we started this day with going to the gion bus stop, heading for the yasaka shrine[01-04]. it is said that it is a pretty popular temple, but there was not many people there actually. we saw loads of omikuji[02,04], which are fortune telling paper slips. unlike our fortune cookie predictions, the range goes from very good, to really bad luck. after having read the prediction, tying the piece of paper either will make good fortune come true, or bad fortune averted. next we walked through maruyama park[05-08]. the sun was shining and it was really really hot, so we hurried from one tree's shadow to the next one, to finally arrive at the next temple. it was the chion-in temple[09-24], with its huge sanmon gate[09-11], a 24 metres tall and 50 metres wide wooden gate, which makes it the largest one in japan. pretty impressive. again there were not many people there, maybe because it is so hot outside, people don't wanna do sightseeing or praying. or maybe it was also because the chionin's main hall, namely the miedo hall is undergoing major renovation works until 2019, so that the entire temple was covered by a large scaffolding structure and closed to visitors. fortunately still open to the public was the 74-ton chion-in temple bell "ougane"[20-21] from the 17th century hanging in the daishourou, the great bell tower. the bell is rung 108 times on new year's eve. i wonder how long it takes the monks to ring the bell that often. strolling on to the shoren-in temple[25-45], we noticed the extremely beautiful, huge, impressive, moss-covered, and likely very old camphor trees[25-26] right at the entry of the temple. the shoren-in was a temple for priests from imperial families, and was even housing the empress when the actual palace was destroyed by a fire. it has a nice and peaceful kachoden, a drawing room[28-29], and a big, open shinden hall[31-35], the main building of the temple, surrounded by a lovely garden[36-45]. after having a longer rest and having the view over the garden, we went on to the heian shrine, passing by one of japan's biggest torii[47-48] gate to get to the heian shrine[50-55]. "heian" was actually the former name of kyoto, so i guess that is what this really big spacious shrine is dedicated to. again, no people, which made it really enjoyable to walk through. also it was only one hour to the closing of the shrine, and our guide said that the first and the last of the opening hours are the best. ha, lucky us! and then it finally happened - my camera's battery died. as the temple was already closed now too, we decided to go home, hoping our luggage has already arrived - as we were told by the hotel manager in the morning that the airport had called, and it should be at the hotel around noon. if the luggage would not be at our hotel, i have to buy a charger for my camera's battery, which might get expensive (as it's canon). but it turned out that the luggage really had arrived at noon, yippieh! man, we were soooooooooo happy. a little more relieved i charged my battery, then we went out to have some lunch[62-64] at the food court at kyoto station, and later enjoyed the LED lit stairs at the station[56-75].