 1 and 2. We spent a while there so on our way back to transport we stopped for paddle in a river - extra 3, ooh it was lovely. Then it was way across town for Kinkaku-ji Temple which was just breathtaking when we first saw it across the pond in the main blip. After an ice cream we bused it back to Nijo Castle and extra 4. 

The buildings and gardens in all 3 locations were just stunning, and this is only just the tip of the iceberg in Kyoto. We knew we were on a whistle stop tour and today proved it. In the evening we went up Kyoto Tower for some nighttime scenic views around the city before dinner.

Today I learned about a quite amazing bit of technology... yesterday when a Japanese person was explaining something to us... he spoke into his iPad and it translated what he said into English text that we could read. Today I downloaded the Android version, Google Translate, and it does the same thing plus more. So the amazing bit is I point the phone's camera at some Japanese text, like an advert or menu, and the camera converts it to English in real time. OMG wowsers... so when we've been struggling to understand food menus, or actually outside most restaurants they have these plastic versions of each dish with the price (not just for us foreigners but for locals), anyway I just point the camera and it replaces the Japanese text with the English translation. It took me a while to realise what it was doing first time... I was on the subway train pointing at an advert looking at the advert then the camera, the the advert... and then it clicked. It's got to be one of the best bits of technology I've seen for a long time... and I didn't know about it!! Ok, I've since calmed down... but if you didn't know then try it!