Kyoto to Tokyo
Trip Start
Oct 31, 2009
1
7
Trip End
Ongoing
Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Saturday, November 7, 2009
After staying the night at the fairly average, but not altogether unpleasant, hotel we had booked from Hiroshima, we left to find some accommodation for this, our second night in Kyoto. We had agreed to try and stay in a Ryokan guest house (the local-style accommodation mentioned in the previous post) to get a taste of Japanese living (albeit from a touristic point-of-view). We headed to the tourist office and were fortunate that their English was excellent. With their help we managed to book a Ryokan (that didn't have a too offensive price) with a shared bathroom that wasn't too far a walk from the train station.
After dropping off our bags at the guest house we decided to go for a non-guided walk. Non-guided in the sense that we were going to follow one of the suggested routes around Kyoto in the Lonely Planet. We decided to walk to the starting point of this route as we had already purchased metro day passes and, unfortunately, there was no metro station close to the starting point. In hindsight it would have been a far better idea to purchase the bus passes. Unbeknownst to us the metro system in Kyoto, which seems comprehensive, is good for covering larger distances (Kyoto was a bit bigger than we thought). However, relatively short distances were best covered by using the bus. As a result, we endured a 45 minute stroll from the Ryokan to the starting point of the walk. A good warm-up for the meandering we were about to do for the rest of the day.
Our first point was Kiyomizu-dera. It is a fairly large buddhist temple with quite a few buildings in its grounds. The original temple dates back to the 9th century but the current buildings were constructed in the 17th century. Interestingly not a single nail is used in the entire temple. The main hall has a huge decking area that has a great view of Kyoto. Several of the local women were dressed up in kimonos.
The grounds were teeming with tourists and amongst them were quite a few school students. We had a number of them come up to us to practise their English. Usually it was in groups of 5 or so. They had a list of questions they, I guess were required to ask. It was quite humourous. One of them would ask the questions, eventually get stuck, and one of the others would try and bail him out. It was the same sort of questions; what is your name? where are you from? what is your favourite japanese food? where have you visited in Japan? And would finish with one of them taking our picture with them. It was amusing to see them get embarrassed and chat amongst themselves in Japanese.
Underneath the main hall is a waterfall where three channels fall into a pond. Tourists (such as ourselves) line up and drink from cups on long sticks from these channels. Drinking water from these channels is supposed to bring wisdom, health and longevity. The jury is still out on that one.
Amongst the many shrines in the temple complex is the Jishu shrine. This has a pair of "love stones". You are supposed to walk from one stone to the other (they are 18 metres apart) with your eyes closed. If you make it (without being assisted) you are supposedly going to find true love. It's not as easy as it sounds.
After leaving the temple we walked around an area called Sannen-zaka. It has pretty streets lined with tea houses, old wooden houses and traditional shops and restaurants. We saw more local women dressed in kimonos and even one dressed as a geisha. We also saw a little dog dressed up in a little ninja outfit - throwing star and sword included!
We briefly stopped at Kodai-Ji temple (a small 17th century buddhist temple) before walking to Maruyama park. It is a very pleasant park, well kept with nice ponds and grounds, and its main attraction is a large weeping cherry tree. It was nice to see the many autmnal colours on the various trees but I'm sure the weeping cherry looks good in full blossom.
After the park we extended our walk and had a brief visit to Chion-in temple. It has an absolutely massive main gate called Sanmon, which is apparently a national treasure of Japan. From there we walked past Shoren-in temple and up to the most famous torii in Kyoto, in Japan in fact, as it is the biggest. At 24 metres high it stands in front of Heian Jingu shrine and is very impressive.
As it was getting dark by this stage, we decided to then head towards the Gion area to go 'geisha spotting'. We certainly weren't the only ones. As we headed off the main streets into the narrower and quieter side streets where, according to the guide book was the best places for spotting them, we were in luck. We spotted one crossing the road and walking to the specified area. We carried on and found plenty of other paparazzi (other tourists such as ourselves) with cameras at the ready hoping to catch a photo of one of these Japanese 'institutions'. We were in luck and managed to see several quickly come out of houses and into waiting (darkened window) cars that zipped them off to their respective clients rapidly. It all happened so quickly and I kind of felt sorry for them having to go through this every time they needed to go out to work.
SAT 7/11/09
On Saturday we headed out to the west of Kyoto to an area called Arashiyama where, according to the Lonely Planet, was a good sightseeing area. I'm glad I didn't cough up the 700 yen for the western breakfast offered by our guest house. A bit of a rip-off according to Maria who had it.
The journey on the train from Kyoto station was far briefer to Saga Arashiyama station was far briefer than we expected. There are however, four different train stations in Arashiyama. One for each of the four train lines than operate through the town. Weird.
We spent the next four hours walking around and following the guided route on one of the tourist pamphlets we picked up. Fortunately we had warm, sunny weather to wander around. As usual, sweaters and jackets were tied around our waists.
The first stop was at Tenru-Ji, a fairly major temple. Rather than pay the 600 yen to see the inside of the temple, we paid 500 yen to see and roam around the gardens. It seemed better value for money. At the top of the gardens is a bamboo jungle which is pretty cool.
Following the dotted route on our tourist map next led us to Jojakko-Ji, another temple, famous for its maple leaves and pagoda. Unfortunately we were a little early for the autumn colour changes on the leaves which would have looked even more colourful in a few weeks' time. Still, it was fairly scenic all the same. More steps here of course, which was a bit hard on our calf muscles from our climb of Miyajima. Although we managed to get a reasonable view of Kyoto from the upper part of the temple grounds. We skipped a few of the sites mentioned on the walk (due to our time constraints) in favour of the advice of the Lonely Planet to see Gio-Ji temple ('one of the two temples to see if you only have limited time'). That was advice we should have ignored. Hah, what a waste of 600 yen. There was one small building housing a few statues inside amidst a small (and very uninteresting) garden. The Takiguchi-Dera temple next door looked far more interesting, and a better, although more ominous, history (I'll let you Google it).
Unfortunately we didn't have enough time as we had to head back to the (correct) train station to get back to Kyoto and see the Imperial Palace before it got dark. On the way back to the station we detoured to a walk alongside the river where we saw another wedding, the groom and bride had just got out of one of the small boats.
Fortunately we got inside the Imperial Palace grounds without any trouble as there is a brief window allowing tourists in. Normally permission is granted to visit by filling out an application form in advance. There were masses of tourists filing about though, and not really a great deal to see. Mainly walls, gates and big doors which probably means something historically to the swathes of Japanese tourists that were flocking there taking pictures. However the palace gardens are very pretty (a feature not mentioned in the Lonely Planet), and the raked gravel brought back memories of various kung-fu and karate movies. The park that the palace is located in, which is supposed to be spectacular, was kind of average. We managed to take a quick subway journey to see Shirakawa Minami-Dori again in the daylight before rushing back to Kyoto station to catch the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.
