Japan Day 25 - Canals and Castles

Today and the next 3 days are free for me because Stan our Professor is helping to put on a Architecture conference this weekend. My main goal for the weekend is to finish seeing all the sites in Kyoto. The first one up was to go see Nijo Castle but on the way there I got distracted by a canal that was converted into a cool public park space.

It was a very nice space. Being below street level meant that the traffic noise was muffled and walls created some shade.

Towards the end there was an interesting student built hydroelectricity experiment.

next, I headed around to the Imperial Palace grounds and made my reservation at the Housing Office to see the Katsura Imperial villa on Monday.

Then I got on the subway to go see the castle.

The castle was very different from the one in Himeji. This one was only one story but it was very ornate inside with screens covered in gold with paintings on them. It is also famous for it nightingale floors. So called because the squeak when you walk on them even with lightest of steps. This was to keep intruders from being able to sneak inside. Too bad pictures weren't allowed inside.

The rest of the Pictures