Work & play in Kyoto

I recently traveled to Kyoto for two days to attend a teaching conference about extensive reading.  There were many well-known speakers in the field attending, so it was one of the better conferences that I've been to.  

Since I was in Kyoto, I also made sure to do some sightseeing to places I hadn't visited before.  My first stop was the Kyoto Imperial Palace.  This is where the Emperor lived when Kyoto was the capital of Japan (until 1869 when the capital moved to Tokyo).

To have a tour of the palace, you need to make reservations prior to the day, although the tour is free.  It was a one-hour tour and all of the tour was from the outside of the palace buildings.  We weren't allowed to enter the buildings.  Still, the buildings and gates were very beautiful:

For lunch, I had nishin-soba (Pacific herring in buckwheat noodles in soup), which is a well-known dish of Kyoto.  Very delicious.

In the afternoon, I visited the small town of Ohara, which is just north of Kyoto.  There is a famous temple there called Sanzen-in.  The temple had wonderful wooden hallways that were nice and cool for my feet.  I've figured out that one of my favourite things is walking barefoot in quiet temples.  They also had a beautiful garden:

Outside of the temple, the ground was covered in moss and there were faces carved in rocks placed here and there.  It was very peaceful to walk around:

Here is another picture I took at the temple as well as another nearby temple: