Old and new capitals of Japan

I stayed 4 days in Tokyo with my friend Hiko and his wife Keiko. This time I wanted to spend my time mostly with the older parts of Tokyo: various shrines and temples: the Sensoji Shrine (first pictures), the Meiji Shrine and last but not least the famous Yasukuni Shrine with its attached shrewd wartime museum. And there was time to meet exciting Shibuya as well as my many friends from Reuters, like Misuzu.







And then I went to beautiful Kyoto, the capital of old and the true capital of Japan's soul until today. It started with the fast Shinkansen train from Tokyo Station to modern Kyoto Station that passes the Fujiyama. Misuzu booked me a traditional Japanese guesthouse with a courtyard, rice mats, a futon in the middle of old Kyoto.
I decided to cycle around Kyoto with an old bike from the guest house and visit the temples: Ryoanji, Daitokuji, Kinkakuji. For the first time have I experienced a real green tea ceremony in a tranquil temple and seen ZEN gardens and - with the help of a monk - started to understand a tiny little bit about they are about. The most beautiful Zen garden did not allow pictures - the Daisen-in in the Daitoku-ji temple district.












I recommend everybody and anybody to visit Kyoto.