The first stop in the morning was the Yatsuhashi factory. Yatsuhashi are a famous Japanese style candy from Kyoto. They're very popular as souviniers, and I enjoy buying them just to eat myself because the baked/roasted ones are covered in cinnamon, and cinnamon flavoured treats are money.
After that we headed to a temple where the students were dropped off. They broke into their pre-determined groups and went off in the city to go about visiting various places. When I think back to field trips I had when I was in 7th/8th grade I couldn't even imagine being allowed to just roam free in a city the size of Kyoto. Everything was so tightly planned and supervised when we took field trips. Granted all the kids had to make it to certain checkpoints, and they all were given a cell phone to use in case something happened, but still, everyone made it back safe and sound, no problems at all. It was really quite impressive actually.
The weather coulda been better though. It rained off and on the entire day, pouring in a couple of instances. I got lucky though because when the heavy stuff came I was under a roof at Yasaka Jinja, the checkpoint I was responsible for, and managed to stay nice and dry. While I was there I also tried my hand at taking what would become my first HDR picture. I'm not even gonna try to explain what it is and how it works, because I don't really understand it myself. I just know the basics about how to make one, and personally, I think they look really cool. Click the link if you want to know more about the technical stuff.
All in all, a very enjoyable trip. Even as a teacher, field trips are fun.
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