So my speaking partner and I met up again and decided on going to see Byodoin Temple.
But first we decided to eat lunch.
So we wandered around near the station for a place to eat and came upon a matcha cafe. We both ended up ordering the same thing, funny enough, ending up with matcha soba and a matcha roll cake. You couldn’t really taste the matcha in the soba noodles, but you could taste more matcha in the broth.
The cake was also really good, and it came with a matcha latte.
After lunch we decided to make our way to the temple. We walked past a tone of small shops, mostly selling matcha and matcha flavored items.
The temple itself was gorgeous. There were golden phoenix statues on top of the structure and the sun was shining against them, making the temple look amazing.
There was also a small museum portion of the temple, where no photographs are allowed. There were multiple statues of Bodhisattva on clouds.
Unfortunately, there was an extra charge to go into the Phoenix Hall, so we didn’t make it into the Hall. The temple was gorgeous, nonetheless.