Somebody in the sign・・・・・

This is a sign at a bus stop. It shows you how near the bus you are waiting is coming. A yellow mark is the location of the bus. The left is the nearest.

Usually we use public transportation for sightseeing. We use a city-bus pass (500 yen) or a pass for both city-bus and subway ( 1200 yen ) It's very conveinient for sightseeing, you can get one in the bus. Just say "A Onedat-Bus-pass,please" to the driver.

Or you can get a pass for a subway and a city-bus at the ticket counter of the subway station.
Of course, you can get one at City Bus Information counter in front of JR Kyoto station.
If you start your tour from the station, I recommend you to buy here because it comes with a bus map!!

Look at the sign above carefully, somebody is in the sign. ahaha.
Its face shows how long she has been waiting.....

With a couple from Italy

This time I guided a couple from Italy. We first met at JR station and headed for Sanjusangendo Hall.

It has a thousand buddha-images in the main Hall. It is said that you can find very familiar face among them. Most of those images are national treasures.

When you enter the hall, and just turn to the front of those images, you will be impressed very much. A thousand images welcome you calmly.

The couple seemed to be impressed very much.
Then we enjoy walking along the path called Sanneizaka, and Nineizaka. They especially were interested in insense sold at one shop. They have a variety of insense, with not only typical Japanese scent, flower-based scent but Tea flavored smells and so on.
Just looking ( smell?) around some at the shop is also fun!

Later, we enjoyed Zen temple, Nanzenji, and went to Golden Pavillion after lunch.
On the way back to the downtown, we went to Nijo Castle.

We saw different kinds of temples and gardens, and last place to visit was Nishiki Food Market.
We talked about Japanese food culture. The most intereseting thing for me was KAKI.

We saw dried persimon hunging at some shops. I told them that they were persimon, but they didn't know the word. At the moment they say it might be KAKI. KAKI???
Yes, we call it KAKI in Japanese. KAKI, a fruit name has become an Italian word. That was very interesting.

We fully enjoyed the tour.

with an architect from Singapore

This time I guided a man from Singapore. He is an architect. I made a plan for him. I thought he prefer to see some historic architectural site. I chose Ninnaji temple and Kotoin as a part of the plan.

That was BINGO!
He was very fond of them. Especially the entrance of Kotoin. In Kotoin, we can see the tea room which used to be used by Hosokawa Familly, one of the powerful fuedal loads in Momoyama Period.( a latter half of the 16th century) Though it was very small room, it has many meanings, for example, the entrance is small and square. Why?
When I meet you as a guide, I will tell you about!!

This is a very small temple, but atmosphere of the path to the entrance is very calm. I am sure you will like it.

We visited Ryogenin in Daitokuji, and came back to Nishiki Food market after visiting Nijo Castle. Then we had late lunch. It was so-called MUSHIZUSHI, steamed sushi. when served, it was very hot. I think it's good for such cold winter lunch!

photo1 MUSHIZUSHI photo2 Kotoin entrance

With a couple from Switzerland

This time I guided a couple from Switzerland. As she went sightseeing with another guide of Kyoto Free Guide the day before, I showed them around the rest of what they had requested.

After picking them up at Hotel Granvia, we headed for Kiyomizu temple, one of MUST=SEEs.

Of course the architecture itself is worth seeing, but walking along Nineizaka and Sanneizaka from Kiyomizu temple is also fun. There are many tiny shops. They found some interesting T-shirts at a shop. The pictures on the T-shirts are very popular items seen in TV or magazines coming with a bit different letters.

We enjoyed shopping and taking a look at many items sold at each shop.

We went to Nanzenji temple. In autumn, we see so many people visiting. However, in winter we met just few sightseers. Though we could not see colored leaves, we fully enjoyed quiet atmosphere in Zen temple.