YEAH... ok. We had this crazy idea to run down to Kyoto for New Years. Now being the cheap people Juan and I are... we decided to travel using the Senshun 18Kippu, which is a discount ticket that lets you ride all local train in Japan for $23 bucks a day. The only problem is that you have to take local trains. This means it takes almost 9 hours to get from Tokyo to Kyoto. We were all up for the adventure. The plan was to spend all new years eve day on the train and spend all new year's eve night and and new years day morning visiting all of the amazing shrines and temples in Kyoto. Then we would head back to Tokyo around noon and sleep our way back home on the empty trains. This plan was good only in theory. I don't think we would ever had left the Tokyo area if we had remembered to check the weather report.
SOOOOOOOO COLD!!! As we passed Nagoya the snow started to come down... then it really started to come down. I immediately check the weather report for Kyoto on my i-phone ... Cold with 60% chance of snow or rain. Things were not looking good for our adventure.
When we finally arrive in Kyoto around 10:30 there was no snow, but it sure was cold. As the night progressed we tried to get to as many temples as we could, but it was just too cold. Around 1am, it started to snow, by 3 we were hiding in a McDonald's and by 5:30 we had admitted defeat and were on a train back to Tokyo.
We ended up going to the Inari shrine which has thousands of red tori gates, Kiyomizu Dera and Gion. We were really trying to hang on until Kinkakuji (the golden temple) opened up at 9am, but we were just too cold and tired. I hope you enjoy all of our photos and Happy New Year!!
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