Kyoto Imperial Palace

On Tuesday (our second day in Kyoto) my friend and I went on a tour of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. This was the home of the Imperial Family before the capital of Japan was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. We had signed up for the hour long, English speaking tour. I was hoping that we would be the only ones on the tour or at the very least it would be a small group. Unfortunately there were about 100 to 150 of us on the tour. Worse than that the tour guide's accent made his English utterly impossible to understand. We gave up in about the first five minutes from trying to listen to him and just spent our time at the back of the group taking as many pictures as possible. However, even that was hampered by the guards following the tour group that would herd us along when they felt that we were dawdling too much. It seemed I would just get a picture lined up the way I wanted and we would be asked to move along. This is the very reason why I hate guided tours. It is always rush here, rush there, and you never really get to see anything.






























As we were exiting I noticed some workers trimming and shaping a tree.