High Speed Car Chases! Karaoke! Rain!

Bryan and I just finished our week-long adventures in the Kansai region of Japan. It was a nice trip- except it rained on us 75% of the time. I guess it's that season.
We left last Saturday for Kyoto, where we had reservations for two nights. The first night was uneventful- we ended up walking around the downtown area and spent a lot of time in a huge shopping arcade, just to stay out of the rain. But we found a photo-sticker booth (called "Puri-kura", short for "print club") and that occupied a bit of our time. We ate some good Japanese food at a tiny restaurant, then went to sleep.
The next day, we decided to walk along the "Path of Philosophy" leading to Ginkaku-ji- a temple with some nice gardens.There were some nice flowers along the way, although we were about a week too early for the cherry blossoms that the path is famous for.
We walked around more of the city, found a good, cheap lunch, then walked to Kiyomizu-dera, a temple I have been to 4 times now, but still love. After walking who-knows-how-many miles more, we sat down for a good dinner, then found my favorite Taiko arcade game!! I don't know exactly how long we played this game, but I had 3 blisters, and my hands hurt for the next two days. Apparently, I hold the sticks too tight. On our walk home, we were on one of the busiest streets in Kyoto, when we heard sirens and I witnessed my first high-speed car chase. The cars weren't actually going that fast, but traffic was stopped and they were swerving between lanes. It was pretty exciting.
I am leaving for Takayama now, so I will write more about the trip soon.