Kyoto

When Kannon-sama arises in your mind, 

then you are in Oneness with Kannon-sama

Kiyomizu-dera

"dera" means temple. We expected to hear temple bells and hear monks chanting or reciting. However, the temple grounds were flooded with people (most of them were Chinese) and it resembled more a marketplace than a sacred ground. If you're familiar with the scriptures of the New Testament, check out the passage where Jesus flogged the merchants and threw over their vending stalls to get an idea of the atmosphere.

Apart from that, quite a nice place to visit:

Fushimi Inari Taishi Shrine

I forgot to mention: We loaned bikes for 5 days. Since Kyoto is basically flat, this is the best way to get around without paying a lot for busses and local trains.

During the hottest part of the day,  when every sensible Japanese is staying at home, at work or at least in the neighborhood of an airco, we went to the place with the hundreds of Tori (gates). Once more way too many people, but after a bit of climbing, you get rid of the noisy crowd.

Tofukuji temple

This was the best experience of the day: a quiet Zen garden in the middle surrounded by a lot more gardens. This is the first time we experienced a bit of quitness :

Eating and drinking

As mentionned earlier, going out to eat in Japan is a lot cheaper than in Belgium. Having gone (almost) native, we eat our breakfast in front of our hotel in a typical Japanese "restaurant". On entry you have to deal with the vending machine in order to choose the meal (this can be breakfast, lunch or dinner) you want. You then get tickets which get processed by the waiter. Within minutes you can start to eat. My breakfast today was: a bowl of rice,  soup, grilled salmon, some undefined vegetables and seaweed. My wife had also a bowl of rice, a omelette, the same undefined vegetables, soup and seaweed. With that you get as much cold tea as you want.

In the local supermarkts such as the 7/11, or Familymart, one can buy ready-made dishes. Either to eat cold or else to micowave. The local beers (e.g.: Kirin, Asahi, Saporro, Yebisu,...)  all taste the same and they only have the equivalent of horsepiss: nothing above 5% alcohol and only "blond" beer although I heard that there also exists some "black" beer. I miss a good trappist, but under the current weather conditions, I must admit that a cool beer does wonders to restore one's spirit.