Kyoto: Day 2

I started the second day off walking towards Gion (Geisha district), my aim being to get to Nazenji Temple.  You walk through Gion, through the grounds of Yasaka shrine, and then if you play your cards right, you find Nazenji.

By now I've walked through Yasaka, and I'm walking through the grounds of another temple called Sorenji.

Now I'm walking through Chorakuji.  Lots of temples.

Next to the Chorakuji grounds is a private cemetery which I couldn't enter.   It was the most breathtaking cemetery I'd ever seen. I sat outside of it and just stared for a while.

 

When I was initially looking for places to visit on my laptop, I was on Google Maps and I saw this.  But there was no label as to what it was, so I mistook it for the biggest, strangest parking lot in the middle of nowhere that I'd ever seen.  So seeing it in person answered some questions.

All of these places have old fashioned fountains with bamboo ladles so you can wash your hands or get a drink.  This one was a bit more decked than the typical ones you'd see

By this time I was sure I must have reached Nazenji, because I knew it had a Sanmon (3 gates) structure.  But I was wrong.  This is Chion!  I actually came back to this spot a few times.  One time I even went back and sat in on a Shinto worship session.  A very enlightening 30 minutes, the monk's chanting was amazing.

The sanmon at Nazenji was about as big as this one too. You could go up on the balcony if you wanted!

Chion had some Rambo stairs.  They were pretty intense, not to mention steep.

The funny thing is that there was an alternate easier route to go up to the temple structure, RIGHT NEXT TO THESE STAIRS.  But I noticed that there's something called a path of worship.  You have to walk on a specific route in order to properly complete your worshiping. That's the best reason I can think of for why this poor elderly woman is climbing away.

There were a few structures that are closed for restoration.  This one at Chion had to be the largest structure being worked on.  I read that it will be finished sometime in 2019. They built a complete structure over it to protect it during restoration. Incredible!

I always stopped and admired when I saw this happen.  They either brace from below or hook up some support from above so that the branches don't break off from all the weight.

Have you been to the Pavilion Court?
"...what better place to court pavilions!"

This was a HUGE tree outside of Shoren-in.  See how that one branch in particular is braced from below AND above? Cool.

I really liked the rooftops.  I took a ton of roof pics, I'm not going to post them all though.

I found a brand of Bikes called Cabbage.  I've decided to name my bike Cabbage because of it.

Ah.  The master Shinto.  That thing is HUGE.  Look how big the cars are at it's feet.  It was close to the entrance to a Heian Shrine.  I never did get back there to the Heian Shrine, but I did walk up to this to see just how big it was. I ended up getting distracted with the Kyoto zoo.

I wondered what kinds of differences I'd see in another country's zoo, and I happened to be passing by.  Hmm the notable differences are the enclosure sizes (way too small), and how close the animals were to us (I was 2-3 ft away from this guy.)

And may I just say that seeing a baboon in real life is more terrifying than any insect, snake, or any other scary animal?  This guy scared me to death, and he wasn't even screaming or anything. 

I felt like the animals had pretty crappy enclosures, especially the elephant.  Poor guy.  He seemed pretty happy when I took this photo.  I got to see some animals I'd never seen in real life before, but all in all I was pretty depressed with the conditions I saw at the zoo.

There was a really strange statue next to the zoo.  I'd like to figure out what the heck it is portraying.

AH! NAZENJI!!!

I loved the moss covered grounds.  I think moss is beautiful.

Nazenji had one of it's structures getting restored too.

I decided to climb the balcony on the gate at Nazenji.  The stairs were very steep, you had to take your shoes off, but it was amazing!

I got to checkout the tiles.  I thought they were so cool.

The gates still have their bells attached!

Nazenji was initially a palace before it was donated to be a temple, so it had a palace you could pay to wander in.  This is one of it's rock gardens.  Honestly I think it's ten times cooler in real life.  The nature throughout the palace was a work of art.

You didn't have shoes on, you could drink all the green tea you wished, and you could sit down and relax in an amazing, beautiful, ancient palace.  There were barely any people checking it out, so I had a lot of it to myself.  It was awesome.

I love these porches. LOVED THEM!!!

Nazenji and Eikando temples had my favorite gardens to wander through.

Nazenji also has an aqueduct that is still used regularly.  COOL!

Heeeellllu.

I wandered.  All over the place.  I found my way up to the top of the aqueduct.  You could walk all along the top of it actually.  They trust people to be respectful, and it seems to work out nicely.

This was the monk-emperor's personal palace garden. It was gorgeous of course.  They said that part of that emperor's ashes were buried in a small shrine in the forest somewhere beyond this garden.

K so I was checking out a baby pagoda I saw poking it's head out of the forest canopy, when I saw this tourist person walking towards the pagoda from this path.  And I'm all for mountain paths, so I decided to check it out.

Turns out it let to a spot where you could see part of the emperor's shrine.  HOW INSANE IS THAT.  (Jack, I was listening to lots of music while exploring.  I swear on my life that 5 seconds before I spotted this, music from Skyrim came on.  I felt like I'd just entered a Skyrim game or something ha ha ha.  Doesn't this photo just look like it could be out of that game?)  It was a cool moment for me.

Don't the Nazenji gates just LOOM?  So huge.  Cool.

Eikando!!! I LOOOOOOVED Eikando.  It's my dream home. Funnily enough I hadn't planned on going there at all.  I was walking to a place called the Philosopher's Path, when I happened to see a cute little path.  I randomly decided to wander for a bit, and it let me to Eikando. Eikando has an awesome story to it. Not to mention it had some beautiful architecture.

So Eikando Zenrinji is where the Amida Buddha statue is kept.  I did lots of reading about the Amida Buddha, and it's a cool little tale about Buddhism and religion and such.

I had so much fun wandering (shoes off still) throughout the temple.

I've never seen a goldfish that actually looked GOLD before.

This used to be the messenger gate.

Did I mention how much fun I had wandering about?

The floors were so smooth.  They aren't waxed, but you weren't worried about splinters or anything either.

I found another baby pagoda, and it had an awesome view.

I was exhausted by now, but I'd taken so many detours from my original destination, that I was DETERMINED to get to that blasted Philosopher's Path.  It did not disappoint.

It's funny, the first thing I thought of when I started walking along it was, "This reminds me of that path Tasha gets to walk by near her house."

The path is right up next to the mountains.  If you look away from the mountains, you can see a mausoleum that holds one of the previous emperors.

The path was not a place with shops or anything.  It was completely quiet and nice.  Near the beginning though, there was a quiet tea house that had this weird carriage suspended outside it, with all these cats just chilling.  How interesting.

By the time I got back to Yasaka Shrine, the lanterns were getting lit up.

Here I am exiting the Shrine area, opening up to Shijo street.

This is Teramachi, where they have tons of little shops with clothes, gifts, and food. Once 8pm rolls around, shops close up pretty quickly.  How strange is that?

Do they have these in America?  Like an ice cream cone sandwich.  LOVED IT.

Walking back to my hotel.

Kyoto: Day 1

I made it back, and I'm SO happy I got to go!!  Kyoto was an amazing experience.  If my feet hadn't given out I would've stuck around for another day.  I know I'll be going back again eventually for the flee market at Toji temple, some of the sights on the Western side, and a quick trip to Osaka and Takarazuka.

ANYWHO.  My awesome fun trip! There was LOTS of walking & hiking, lots of sitting still and admiring the surroundings & history, and lots of detouring off the route I'd planned for that day...just for the heck of it.

I started wandering the minute I arrived in Kyoto, actually.  That's how quickly my fear disappeared.  Everything was easy to navigate, and I only used my phone during the first day of my trip.

I had made plans to visit sights that were relatively close to each other, in North Eastern Kyoto.  But there was one place in particular that I reeeeeaaaalllly wanted to see, but it was in South Kyoto.  And now that I was there, not worried about getting lost anymore, I told myself I might as well, right?

I took a train south to the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. I think it's one of the 2 shrines in Kyoto that most people would recognize. Fushimi Inari Taisha is a Shinto shrine.  Shinto 神道 translates to Way of God(s).  The Shinto religion is REALLY old, and is Japan's traditional religion.

You walk half a block from the train station and poof.  The entrance to the shrine appears.
Don't worry, you'll recognize it in a minute.

Here is the main entrance gate to Fushimi Inari Taisha.  The shrine property is pretty huge.
The Deity of Fushimi Inari Taisha is Inari, God of Business & Rice.

This shrine has lots and lots of dog statues.  They have something to do with this shrine's deity I'm guessing.
*Edit: They are actually foxes.  Foxes were regarded as messengers.

All of the temples/shrines I went to had ways you could leave a prayer or wish.  You can leave this style of wish only at the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine.  They're foxes. You can draw on the front and write your wish/prayer on the back.  I think it was like 300 yen or something?

You can also pay 100 yen to reach your hand into a box and pick out a small fortune.  If it's good, you keep it in your wallet.  If it's bad, you tie it up on one of the railings here, and the shrine will keep the bad luck from getting to you.

I find it funny because for the smallest moment I was worried I wouldn't be able to find the path of toriis. Turns out it's IMPOSSIBLE to miss.  There must've been a few thousand of them all over Mount Inari.

Foooouuund them.
Each torii was donated by separate businesses.

 The pathway takes you on a trek up the mountain.  I'm glad I randomly decided to do this on the first day.  It was a great hike. I was completely awe-struck.

Higashi forest.  So pretty!!!

If you were walking towards me in this shot, you'd be able to see the writings on each torii.

There were lots of places to stop and rest, or stop and worship on the trek upwards.  I watched lots of people do this, but I didn't do it.  I'd love to find out the meaning behind the steps of worship and more about the religion.

For the first little bit I was kinda bummed, because I thought they had replaced the old toris with newer plastic ones.  I was happy to be wrong.  They are indeed wood, and are replaced all the time.  This one is set to be replaced soon.

Here's what the inside of the black part of the pillars looks like.

This is near the bottom of the path. I know I haven't mentioned it yet, but has anyone seen Memoirs of a Geisha?

On my way up, I was passing yet another group of shrines you could pray at, when I heard a meow.  I'm not kidding, this cat was saying hi to me.

There were so many.  It was surreal.  It's a beautiful place!

There were lots and LOTS of caterpillars crawling everywhere.  That time of the year I suppose.

 From reading about it, I'd thought there would be just one little row of toriis to walk through.  It turned out to be a very long series of paths up the mountain, with a few shrines you could stop and worship at on the way

So many.  Sometimes I wondered if they also included graves too.  I still don't quite know.
*Edit: No graves.  Purely deity worship.

This is a cemetery at a nearby temple, so it makes me think that Fushimi Inari Taisha didn't have graves.

I made it to the top, but didn't take photos.  There were a couple things I decided to keep to myself :-)

I'm not sure what is written on the toriis.  I recently learned that when you pass through a torii, you are leaving the profane part of the world and entering a sacred place. If I had known that while I was on the hike, I'd have been intimidated by walking under so many of them!
 

My legs started trembling pretty bad on my way down.  I had to keep moving, because they trembled worse when I stood still.  The weird thing is, it wasn't because they were tired.  I'd hiked with Hillary on a mountain 10 times harder than this, and my legs didn't tremble at all on that one.  I think it had something to do with the overwhelming newness factor or something.  Because I wasn't tired.  It was a strange feeling.

If I had to use one word to describe my whole trip, it'd be BEAUTIFUL.

 Found this interesting frog shrine area on my way down.  CUTE!

Before going to check out my hotel, I spied a shrine atop a far off mountain.  How COOL is that.

End of my day 1 photos.  I rode the train back up to Shijo street (which is where you'd go if you wanted to by ridiculously expensive stuff), near my hotel. There are some streets just off of Shijo that are good to shop at, and a cool farmers market as well. I ate some sort of sweet potato carrot concoction from one of the little food stalls for dinner. I also went to a Takoyaki place.  This was a new experience and a silly blunder for me.  What you do is you put your money in and then push a button for what you want to order.  A ticket prints out and you give it to the cook so they can get started.  Well, the buttons had no pictures and I was getting nervous so I just pushed one quickly.  Turns out I pushed the freakin "Jumbo Takoyaki" button.  I walked away with 3 giant boxes of Takoyaki.  I was full after one box (each box has 6 bites in it.)  Lesson learned.

I loved the whole sleeping in a pod experience.  I'd only change 1 thing, and that would be the pillows.  They're like sand bags.  You can also hear ALL the sounds the other lodgers make, but that never bothered me because I had headphones in all night.  I felt bad for them actually, because I tend to roll around in my sleep. It was so quiet, I'm pretty sure they heard my pencil as I wrote.  My pod was so comfortable.  You could stretch without being cramped, and it was dark in the pod room, no matter what time of day.  They gave you a yukata to sleep in, towels, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, soap, slippers, everything!  I would definitely look for another one of those again.  SUPER cheap and a great location.