We have spent the past week in Kyoto and not even scratched the surface of visiting the temples and shrines. Makes sense since there are over 2,000 of them throughout the city!
One of the more memorable ones we visited was Fushimi Inari Taisha which is famous for its thousands of bright orange torii gates that look like a big tunnel going up the mountain. There are supposed to be more than 10,000 of them (lost track after the first couple 100 so I believe it!), and the walk to the summit took us at least a couple of hours… with more than a few stops along the way…
but it was very cool.
… and there was the Kiyomizu-dera Temple which is famous for this enormous wooden veranda which juts out almost 50 feet over the hillside. It is a UNESCO world heritage site that was built in the early 1600s using a traditional Japanese technique that doesn’t use nails! Guess it would have failed by now if it was going to !
I sent Tom out to see if it felt sturdy, and he gave it the thumbs up, but it sure looked like it was leaning a bit…
Then there was the Koyasu temple which literally means “safe/easy childbirth.” The pagoda is dedicated to pregnancy and safe delivery, and for centuries, pregnant women and families came there to pray for healthy and easy deliveries.…
We also did some exploring through the back streets of Kyoto which are very quaint…
Tom found a local source for … wait for it… toe socks! They are very popular in Japan and they had walls of them so he instantly felt like a local… until he realized that they did not carry his size 😩
also found the “camel toe” socks which they like to wear with flip flops… 🤔
Stopped into a Geisha museum, watched a performance, and got some makeup tips…
Then there was the To-ji temple which is one of Kyoto’s oldest and most historically important Buddhist temples, and is the tallest wooden pagado in Japan. It was founded in 796 AD (rebuilt more than few times due to fire), two years after Kyoto became Japan’s imperial capital.
As a special treat, we got to see it with Tina (one of our new turtle travel club friends). Her son lives outside of Kyoto and she was there visiting with him, so she took the train in to meet us. We had a great day with her!
We checked out “philosophers path”…
If we had visited in the spring (but we didn’t), it would have looked like this…
and if we had visited in the fall (but we didn’t) it would have looked like this…
We opted for the smaller crowds and used our imaginations instead…. 🤣
It was still beautiful and very peaceful…
… and there were more beautiful temples to stop at along the way…
Today was our last day to explore Kyoto, so we took a full day bike tour to see another part of the city. No surprise, more temples…
But Kinkaku-ji is probably Kyoto’s most instantly recognizable temple. The top 2 floors are covered in gold leaf, and it reflects in the lake on a sunny day. The site originally belonged to a wealthy aristocrat, but in the late 1300s it became the retirement villa of a shogun (pretty swanky retirement digs), and it was later converted to a Zen Buddhist temple.
… and finally we stopped in the famous bamboo forest which was planted to prevent landslides after natural disasters like earthquakes and floods.
We had a great local guide (originally from Pakistan haha!), and he made it a lot of fun…
We’ve had a great week here in Kyoto exploring (getting lost more than once in the train stations), but tomorrow we head further north to Kanazawa. It should be a real change of scenery from what we have seen so far.