...the Pavilion is a little further than we thought. Up ahead are some school girls and further is the ticket gate, i think.
Map of the Pavilion grounds.
The ticket to get in sure is fancy!
And there it is.
Slightly less washed-out version.
Not the best shot of me, but it proves i was there. Well, it would have in the days before photo editing software became common.
School girls doing school girl stuff.
This photo was not staged for us. But we took pictures anyway.
Another view.
Raked rock garden.
Which is brighter, Josh' bald spot, or the Pavilion?
Top of the Golden Pavilion.
Relaxing lake around the Pavilion.
Koi not being coy.
Old gate.
I'm not sure what this means, but it was pretty.
Here's what you do with 1 yen coins (equal to about a penny). Sometimes people throw larger denominations. 10 yen is also popular. As you can see from the spread of coins, hitting the bowl is harder than it looks.
I think this sign says a white snake was buried here. I think albino snakes have some importance in Japanese mythology, but i don't yet know what it is.
Here's the matcha we had after visiting the Pavilion. The sweet had gold leaf on it.
This was at one end of the matcha room.
As was this. The matcha bowl is only ¥15000 (about $150). That's a bit expensive for me.
Water flowing into man-made basins were very common.
Coming out of the area where we had matcha was an area for buying various good luck charms, trinkets, and gifts. Ahead in this photo is a smaller temple where we saw a few groups of schoolchildren go to recite a prayer.
One way to make a wish is to buy a small candle here.
Josh bought one from this bin for me.
And one from this for himself.
After buying a candle, you light it and put it here.
Here's mine.
And Josh's.
Incense burners like this were common in front of small temples and shrines.
Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan
Today was a field trip day. There were several groups of very young students visiting the aquarium. Each class had a different color hat.
These students were taking a break. Many had small snacks. Notice how orderly they are compared to American kids.
This is the main attraction of the aquarium: a whale shark. These are the largest fish in the world, but not much is really known about them. Fully grown they might be able to get up to 60 feet (18 meters), but this one was still young and much smaller. Thankfully these sharks eat krill and plankton, not people!
The mouth of an adult can be almost 5 feet wide.
And away it goes.
I have many more pictures of the whale shark, but 20 pictures of the same animal might get a ilttle boring, so that's it for now.
This ray kept doing flips. In higher animals similar behavior is a sign of insanity brought about by captivity. I don't know about fish though.