so, time to explore kyoto today! for that we got ourselves a two-day ticket for the kyoto public transport system, and headed from kyoto central station[01-05] to the southern higashiyama area. first stop was the gojozaka bus stop to get a bus to the kiyomizu-dera[08-37,51-55] and jishu jinja shrine. on the way to the shrine japanese schoolgirls tried to do english conversation with tourists, as it was part of their homework. so after some simply but lovely questions like "what's your favourite food", or "what did you like most in japan" we got loads of giggling, once we answered all the questions. at the jishu shrine there are two love stones[38-45], which are several metres apart. if a single person can walk with closed eyes from one stone to the other without stumbling or falling, they will find (true) love - so the legend says. since nina and i have already found our true love, there's - of course - no need for that. instead we bought a little lucky charm for couples to strengthen their love. of course also not really necessary, but they look so nice. also there was this big bowl[42] where people threw in pieces of paper that slowly dissolved. this is like we know it from fortune cookies (or at least it reminded me of that, though i did not understand the writings). next we did a walk to a nearby unnamed three-storeyed pagoda[48], and while buying some water and taking a short rest we found the entrance to a huge cemetery[56-60]. although we got the impression that it was big, we looked at google maps to so see that it actually was huge. so soon we went back to the entrance where we came from and went on doing our trip that was described on a piece of paper we got at the tourist information at the railway station. it actually contained a few tours, some we will do in the next few days. so, following the guide, we came by nice little streets[61-69] in kyoto's geisha area, called gion. besides some shops with cute stuff, and a pottery (no photography allowed), we also found a studio ghibli shop[67-69] - yay! next site was the gokoku shrine[70-73], which was closed. so we headed on to find - again more by accident than on purpose - some ancient samurai cemetery[74-78] (or at least we thought it was one). while we were walking through the graves we heard thunder and the sky got dark pretty fast. a few minutes later it was raining cats and dogs[79-80] (meow!). and although it was only about 100 metres to the exit, where we would find shelter in a tent that was placed there, we got soaking wet. this was actually pretty refreshing, but the rain only made the weather more muggy. after about 15 minutes later, the rain stopped, and we went on. in the meantime our next goal, the ryozen kannon[81-88], had also closed, so no entrance to this huge buddha statue, that one could see from pretty far. also we did not visit the kodaiji-temple nor the - according to our guidebook - beautiful entokuin garden, as we considered the price too high, since we would only have about 30 minutes left to see all the stuff before it was closing. instead we headed on to the yasaka shrine[91-96], our last stop for today, before heading home to our ryokan again. at the main attractions and in kyoto itself we saw quite a lot of non-asian people, which was a bit of surprise to me. when i was in tokyo i did not see so many "western" tourists. at the hotel we were informed, that the luggage should arrive by tomorrow, noon. we hope that's true, because the battery of my camera will die soon - that's why i took not so many pictures, in case you wondered. also we don't have internet at the hostel. a fact we overlooked when booking the ryokan. nina was pretty tired after our tour, so i went alone to the yodobashi shopping mall, that was right next to our hotel. the day before i bought an power-outlet adapter there, as mine was in the luggage. but although designed to work with european plugs, the holes were too small for my notebook power-cord. so i went there to return it and get one suitable for my cable, which i took with me. with the adapter we could at least charge the laptops, and via usb-cable my gps-tracker and our phones. it turned out yodobashi was pretty huge, and on seven floors you get everything, from boesendorfer and steinway pianos to tons of other music instruments, bicycles, about 50 metres of shelves filled only with headphones, games, etc, etc, etc. quite impressive.