Kyoto: Day 4

The 4th and final day of our Kyoto trip began with the one major landmark that a trip to Kyoto wouldn't be complete without: Kinkakuji: The Golden Pavilion. I've said this before, but it's easy to see why autumn is a busy tourist season in Kyoto; the leaves are beautiful, and the pavilion grounds were no exception.



But as pretty as the trees were, they're not what we went there to see. And the Golden Pavilion, unlike the Silver Pavilion, actually lives up to its name.


It's gold. And looks even better in person. We spent forever just walking around and taking pictures of it.




So in conclusion, Golden Pavilion = awesome.

After that we went to the International Manga Museum, which unfortunately does not allow pictures of its exhibits. But it was very interesting and had a lot of information about the history of manga, etc. And there were cosplayers, which is always great.

After the International Manga Museum we planned to go to a historical costume museum, but it was closed...on one of the biggest tourist weekends of the year. It made no sense. Anyway, there was a temple right across the street from it, so we went to that instead.


This is Honganji, one of the biggest wooden structures in the world (and the biggest in Kyoto). Not bad considering the only reason we went to it was because it was in walking distance.


Then it was off to the station to catch the train back home.

So that marks the end of an amazing trip. I wish I'd had more time there, but I probably would've collapsed from exhaustion if I had. There's so much to see in Kyoto. It's definitely a required stop for anyone visiting Japan.

Kyoto: Day 3

On Day 3 we woke up and went to Kyoto Station, catching a local train bound for Nara. The first thing we saw when we got off at Inari was this:


The entrance to Fushimi Inari Shrine.


Inari is the Shinto deity of agriculture, and is associated with foxes (I think they are his/her messengers.), so the entire shrine is filled with fox statues like this one:


But what Fushimi Inari is most famous for is its torii: those orange gates. The shrine has hundreds of them that run all over the mountainside, beginning here:


Sometimes they're spaced so close together the sun can barely get through:


At the end of the first set of tunnels, there's a place in the shrine where people can write their prayers on fox-shaped blocks of wood and draw their own little faces on them (for 500 yen).


And then there are more torii gates:


Which lead to another part of the shrine.


We stopped for tea and inarizushi (special kind of sushi with tofu) around here, because we'd basically been hiking up a mountain through torii gates and needed a break.

And the gates kept going.


And going.


And going...


And you get the idea. Eventually we extracted ourselves, had lunch, and then got back on the train and went all the way to Nara.

An afternoon is nowhere near enough time to do everything there is to do in Nara. Our main priority was to see the Daibutsu: a large Buddha statue, but we were quickly distracted, because on the way to the Daibutsu is Nara Park and its deer.

Here is a picture of the deer:


Now, in the opposite of what I've been told by park rangers and parents my entire life, you're supposed to feed the Nara deer. You can buy packets of rice crackers for 150 yen. I did. This is the result:




I was...rather excited. As you can see, the Nara deer bow quite politely for their food. Which is the only polite thing about them. They're not exactly shy.

Once my rice crackers were all eaten, it was on to the Daibutsu.

The entrance:


The outside of Todaiji Temple, which houses the Daibutsu:


And a picture of the Daibutsu itself, which is not only pitifully blurry because of the poor lighting inside the temple, but also makes it look really small, when in actuality it is enormous.


And I managed to get the backs of people's heads in the picture too. Unfortunately this is the best shot I got. Sorry.

And that's day 3. If I had to pick my favorite day, this would be it.

Kyoto: Day 2

On the 21st of every month is the Toji Temple market, held on the grounds of Toji Temple in Kyoto. And luckily for us, the 21st was our second day of the trip. Here's the market entrance:

And here's just a small section of the inside:

There were stalls selling everything: vegetables, clothes, handicrafts, flowers. Sort of like a flea-market, but much cooler (in my opinion). All the stuff made it easy to spend the entire morning there, shopping and just looking around. After lunch, it was on to the Silver Pavilion.


Unfortunately, it was undergoing repairs. It's also not actually silver (as you may have noticed). This is because the guy who built it way back in the day died before the silver could be put on the outside. Anyway, it's in the middle of some very pretty grounds--which were very crowded, this being a major tourist weekend. I'm still not sure whether we walked through it or were herded, but it had a lot of nice autumn leaves and a beautiful view.


After that, we walked the path of philosophy.

It's a narrow path running beside a canal that passes by a lot of temples and shrines. I wish I could say I'm more philosophical or something having walked it, but I guess it's not magical; just pretty.

And the day ended with a rainbow:

Which meant that rain was coming, so we hurried to a bus stop and went back to the hostel.

Kyoto: Day 1

Okay, as you've probably already guessed, I didn't actually get a chance to blog while I was in Kyoto. Our days were so busy, and we did so much walking, that as soon as I got back to the hostel each night I collapsed into bed. Sorry, everyone! But never fear--you'll still get to see what I did. I'm going to recap each day here, complete with a few of the hundreds of photos I took. So without further ado: day one.

I caught the sonic train at 6:58 from my local station and transferred to the shinkansen at the closest major station. This was my first time on the bullet train, and I have to say I was impressed. It was spacious, comfortable, and of course super fast. I arrived at Kyoto Station a little before 11:00.

Kyoto Station is huge. I got all sorts of lost inside.

Then I met Jamie, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and started the trip with a bang. Our first stop: Kiyomizudera.

Out of the bajillion or so temples in Kyoto (that's a rough estimate), Kiyomizudera is one of the big ones, and was appropriately crowded by tourists. And it's pretty easy to see why--the place is gorgeous. And the best part was the view.

While we were there, we saw what at first we thought were actual maiko--geisha-in-training--but it turns out there's a tourist industry in Kyoto where girls pay to get dressed up as geisha and get their pictures taken around town, and these ones had a photographer in tow, so I think that's what they actually were. Still pretty, though:

.Kiyomizudera is in an area with a bunch of other temples, so Jamie and I followed the crowd through little streets lined with tourist shops, eventually ending up at Chion-in. This temple had a special thing going on for autumn--a "Light-up" where they put lights on certain areas of the temple grounds and...well, I'll show rather than tell.






Honestly, the pictures don't do it justice. (It didn't help that my camera's night setting was acting up.) The place was breath-taking, and I was lucky to come to Kyoto in autumn when the event was going on.

And that's all for day 1. Not bad, considering we didn't even get started until the afternoon. Stay tuned for days 2-4!