We continued on to Kyoto on the bullet train. We spent three nights there in a very nice Western-style hotel which was part of the massive modern train station complex. The first day of sightseeing was on our own, and on the second we were showed around by Ken Katayama, who we'd worked with at Opcode, and who works now for Digidesign.

Kyoto is much, much smaller than Tokyo, and it is littered with temples and shrines everywhere you go.

Ray was fascinated by the people hanging out in these niches in the train station we could see from the hall outside our room. We never figured out how to actually get to them.

This art piece is reminiscent of the trim in our new kitchen.

Here are the remaining eggs from Hakone. They are no longer completely black.

Here are some views of the train station building.

We couldn't take pictures at Sanjusangendo Temple, which was too bad in that it was one of the most impressive places we went in Japan. The linked page can give you a small idea of what it was like: the longest wooden building in Japan, housing one thousand gilded wooden Kannon sculptures (each with several heads and arms) and several larger statues of other deities. Right across the street was the National Museum of Kyoto, which had many interesting and beautiful exhibits (which we couldn't take pictures of either).

We walked to Kiyomizudera Temple, where we could take pictures. It was at the edge of town set in some beautiful hills. Here a visitor is trying to pull a sword from a stone, or something like that.

Another stamp for our book.

A spring came out of the hills, and you could capture some of the water and drink it.

This ultra violet sterilizer ensured that the cup was clean for the next person.

The temples were built on a steep hill, and this is the structure holding it up.

Bell ropes.

Tourists in the sunset.

Buddha's Feet.

Most temples had a place to wash your hands as you entered.

A swarm of birds.

Coppertone?

Keiichi suggested we try Toriyasu, a restaurant in Kyoto which served mizutaki, conceptually similar to shabu shabu, except with chicken instead of beef. We were in our own private tatami room, and had a button to push when we were ready for the next course.

Asian pears and peeled grapes for dessert.

The toilets, uniformly manufactured by Toto, were scary. At least most of them had normal flushing mechanisms, and we could just ignore the heaters and washers.

The next morning we started at Nijo Castle, where the shogun used to live. I used the "equalize" command in Opcode's copy of Photoshop 3.0 and reduced the saturation by 40%, which has made it look like an old magazine. The "equalize" command is pretty radical and useless. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was a large building with lots of murals. The most interesting thing was that the floors were intentionally creaky -- there was even a picture that showed how they made them that way -- so that attackers couldn't sneak up on the shogun. This must be one of the most elegantly brazen explanatory cadenzas that a flooring subcontractor has ever foisted upon an angry homeowner.

The rock garden outside the castle. Presumably each rock was carefully placed.

A moat in the back part of the complex.

The construction technique for the outer wall reminded us of the Inca stonework at Macchu Picchu.

This is Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion.

We saw many groups of schoolchildren at various places on our travels around Japan, and every single one of them had a photographer accompanying them.

Ken-san, an ex-Opcode employee and our gracious guide for Kyoto and Himeji. It might be that Japanese landscapes are so perfect in their design that there is just no possibility of taking pictures that do them justice; hence the cultural propensity for standing in front of all this perfection and punking it up.

The photograph on the t-shirt is "Untitled, 1972" by Larry Clark. The Japanese have laws against images showing penises, probably why he wears his dog tag just so.

Ken with Dave. This is a parking lot; but it looks kind of ominous now that I see it. Just if the white stripes went the same direction as the cars.

This is Ryoan-ji, a small Zen temple. This garden has fifteen rocks, and there's nowhere you can sit that you can see all fifteen.

In the old days, monks used to get out there with rakes and be all meditative. But Japan is progressive.

Hanami-koji, an old and famous street in Kyoto where the guidebook says one can still see geishas going to their appointments.

Copain, a kushikatsu restaurant, where we had one of my favorite meals of the trip. You don't order -- you just sit at the bar and they hand you breaded fried stuff on a stick. Each thing is different, and is usually a combination of things, like lamb and onion, or salmon and cream cheese, or fig and something. You just tell them to stop when you're full (though by then they've usually got the next thing ready...)

Dipping choices for each skewer -- they tell you which is most appropriate.

After dinner, we went to a little bar where some friends Ken had played with were performing.

On to Himeji