Next up on my trip to Japan was a visit to Kyoto. Kyoto [link] was at one time the capital of Japan and is still considered today to be the cultural capital of Japan. The guide book told us that to really see Kyoto, you should take 3-4 days. We had just 1 day to see it all !

My friend in Japan was to be our tour guide and he agonized over just what was “essential” to see in Kyoto. We settled on a very aggressive schedule with plans to see Take-no-Michi, Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji, Gion, Kiyomizu-dera, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Downtown Kyoto and Kyoto Station. We made it to each and everything we set out to but ended up walking so far that I had sweat thru my clothing at least twice .

First up was Take-no-Michi aka Bamboo Road, an amazingly scenic area, a single road that weaved it’s way through a forrest of bamboo that is so tall, I couldn’t even capture how tall it was. Just amazing and breath taking.

Next up was Ryoan-ji [link]. I was very interested in going to see Ryoan-ji because of the karesansui, or dry landscape garden. It’s a beautiful garden with raked rocks and 15 rocks arranged around the garden. It’s said that from anyone position, you can only see 14 of the rocks (which is true) and that only by obtaining enlightenment can you see all 15 at once. I of course am not enlightened so I saw only 14

We headed out for Kinkaku-ji next but along the way stumbled upon another sight that I was very interested in… Kaiten Sushi… or conveyor belt sushi. It was an amazing experience. The food moved all around us on a belt and we just grabbed what we wanted off the belt and when we were finished with the plate, we deposited it in a slot at the end of the table where it was counted toward our bill! I had a lot of thing, flounder nigiri, tuna nigiri and maki, shimp nigiri and even UNI… sea urchin. It was all so delicious!

Next we saw Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. You could not go inside it but the beauty of the building was overwhelming. It looked like a giant gold building sitting on the water. Absolutely amazing. From Kinkaku-ji we headed to Gion. We walked past the geisha houses, and restaurants and saw people dressed as Maiko (my friend from Japan was quick to point out that they weren’t real Geisha). The whole street was full of different style buildings and signs. It was almost too overwhelming.

From Gion, we moved on to Kiyomizu-dera [link]. It is a Buddhist temple located in Kyoto that held two points of interest for me, first is the stage… a very large stage that during the Edo period held a tradition that if you jumped off the stage and survived the 48 foot drop, your wish would be granted. Today people just take a tiny jump (really just a step) from the main floor to the stage… I did this but then tripped as I walked back up to the main floor of the temple! The second point of interest was the Otowa waterfall. The spring splits into three different streams and drinking from each is said to give you luck. One is for Marriage, one for Health and one for Knowledge. My friend from Japan told us that they believe that you should only drink from two of the three streams because to drink from all three would be greedy and your wishes would not be granted.

After we drank from the fountain at Kiyomizu-dera, we headed off to the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine [link]. A beautiful shrine that has thousands of Torri (Shinto Gates) that line a path up a mountain. It’s a breath taking sight. The shrine is a shrine for wealth and success in business, so all the Torri are provided by businesses. They are lined up one after another all the way up the mountain. The walk from Kiyomizu-dera to Fushimi Inari took quite some time up some pretty large hills and by the time we got there, it was dusk. This meant that we couldn’t take the hike up the mountain so we just walked through some of the lower paths and to be honest, the sheer number of gates so close together was striking and seeing them in the dark made them all that much more mysterious and mystical, so I guess getting there at dusk had it’s ups and downs.

I have to admit, as tired as you probably are reading this post, it was nothing compared to how wiped out I was from hiking around Kyoto! However we had one more stop left before heading back to Osaka… Kyoto Station [link]. Kyoto Station is owned by Japan Railways (JR), and it’s an enormous black onyx open air building that includes a 7 floor department store that sits on either side of a wide, open stair case which doubles as seats for the stage in the middle of the station floor. The night we were there, a high school band was playing and there were hundreds of people sitting on the stairs watching them play. We traversed quite a few escalators to reach the top of the station where we could see Kyoto laid out all around us on all sides, we even got a killer view of the Kyoto Tower! We stopped at a Cafe du Monde (yes the one from New Orleans) where we had an iced chicory coffee but no beignet as they don’t have them in Japanese Cafe du Mondes! We also went underground in the station to “Restaurant Town” and ate at a wonderful Katsu place!! After we were stuffed with breaded and fried pork, we headed back to Osaka to crash and prepare for our trip the next day to Hiroshima and Miyajima.