Today we left Kyoto and returned to Tokyo. Kyoto is a fascinating place and so full of important historical sites that I think we all tried our best to see as much as we could before we had to board the train back to Tokyo. Dr. Clark, Dr. Bell, and I decided to go to one of Kyoto's most famous temples: Ginkaku-ji, also known as the "Silver Pavilion." We got up early , stashed our stuff in the lockers at the train station, and grabbed a cab to the temple. Everything seemed to be working like clockwork until we arrived at the site and realized that our cab driver had taken us to Kinkaku-ji, NOT Ginkaku-ji. Kinkaku-ji is actually on the opposite site of the city--a difference of one consonant and about five miles! Not exactly the way we wanted to start out tightly scheduled morning...

But in the end it worked out fine. We quickly found a cab headed in the right direction. The driver gave us an entertaining ride, pointing out several places of interest along the way, and we arrived at Ginkaku-ji with plenty of time to view its stunning moss gardens. We were once again reminded about how easy it is to get around in Kyoto and how friendly the city is to visitors. But in the future we will make sure to enunciate a bit more carefully...