I am just full of stupid, aren't I!

Here I am, last day in Kyoto before I head Kobe-wards, and what have I done? Why, lots!

And by lots, I of course mean more sightseeing, which I'm sure long ago grew dreadfully dull to read about. Perhaps before I started.

I'll be damned if that's going to stop me.

Of particular interest to me, temple-wise, is the Zen Rock Garden. I won't pretend I'm any sort of deep or spiritual human being. Probably quite the opposite, in fact. I'm shallow. I only like the zen rock gardens 'cause they look neat.

I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

Well, today I went to a temple. Ryoanji. (Ji - 寺 - is temple! Some people on the internet persist in referring to the place as Ryoan-ji Temple, but gadgarmit, that's redundant!) It certainly had a nice rock garden! And other nice things.

Unfortunately, my entire experience was ruined by the visual cacophony that is construction-at-work! All that scaffolding!

Side note: I almost died at the temple. I peeked under some scaffolding and around the corner to get a larger look at the Rocks, and felt something on my hair. I backed out and looked up and realized my hair had almost swallowed a spiderweb WITH A SPIDER ON IT.

I surprised myself because I remained perfectly calm and didn't freak out at all.

I swear.

Outside the temple, near the bus stop, there was this area that looked to be a quarry where they carved all those awesome stone lanterns and whatnots found all about the place in Japan. I almost wandered in there, but it sort of looked like I wasn't supposed to. And then I saw someone else (who appeared to be a worker) inside. Basically I chickened out. But man, there were a ton of statues in there. The pictures I took failed to capture the magnitude. Ahhhh well.

And then! I went to the Golden Temple! Forgot all about this place when making sightseeing plans! As in: I didn't even make any plans to go, I just went because I saw it on the map and it was nearby! Goes to show you that making plans ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Only my camera died mid-trip.

Oops.

Decent day, though! Next up: Himeji Castle and Kobe!