Japan Summer Trip. Day 8: Kyoto

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Some parts of the castle were under renovation
It was a fine day on the 2nd day while we were in Kyoto. We actually planned to visit the Kyoto Imperial Palace on the day; however, we were not able to book a guided palace tour prior to arrival in Japan.

There were only two English-speaking sessions, at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, that were fully booked. So we end up visiting Nijo Castle, which we skipped on the day we arrived in Kyoto.

We took the Karasuma Line to Karasumaoike Station and changed to the Tozai Line towards Nijo-jo. The ICOCA card was used throughout our stay in Kyoto. While we were enjoying our morning brisk walk, it started drizzling.





At the ticketing booth, we rented the English audio guide.
Brief history of the Nijo Castle, which is on the World Heritage List
The Ninomaru Palace consists of 6 sections in a diagonal line. Visitors are prohibited from taking pictures inside the palace.
The Ninomaru Garden, which is full of cherry and plum trees. Too awful it was not a blooming season.
The second part of the castle is called the Honmaru Palace. Does 'Hon' mean second?
This is the view from the opposite side of Ninomaru Palace.
The entrance gate to Honmaru Palace
The Honmaru fortress
The present-day Honmaru Palace is actually the old Katsura Palace 
The inner moat surrounded the Hinomaru Palace. The picture was taken while I was at the top of the Donjon.
The other part of the palace is known as the Honmaru Palace.
The area of the palace is so big that we spent almost two hours at Nijo Castle.
There is an art exhibition that outlines the art painting by the Kana School.

It was already noon and we were grooving for Japanese food. There were no restaurants or food stalls around the Nijo Castle; we decided to take our lunch at the Tetsugaku Nomichi (Philosopher's Walk) area. We took our first bus ride in Japan and it was pretty easy to get familiarized with the local transport. We were also amazed by the timely schedule of the buses.

The local buses' route details are easily comprehensible.
It is not a digital-like signage, but it's pretty accurate
Let's enjoy the bus ride.

The bus stopped us on the Silver Pagoda road (If I can recall correctly) that lead to the Ginkaku-Ji temple and Tetsugaku-no Michi (The philosopher walk) junction. We decided to skip the temple visit and move on with the Philosopher's walk. It used to be a daily stroll path of the Kyoto University scholar named Kitaro Nishida. Not to confused with the instrumental musician, Kitaro. Too bad, that day started to drizzle and we were shivering all along the philosopher's walk. Luckily, I always bring rain coats and umbrella in my travel bag. The walked was quite far to reach to the end, along the stream and trees and several souvenirs and coffee shop. We had to skip Gion shopping street in the evening, as it was raining all day long. Our last stopped for that day was the Yasaka Shrine.

There were many road signs from the bus stop to the attractions.
This is the path of the Philospher's Walk.
Local residents along the Tetsugaku-no Michi
This is the Gion neighborhood, where the machiya house can be found.
The cobblestone road leading to Nanzenji Temple
Going uphill to the Nanzen-Ji garden.
There are various flavors of Dorayaki.
Nu'man enjoying his ketam ball
The ketam ball shop at Yasaka Shrine

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