Kyoto Sightseeing Part 2

So, where were we? Right. On our way to Kiyomizu. The name of this shrine means clear water, I believe. It's perched up on the top of a hill overlooking the valley and the city of Kyoto. In the grand tradition of touristy spots everywhere, the streets approaching it were lined with shop after shop selling anything and everything that might appear vaguely Japanese. This made the walk up much more interesting. Here's some of what we saw:

Finally we got to the top of the hill and entered into the shrine area:

As usual, there were several places to wash your hands and mouth if you were going to pray:

And here's a view of one of the temple buildings:

One famous feature of Kiyomizu is a shrine devoted to "love affairs". Love affairs means all things related to love, in Japanese terms. Outside this shrine are two rocks, and if you can successfully get from one to the other with your eyes closed, then you're supposed to have good luck in love for the next year. Here's one girl attempting to make it the last few feet.

The general trend there seemed to be that if you wanted to try, you got a good friend to direct you to keep you from bumping into the other people or from falling down the stairs that were a few feet from the rock on the other side. It was fun to watch.
But probably the best thing about this temple was the view:

So having had a nice look around, we set off down another shop-lined street in search of some lunch and something interesting to see... More to come...