Sunday March 26, 2006. The next morning, the owner of the bed and breakfast fixed us a traditional Japanese breakfast. She's the lady in the pink kimono. I'm the frog in the green shirt!

Check out the salmon, eggplant with sweet miso, rice, and yodofu (boiled tofu with seaweed). After breakfast, she gave us fresh apple, mango, and strawberry slices and a mango/orange drink. I asked the owner if we could stay more nights, and she was sad to inform us that she already had customers booked for the next few nights. She said we could leave our luggage with her until we found another hotel.

We took off early to hunt for a hotel. Luckily, within about a hundred yards and around the corner, we found a place called “Hotel You.” We went into the hotel and found no one at the front desk. After waiting awhile, a woman came around and said that she had rooms available. I asked if we could make reservations, and she said that they did not take reservations. I asked her if we could come back that night and get a room. She said “yes.” So, we decided to sightsee the rest of the day, pick-up our luggage at about 6 pm, and return to the “Hotel You.” Here is a picture of the outside of Hotel You:

We took off for the bus stop and asked a couple named June and Marie (Jynichiro and Marie Hayashi) what bus to take to the Kinkaku-ji (they were going on the same bus to see the Nijo Castle). Then we went with them to the Nijo Castle. Here is a picture of the front gate of the castle. Check out the ornate carvings.

You can see the main castle through the gate. Here is a better picture of the main castle:

We toured the inside of the castle. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, but Sam found this shot on the Web, depicting where the Shogun met with other feudal lords:

The inside of the castle consisted of wooden corridors with built-in “nightingale floors” surrounding these large tatami rooms. The wooden floors would chirp like birds when stepped on to warn the shogun and his warriors of intruders. Some of the walls had hidden rooms where guards could watch over the Shogun.

After the Nijo castle, we hopped on the bus and went to the Kinkaku-ji, which has a golden pavilion and is one of the most famous sightseeing spots in Japan. This was a retirement villa that the Shogun Yoshimitsu built in 1397. After his death, the house was converted into a Buddhist temple. The pavilion is Yoshimitsu’s idea of heaven, where all of the buildings are made of gold:

The pavilion is gold-plated. The lower floor was castle-style; the second floor was samurai-style; and the third floor was like a Zen temple. Notice the phoenix on the top of the temple. Harry Potter would have loved this building! Sam liked this place the best. Next, we desided to go the Ginkaku-ji. Gin means “silver” and was one of the reasons for our coming to Japan for our 25^th (silver) wedding anniversary!

At the Kinkaku-ji (gold temple), I asked three young boys if they could tell us what bus to take to see the Ginkaku-ji (silver temple). They said they were going there too and that we could follow them. These three boys were only 14 and had come to Kyoto from Osaka on the train to site-see—what trusting parents they have! Here are my little buddies on the way to the Ginkaku-ji (silver temple):

The Ginkaku-ji is not silver-plated but is a plain, unadorned two-story pavilion built in 1482 by the grandson of the man who built the golden temple. The grandson, Yoshimasa, may have run out of money, and as a result, he never finished the villa in silver. The silver temple has extremely beautiful gardens. Many Japanese traditions, such as the tea ceremony, has its roots at the silver temple, Ginkaku-ji.

The white sand pillar above represents Mount Fuji, and the sands symbolize ripples on the ocean. After the silver temple (Ginkaku-ji), we hopped back on the bus and went to the Heian shrine, where there was a large orange gate (tori) and a contrasting orange, green, and white shrine.

We hopped on the bus again and ended up at the “Chio-in” which has the largest San-mon gate (24 meters tall) in Japan.

Finally, we walked back to the bed and breakfast, grabbed our luggage, and headed off to the “Hotel You.” We got to the “Hotel You” at about 6 pm and went into the lobby. Again, no one was around. There was a wide screen television in the hotel lobby with pictures of two empty rooms. We pushed a button to reserve the largest empty room, and I received a receipt. I guess this was a self check-in hotel. We took the elevator up to our room and found it decked out in high-tech electronics. Again, the toilet (toto) had a heated toilet seat, butt-wash, bidet, etc. Here's a shot of the electronic panel near the bed which controlled the dimmer lights, stereo, vibrating bed, and flat-screen TV:

Check out the Playstation controllers, karaoke microphones, and rice-cooker:

Soon we were ready to go out and eat. We tried to leave, but the door was locked. I decided to call the front desk and explain that we were foreigners and could not read kanji’s. I asked the hotel worker to tell me how to get a key so that we could get in and out of our hotel room. I thought there must be a machine that generates the electronic key somewhere. He said “just a minute, I’ll be up to help you.” The hotel worker came up and started explaining about the hotel, and I asked him if this was a “rabu hoteru?” (i.e. Love Hotel). He said "Yes, yes, yes, love hotel!" I couldn’t believe it. Cel and I had checked into a pay-by-the hour love hotel with our 16-year-old son (almost as crazy as accompanying Jared and Jenny on their honeymoon!).

The hotel worker could tell I was embarrassed and offered to help us find a different hotel on his computer which was in the hotel’s control room behind the front desk. He said that the love hotel would cost us around $350-$400 for the night. I said that price was excessive and was grateful to have him search for a different hotel on the computer. After about 2 hours (it was about 8 pm) we had searched all of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe and had not found a suitable hotel under $300/night. I asked him if we could work some kind of a deal out. He said he could but that our deal would have to be secret, and not to tell his boss anything, and to only speak English if confronted by his boss. He asked us to leave our luggage in the control room, take our valuables (passports, etc.) and return at 10 pm.

During my search for a hotel, Cel and Sam needed to get out of the control room (one of the workers was smoking and the smoke was bothering Cel). She and Sam were out on the front steps. The man I was working with asked if I could have them come back in the control room because they were not "good for business." In the control room, there were numerous video displays set up to monitor the entryway, the front desk area, the elevator, and the hallways. When we initially pushed the button for the room, we were being observed in the control room. When we went up to our room, they remotely opened the door from the control room. Inside the room, there was a vending machine-like apparatus used to pay for the room. You could use either credit cards or cash. Of course, I could not read anything since everything was written in Japanese kanji.

We returned at 10 pm to the love hotel, and the hotel worker was waiting for us. He let us into the cheapest room, helped us prepay until 8 am the next morning and let us stay in the love hotel for the night. I’m not sure how much we paid, but it was probably between $80-$90 dollars. I guess it is cheaper at night because most of the business for the love hotel takes place during the day. What an experience!