Our first destination after Asakusa in Tokyo was Kyoto. Kyoto is an amazing city-a very interesting combination of very old and very modern. That can be said of many places in Japan, but it's especially apparent in Kyoto.
We arrived by shinkansen (bullet train) at the first example of very modern: the station. It's actually a huge complex of buildings that includes all the train platforms, many restaurants, a mall, and the hotel where we stayed. It's one of those places that's difficult to photograph, but I'll include one picture I took to give a little idea of the inside of the building. Click on the picture to open a larger version, and then zoom in on the upper part-a series (five, I think) of long escalators heads outside of the building.
For an example of the very old aspect of the city, I included a picture of Gion, which is a beautiful district of temples,
shops and restaurants, partly along a small canal.More later...
