Touring around Osaka: Kyoto and Arima

I'm a little sick right now and feel pretty incapable of writing, so here's a pretty picture-heavy blog post.  Last Friday, my friends and I spent the afternoon in Kyoto.  It's only about a half-hour train ride from where we live, so it was a fairly easy commute.  While in Kyoto, we toured a lovely little temple called the Ginkaku-ji.  Some images:

In Kyoto, we also saw this charming lady playing the accordion by the river:

The next day, we went to a town called Arima.  Apparently some really famous stuff happened in Arima--I guess Hideyoshi lived there?  Don't take my word for it, I was just piecing together bits of information.  Anyhow, my friend and I went to an onsen there, which is a really cool kind of public bath.  We were the only ones there, and we used lots of complimentary beauty products.  Here are some pictures from Arima:

Arima Cider is okay, but the bottle is the coolest thing about it.  This monkey was a very charming monkey, but his trainer was being very mean to him and it made us all feel really uncomfortable.

We have no classes on Monday, so hopefully we can find something GREAT to do with our three-day weekend.  First stop: Karaoke tonight.  Not a bad start.

Jya, ne...