Oh god it's hot!

I spent my day walking around Kyoto. When you look on a map, it doesn't seem so big, boy is that misleading! I walked along the Kamogawa River, it was full of dragonflies, grasshoppers, and crows... even a snake... a Japanese Four-Lined Snake, which apparently isn't dangerous. There were also plenty of storks and cranes.

I went to Shimogamo Shrine, well, I walked along the path and photographed lots of things there before heading back along the Kamogawa River to head down to Gion, home of the geisha. Along the way I decided that if I return for a long period, I will want a motorbike license and a decent Honda bike (reminiscent of Onizuka's bike in GTO)... they are so cool.

I arrived in Gion via a shrine, unaware that I was actually there, before heading into Kennin-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple. I couldn't be bothered to pay to go in (I'm trying to live on the cheap and I need the money for fluids!) so I walked around the grounds. It was around this point that it got hotter and more humid... Yuck!

The walk back was long... a constant business of dodging cyclists. Then, with just 10 minutes to go, the heavens opened. It was heavy, hard rain and I was sodden by the time I got back. Thunder, lightning... the whole shebang. There was a great fork outside the flat... I tried to get a picture but no luck.

I'm going to upload my photos to Flickr... find them at: http://s115.photobucket.com/albums/n305/badotaku/Japan