We had another early start to our day – we met up with our group at 7am and checked out of our hotel. We were leaving Hiroshima and heading to Kyoto by train today. We had a quick breakfast at the train station before boarding the bullet train for the two-hour ride. The bullet trains are quick, clean, and smooth. We have been sitting in the “quiet” cars during our journey, so there isn't much noise during the ride either.
We arrived early in Kyoto, and were able to find our hotel rather quickly as it was very close to the train station. It was too early to check into the hotel, so we dropped off our luggage and ventured out for the day.
Our tour guide did his best to help us navigate the enormous train station. He said he has had people in previous tours get lost in the train station, so he pointed out a few key landmarks to help prevent any of us from losing our way before leading us to the public bus. We took the bus to Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) home of 10,000 Torii gates. We were impressed by how beautiful all of the Torii gates were! Any New Yorker would recognize the design quite easily as Central Park had an art exhibit (Cristoph's “The Gates”) a few years ago that was inspired by the Torii gates in Kiyoto. We spent about two and one-half hours walking through all of the magnificent gates (and up and down the extensive walkways).
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| The main Shrine entrance to Fushimi Inari Taisha. |
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| A look down one of the many paths lined with Torii gates. |
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| A view of downtown Kyoto from the mountain. |
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| Erin and James pose in front of some of the Fushimi Inari Taisha Torii gates. |
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| It's no mirror image - here are two separate paths lined with Torii gates. |
By the time we finished touring the torii gates, we were starving! We jumped back on the bus and headed back to the train station. Our tour guide took us to a large Japanese food court at the very top of the train station. We had to climb up several flights of stairs before we arrived, which made us even more hungry! When we arrived at the food court, we found it difficult to read the menus and order. The ordering system was all done by pushing vending machine buttons. Once you ordered, you could find a seat and wait. Because it was nearly impossible to read the Japanese writing, everyone in our group opted to take the safe route, and eat at a burger joint.
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| The Skywalk in Kyoto's train station. |
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| The view of downtown Kyoto from the Skywalk. |
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| A festive french-fry case and Japanese-style, Western-inspired hotdog. |
After lunch we took the public bus to explore the Kiyomizu Dera Temple. The temple was up on a hill and was beautiful. In Kiyoto, the fall colors are in full bloom, so it was amazing to see the temple with the gorgeous foliage behind it. During our walk through the temple, we participated in two rituals specific to the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple: the love-stone walk, and sampling the sacred water. In order to complete the love-stone walk, two lovers must blindly walk towards each other from each stone – if the two meet up in the middle, their love was meant to be. (Luckily, we successfully met up in the middle). We also sampled the sacred water together. We had the option to sample two of the three sacred waters: one for longevity, one fore prosperity, and one for wisdom. Unfortunately, we weren't sure which water was which – but, we both sampled two of them!
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| James demonstrating the chill high atop Kiyomizu Dera's grounds. |
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| Tabitha poses before the Kiyomizu Dera Temple. |
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| Erin smiles along a Kiyomizu Dera pathway. |
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| Erin and James (behind the column) recieving...wisdom (maybe)? |
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| A lovely view of a Kiyomizu Dera sitting area. |
After we finished wandering through the temple, we walked through the Gion or Geisha district of Kyoto. This part of the city is immaculate. There are tea shops throughout and plenty of restaurants and shops along the way. Our tour guide explained more about the process of becoming a Geisha and about the type of work the women actually did. We had the opportunity to go to a tea shop for an appointment with one, but the cost was ridiculously high, so no one in our group opted to go.
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| James poses with a couple in traditional Japanese dress. Ironically, this was a Taiwanese couple that had paid to dress "Japanese" for the day. |
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| A distinctive temple in the Gion district. |
After spending about 5 days in Japan, we finally enjoyed our first real, "full" sushi dinner. We ate our dinner at a sushi train restaurant – basically, the sushi is freshly made and is put on a conveyer belt that goes around the restaurant and you select whichever type of food you desire (they had more than just sushi available). It was quite fun, and luckily, reasonably priced as well.
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| The sushi conveyor passing by our table. |
Once our dinner was finished, we walked through some of the shopping areas before catching the local bus back to our hotel. We were exhausted and definitely ready for a good night's sleep.
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| Erin and Tabitha pose with a number of Japanese Santas - and a Pokemon? |
