My boyfriend and I visited Kyoto in the third week of out trip. I can truly say that Kyoto was my favorite city by far. It is a small-ish city with a lot of beautiful shrines and temples, awesome food and a stunning old town. I even got the chance to go to two “matsuri” aka summer festivals! This was one of them. We got to the temple in the afternoon and it was packed! Intelligent as I am i hadn’t looked up if there was anything going on that day. At first it was confusing and loud but the atmosphere quickly got me going. We got food - mmmh takoyaki - and sat down, watching the ceremony that was happening. After taht we got up to walk to the top of the hill, as we knew that the sight would be amazing. So, what genius idea did my boyfriend suddenly have? To go around the back of the hill, so that it would be more quiet... It was already starting to get dark and the path had no lights. We walked for a while and even had a japanese guy our age walk with us. Luckily he was an english student and kinda knew the way so we were able to communicate pretty good. After that, the forest around us wasn’t so scary anymore. The dude showed us around the shrine, explained a few things and even spent the rest of the day with us. It was one of my favorite days.