Japan part 6 (final part!)

On our first full day in Kyoto, we visited a temple with some beautiful gardens. I got a bit carried away taking photos there as it was our first Japanese experience, so I'll just share my favourite photos of the temple and gardens:



Later in the week we visited a shrine with some gardens:

Another Japanese experience we tried was meditation at a Buddhist Monastery. I didn't take any photos there because there was such a calm atmosphere, I didn't want to spoil it by getting my camera out. It was really interesting to learn about the monks' way of life and meditation was definitely an experience. However, the doors of the building we were meditating in weren't shut properly, so most of us were too cold to concentrate. And then we came out and saw it was snowing, which explained why we'd been cold! We only did two 15 minute sessions of meditation, but that was plenty long enough - it's more difficult than you'd think to sit still for 15mins without getting fidgity!

We also did quite a bit of shopping in Kyoto, but I didn't think to take any photos of the shops. If we'd have gone to Japan the year before everything would have been half the price it would have been in England, but unfortunately we went when the pound was very weak, so things cost about the same - but I did see a CD somewhere for the equivalent of £50! Most prices were quite reasonable though and I'd saved up lots of money to take with me. I spent very little money on myself, but spent most of it on presents for friends and family. We discovered a fantastic Japanese sweet called Pocky - which is basically edible sticks coated in chocolate. You could buy loads of different flavours of Pocky. My favourite was strawberry Pocky, but Catherine decided to collect as many different flavours as she could find.

Surprisingly the majority of the shop assistants didn't speak any English, so asking for things in shops was a bit of a challenge. If I did manage to ask a question in Japanese, the shop assistants would then assume I was fluent so often gave a long and complex response that I couldn't understand a word of! All the shop assistants were really polite and helpful and often bowed at us, such a contrast to shop keepers in England! And if we bought presents they'd wrap them for us, without us even having to ask :)

That's the end of the sharing of my photos and tales from Japan. I had such a fantastic time and experienced a completely different way of life for 10 magical days :D I'd love to return to Japan in the future, but maybe to see somewhere different such as Tokyo. Going on a school trip to the other side of the world without my parents was something I could only dream of before my transplant. But thanks to my donor and her family it became a reality.