Japan trip: Part IV - Kyoto

Time: 14.03.2015-05.04.2015
Three words about Kyoto: Temples, traditions, geisha
With Kyoto I have the biggest problems because I lost the notes I made about it. Should not trust technology so much.. but I'll try to recall as much as I can. Thank Gyoza, that Yanne sent me 30 pages to print out about plans that she wrote. In addition, this might be one of the longest posts about the trip...

22.03.2015
We arrived at Kyoto around 6 am and we spent hours finding a place that would be opened for breakfast. After walking in circles for 3 times around the station we found one place that had curry - the best thing for breakfast. As we were not able to go immediately to the place where we were supposed to sleep, we put our things into lockers -  they are one of the most convenient things while travelling - they are rather cheap and help you a lot. Though seeing signs "Do not leave dead bodies/ human body parts into the locker!" is rather creepy.

We went off to discover the beauty of Kyoto's temples. This is the part of the day were I could mess up the order of places we went to because we visited so many temples that all places are mixed up in my head. Some smaller temples and shrines I already managed to forget entirely.
We used a lot of public transport and especially buses, because all Kyoto is covered by it and the day ticket is not expensive - almost the only place where transport was cheap.

We decided to go straight to Kiyomizudera-Gion area. Once we got off from the bus we actually managed to go a bit wrong and instead of going straight to Kiyomizudera we visited few other temples which names I could not find anywhere and took photos of Jishujinja shrine without knowing it. Kiyomizudera temple was one of the most stunning temples for me. It lies on a big area, is really huge and has stunning views. Even though, half of the temple was under constructions and sakuras did not bloom there so beautifully yet I still really liked it.
On the grounds of Kiyomizudera is the Otowa Waterfall. Its water is divided into three separate streams and there is a belief for every stream that drinking from it either causes longevity, success at school and brings fortune at love life. But be sure to not drink from all three because that is considered greedy and might bring bad luck. Most of us wanted to go drink also, but the waiting line for it was at least one hour, so we decided to move on. We also visited Nishi Otani cemetery that is one of two oldest cemeteries in Kyoto.

We walked on Higashiyama district that connects Kiyomizudera and Gion and maybe it was also the moment when we visited Gion area overall. Gion is really famous geisha district and we managed to see real geikos and maikos and also fake ones. How do we know that it was a fake one? well - she was European model. In Kyoto this is definitely the place to see the old traditional side of Japan.
We continued our walk to Ryozen Kannon temple, that has one of the biggest Bodhisttva Avalokitesvara (Kannon) statues in Japan. It is a war memorial temple commemorating the war dead of the Pacific war. The statue of Kannon is 24 meters (80 ft) high, so you can already see it from a far. We passed Kodaiji temple and walked in small bamboo grove that was outside of the temple grounds and took us to the mausoleum for Hideyoshi and Nene. Kodaiji temple was established by Nene after the death of Hideyoshi. The temple rally continued with Chionin Temple which is one of the most important Buddhism temples in Japan. It has the biggest Sanmon, colossal main gate, and the largest temple bell. USA-Japan collaboration movie "Last samurai" one scene was filmed on the stairs from Sanmon. Sadly big part of the temple was also under constructions, so we managed to see only some of it.

Our tour continued with Shiorenin temple where we actually made a stop to finally sit and rest our legs. We just saw a glimpse of it outside because our legs were still sore from climbing Mt. Tenjo the other day and now walking all day long. After we had gathered enough energy, we walked to Heian shrine. I must say that in reality they all are rather close to each other, so walking is the best option, but we just had already rather long day behind us. Heian Shrine was build in 1895, so this year it became 120 years old. Sadly we did not manage to visit the garden behind the shrine that is said to have most of Heian's beauty. But we did manage to see more geishas who were surrounded by enormous group of people taking photos. There have been many complaints about this subject, so when you see one geisha then please remember to act politely and do not stop them for hundreds of photos - their job is not to be models for tourists.

The time had passed already into evening so we had to go back to the station to collect our bags and drive 35 minutes back to north to find the place where we were supposed to spend the night. We found it again via Couchsurfing, but it was more like a Sharehouse. The name of the place was Factory. It is basically on the bank of Kamo river. The owners were really cool guys and it was perfect environment for artistic people. They played guitar and piano, there was art on the walls, one of them studied philosophy and they liked Beatles and European classic literature. Even though the rooms were really messy, it was really enjoyable for me and Yanne to stay there. Yanne spent most of the evenings talking to them. I wish I could meet them again. I even started to think about going to Kyoto University of Art and Design and start living with them, thank Gyoza that I came to my senses after leaving Kyoto.

23.03.2015
We started our day with a walk to the Imperial residents in Kyoto. There we saw basically nothing because everything is surrounded with big and high walls that do not allow you to see inside. Nice thing was that sakura's were starting to bloom so there were some trees already totally pink.
We walked around the area and managed to find one big store that sold all kind of things, so I finally got new batteries to my camera and I could take good photos again. All of the day was cold and from time to time it rained a little bit. For a moment there was also a threat of thunderstorm. We spent a lot of time near to Kamo river, crossing it from weird places and eating our breakfast/lunch kind of thing bought from Lawson on the riverside.

We decided to find Nijo castle that has nightingale floors and stunning paintings. Nightingale floors are floors that make a chirping sound when you walk on it. Nijo castle is one of the best examples of it. They serve the security purpose, so with creaking sound people will know that there is an intruder. Actually Chionin temple has also nightingale floors. In Nijo-castle it is not allowed to film or take photos, though sometimes you just happen to notice later that the camera around your neck had been filming all the time - wish I could say it wasn't me. The paintings there are currently being restored. The ones we managed to see were astonishing - really detailed with great colors and gold.

Already the gates to the Nijo castle are one of a kind thing to see - it is almost totally restored to its original colors, making it one of the most colorful gates. In Nijo castle there are more buildings and despite being in the center of Kyoto, the area is rather huge.
I bet all of you know that in Japan it gets dark really fast so by the time we finished with Nijo it already started to be the time where you have to say goodbye to the sun.

We wandered around Shinkyogoku-Teramachi and Shirakawa. Teramachi and Shinkyogoku are popular shopping streets in Kyoto downtown. Near to them is also Nishiki market that is really famous for its goods. Sadly by that time most of the selling-points in Nishiki market were already closed. It was interesting area as the streets are rather small and crowded. Walking in these streets we managed to see many things including Minami-za theather that is one of the most famous kabuki theaters in Japan. We had a plan to go watch one kabuki performance, but because we had one less day due to Kawaguchiko-Kyoto bus, then we had to exclude it from our plans. Shirakawa area runs down the Shirakawa Canal and we saw a lot of night life there. So many young people everywhere. The Shirakawa Canal is lined by willow trees that make the scenery magical during the night.

As the last place we visited  Gion shrine, also known as Yasaka shrine. I do not even know why we did not visit is the day before. We had walked by it several times and passed by it with the bus, but we were waiting for a moment like that night. As the sun had set and the shrine was illuminated with lamps. Yasaka shrine is huge and contains many many different small temples. There is a temple almost for anything. For some reason, most of us ran to the temple of love to get blessing and good luck in love life. Hmm.. until now nobody of them has received that luck.. Maybe it just takes more time. But I was fascinated by the statues - there was one temple where the guards were really angry looking kitsune (fox) behind the ware-box. In the temple dedicated to the God of Horse were big life-sized statues of horses. During the night everything looked really spooky and stunning at the same time.
We decided to end our day after Yasaka shrine, because the clock was really late and we thought that we should spend a bit time with people in the Factory too, where we spent another night. It was night full of long talks and self-made pear liqueur.

24.03.2015
With 3rd day in Kyoto we knew that we have to go and see the Golden temple (Kinkaku-ji). The day before we already heard from the locals that in reality it is just a temple that is golden and nothing more and to be honest then that's exactly what it is - just a golden temple. It was filled with tourists taking photos that you can find from every calendar about Japan or if just google it. It was actually really difficult to take photo of it without any people standing in front of you.  Of course it is beautiful, but you can just walk around it and the garden is not so interesting. We visited many different small temples that in the end started to look all the same to me.

We took our trip to Arashiyama bamboo forest. Despite seeing awesome photos online, I was a little bit disappointed by the real thing. Also, we did not have any luck with the weather so it was mostly raining and really cold, which also caused my photos to turn out soulless weird colored mess. I believe that on a sunny day it would be nice to walk around Arashiyama, but this day it was too freezing (says person who is having a summer at 14 degrees today) .   Arashiyama area is situated in the Western Kyoto on the banks of Oi river.

Because the day was cold - I do not get enough of mentioning it - we took a bus to the other side of Kyoto to get warm. We decided to visit Ginkaku-ji temple also known as Silver Pavilion in the East Kyoto. We thought of visiting it the next day, because we had plans to spend more time in Arashiyama, but the plans changed all the time. I liked the Silver Pavilion more than Golden temple, even though the Silver Pavilion has nothing to do with silver and has never been covered with it, it was still much more interesting. Mostly because it had amazing sand- and moss-garden. I am a big fan of Japanese gardens so it was more than awesome place for me.

We also went for a walk on Philosophy path and searched the Honen-in temple. The weather had actually got warmer, so it was okey again to walk for a longer period. My thoughts about Philosophy path.. hmm, it is a path next to a canal. Well it was okey, but I do not imagine myself there clearing out my head with all the houses and people surrounding me. Though when we went off the path, more up to the mountain then we found some really cool places. In addition we finally found Honen-in temple that looked almost forgotten by everyone, because we were the only people there.

Once again the clock was already showing evening time and we had to start going back to our sleeping place. This night we did not sleep in the Factory, but we spent night at one young student's apartment. He was studying law and you could actually notice from the way he acted and talked that he was actually son from a rich family, so called "young master". He was really great and interesting person with a wide horizon. He was the host with whom Chris felt most comfortable with. We also went to the bath house! The traditional Japanese bath house and this experience was totally awesome. If you think that bath house is just a place where you go, get naked and wash yourself and go home again, then it is not correct. Bathhouse can contain also different baths - this one had warm bath, totally hot bath and then reaaallly cold bath, in addition they had a sauna. It is also a place were people come to communicate. There were so many women coming, already knowing each other and talking about their everyday things. I liked the place, even though it was kind of weird to actually see that the place was like taken out of manga - the entrance and the "changing room" are separated only with a curtain, the wall between females and males is incomplete as there is around 1 meter free space from the wall top to the ceiling, so you can hear everything. Of course, as we already had gotten used to it, there were also people interested in how and why we were there. I just love Japanese people.

25.03.2015 
After nice waking up, we went to eat breakfast. I actually do not remember anymore what we ate, but I think maybe gyudon. I think you have noticed that I have hardly mentioned any food during the previous days - most of the time we bought something from Lawson or 7Eleven and ate it. After finishing the breakfast and saying goodbye to our host, we took our bags, rode to the station and once again put everything into the coin-lockers - gyoza how I miss them now. The plan of the day was to arrive to Osaka by the evening. It is around 25-30 minutes ride with a train from Kyoto to Osaka.

So at first we rode to South-East part of Kyoto where the Fushimi-Inari Taisha is. The place is famous for its thousands of torii gates. To hike all the way up the mountain and back takes around 2-3 hours, but I must say that we dropped this plan after spending 1,5 hours hiking up and covering just 1/3 of the distance. In addition to torii gates, there are thousands of kitsune statues as fox are believed to be Inari's messengers. Inari is Shinto God of Rice and obviously this shrine is dedicated to Inari.

It is definitely one of the must-visit places, but also be careful when you go there. I managed to lose my people again and I ended up wandering around for good 15 minutes hoping that they had taken the same path. Even though there seems to be one big rode up, there are actually many places where to go. When we were descending from the mountain we pumped into Yanne's friend from Sendai who was showing Kyoto to his friends. Neither of them knew that the other is in Kyoto and visiting Fushimi-Inari Taisha the same day. You might think that the world is big and there are so many people, but life still makes you see the same faces :)

After spending already half of the day there, we rode back to the station, bought tickets to Osaka and waved good-bye to the most beautiful city we visited in Japan. It is weird to think that even though we visited so many temples and shrines, there were more temples and shrines left that we did not have time to visit. But my trip in Japan continues with next post already in Osaka!