in fact, what happened was this: we jostled our way through hordes of students to buy tickets at the gate, then joined the throngs of people shuffling their way along a two-meter-wide path that went in a short one-way loop through the temple grounds, with policemen shouting at everyone to keep moving, arms & selfie sticks poking out to snap cell phone pics, and teachers blocking the route to take group shots of their students flashing peace signs in front of the ancient Zen monument.
in short, we spent most of yesterday once again trying to avoid the crowds, and despite that low point, we found ways to have fun. we started at Ryōan-ji temple to see its famous rock garden; each of the hundreds of schoolkids around us were hilariously trying to count the fifteen rocks ("ichi, ni, san, shi..."). next was the golden temple at Kinkaku-ji, an experience we're determined to remember only as majestic.
it was a long but interesting bike ride from there to an area called Arashiyama. we grabbed a yuba donut, then went into the beautiful gardens of Tenryu-ji (a UNESCO World Heritage site, like many of the places we've visited so far), where there was a great view of the famous nearby bamboo forest at the back of the garden, and B was happy about all of the signs with english translations of the plant names.
despite some ethical misgivings, we also went up to the "monkey park", a spot on a hill where a bunch of wild macaque monkeys come out of the forest every day and hang out near and among the humans. on the way home, we stopped at a store that sold traditional hand-made rice crackers, and also at Aizenkobo, "the house of an old kimono-sash-weaving family established over a century ago" who now specialize in traditional indigo-dying techniques.
(Indigo is a whole thing here - it has a historical association with royalty, and it seems like 80% of the clothes people wear on the street are blue.)
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