Bicycles. Silent deadly creatures..

I've now woken up in a foreign country; I suppose it's an item on everyone's checklist of life. Felt really wierd, but almost like staying over at my Nanna's house (something that I can only recall doing once or twice). Waking up in the early hours of the day, which of course never happens when I'm at home, a strange bed (not discounting it's a futon). The low light illuminating new surroundings. I don't think that it's anything you can get used to, or that I would want to.
I had to wait for my sister to wake up, she was dead from the plane ride yesterday, and then after spending an hour or so working out what we were doing these 5 days, we decided to go adventuring for breakfast.
But showering came first.. I am not a small person, but I'm not huge either. This should be taken into consideration. The shower unit appeared to be a self-inclosed drop-in module. There was a space about 1m by half a metre between the shower unit and a curtain (which went straight onto the hallway) to get changed in. After that, I had to stand low in the corner to get any of the water on me. The holder for the shower head was non-adjustable. I may need to just hold it in future.

After negotiating my hygiene, "the breakfast adventure" occured. We decided it was a good idea to randomly walk streets until we found somewhere good to get something to eat. Being hungry and half dazed still, confronted with an army of bicycles (which is never a good thing), this took a while. With the noise of the city, the bicycles are very difficult to hear, especially when they are travelling quickly as most do. The result was several near collisions, and a constant paranoia to turn around every 30sec to check that there wasn't one stalking, waiting to strike (this must have looked incredibly gaijin..). Roads in Kyoto also deserve a mention: In Australia, there will be an area beside the road to walk anywhere you go. In Kyoto, only the major streets have these sidewalks, and they are rarely very big. Most of the smaller streets are lucky to have an area marked out, and the bitumen goes right back to the buildings. The area marked out is often also to prevent cars from hitting power poles (there are no underground cables allowed in Japan, everything goes on poles; 6-7 wires).
Anyway, after wandering a while, and not finding any eating places we ended up buying a portion of fruit in jelly each, then adventuring for a further 10min to find a park to eat it in.

With breakfast completed, we headed off to the two temples we planned to visit today, Nishi Hongan-ji and Higashi Hongan-ji. Both temple complexes had amazing architecture that I really can't do justice too. Photos will be posted. What I will say is that the gate carvings were incredibly detailed, the size of the main temples was incredible (the huge roofs, and the supporting pillars which are entire trees..), and it was a shame that they both had restoration work going on.. :(. We visited Nishi first after breakfast, and headed over to Higashi after lunch (though it was raining at the time). We were allowed in one of the temples at Nishi; the shrines at the front were eye-boggling. So much gold. The other temples were closed to the public. Interestingly, at Higashi there was a line of people (on a tour from Tokyo I think?) who were taking old roof tiles (removed during the restoration work) to their bus as souvenirs..

Anyway, that's it for now. Arigatou gousaimas.