day four started where day three ended, but this time with a fully charged battery for my camera - yippieh! so back at the heian shrine[001-039] we paid a visit to the garden[008-038] all around the shrine. again not many people, though this time we were there around noon (and again, maybe that's why not many people where there, but having lunch at that moment). the garden itself was a nice, quiet, and tranquil green spot in the middle of the loud town kyoto. but then it finally got crowded. we got on the bus going to ginkakuji-michi to go to the ginkakuji temple, aka the "silver temple", planned as a counterpart to the golden temple, which we might visit within the next few days. but in contrast to the golden temple, this temple never was made silver. but at the entrance there was a really long queue, and as it was so very hot (again) today, we decided to simply just skip it, and head on to the honen-in temple, hoping it's less crowded. to get there, one can take the "philosopher's walk"[042-044], tetsugaku-no-michi, that follows a small rivulet. it is called so, as it was a walk a famous philosopher used to take every day for meditating. and there we spotted our first cat! when we noticed and approached it, it preferred pooping to getting petted - poor us. so we went on and got to the honen-in temple[045-069]. again we were almost the only ones there, so we could take our time to enjoy this temple with its moss-covered ground, awesome trees, beautiful bugs, and its cooling water at the wells. unfortunately loads of mosquitoes were there too - but today we were prepared, and brought the anti-mosquito spray we bought last year in taiwan. and for the short time of a few minutes until sweat washed away the spray from our bodies, the mosquitoes stopped tormenting us. to get to the next temple, we continued our stroll along the philosopher's path[070-086], found an awesome shop with a cute bottle holder[073-074] (no, not nina, but the thing she holds in her hand). and soon we found real cats[078,081-085] - loads of them! all fed by a cat lady, that seemed to take care of about 20 to 30 cats. aaaaw, so cute! after enjoying the presence of the feline beings, we soon arrived at the nanzen-in temple[086-128]. unfortunately the hatto (dharma hall), hojo (former head priest's residence) and the sanmon[088-089,091,094-095,119-128] (entrance gate, which one can enter and enjoy the view from underneath its roof) were already closed. there's also a nice aqueduct[097-103], one can climb up to[106-109], which we did, as the rest was not accessible any more. sunset had already begun, so we headed to keage subway station to have our first ride on a metro. so far we always were using JR trains or the bus for transportation, so it's time for something new. so we headed back to kyoto station to get up the kyoto tower[132-140] to enjoy a nice view over the city. perfectly timed, we could enjoy the sunset[136]. also we saw the station[132,139], a loooong shinkansen train[133], and our hotel[137] from the observation deck from the height of around 100 metres. it seems all towers in asia must have some kind of mascot, so there's tawawa-chan[140] for kyoto tower. after getting back to the ground again and enjoying some delicious evening meal[144-146], we got back to our ryokan. what a nice day, with luggage and cats. one thing we were wondering about was the high amount of employees working at one shop/station/cafe/compartment/etc. it's like in a cafe, there's maybe ten tables, but at least four waitresses, and maybe even a cook. same for a station gate like at the JR railway stations. they have sluice gates there, but also an occupied booth where people with wheelchairs, prams, or like us, with JR rail passes can walk through and have their ticket inspections there. but then again, it's around three to four people standing in, or around the booth. for every exit of one station (and there might be up to eight, or more, depending on the size and importance of the station). hm... so who pays them, and how much do they all get paid? a mystery... ah, and sadly nothing new though on our ATM problem. all ATMs still refused to give us money so far.