I started off the day with a visit to Fushimi Inari-taisha (or Fushimi Inari shrine), popular as a tourist attraction because of its many (many) otorii gates. In fact, the train station just outside the shrine has a unique custom design based on otorii gates! I personally loved the simplicity and elegance of the otorii gates...well I definitely got my fill here haha. The shrine grounds are actually quite large, with many hiking paths leading to smaller shrines and graveyards up along the mountain (as the main shrine sits at the foot of Inari-yama)...I didn't keep track of how many I saw. Being one who likes to explore every nook and cranny if possible (and with no time constraints like yesterday), I decided to walk every otorii gate-covered path (there were a lot) and I ended up exploring the entire shrine grounds. I later found out all the paths spanned over 4km. With all the uphill paths, it took my over 90 minutes to walk the entire area (there are so many uphill paths that I actually saw a few Japanese men doing cardio training there). Despite being easy walks (because they were all proper stone steps), I was sweating more than expected when I got to the highest shrine (drenched in sweat actually)...I feel sorry for the family members who have their relatives remembered at the shrines and graveyards near the top - it probably takes a lot of commitment and love to make regular visits haha. But I'll let the pictures do the talking for me...keep in mind I've already tried to stress the number of otorii gates the shrine has.
At the entrance to Fushimi Inari shrine. The great thing about it, no admission charge (you can easily end up spending quite a lot temple hopping in Kyoto on just admission fees)!
On the main shrine grounds. The fox is considered the messenger of Inari.
The walk to the other smaller shrines begins...
After the first stretch of otorii gates, you get to a junction of rare design - 2 otorii gate paths directly next to one another (if you show this picture to most Japanese, they'll know it's at Fushimi Inari shrine)! They both exit at the same spot too, they just take different winding paths. I decided to take the one of the left side (the second photo is from when I got near the end of the path).
At the end of the 2 paths, there was a smaller shrine area. Of greatest interest to me was the 2 rocks known as omokaruishi - it's in the photo, but they're basically rocks that are believe to be a different weight for each person - if it's light when you try to lift it, your wish will come true...it wasn't too light for me haha.
Going deeper into the shrine grounds, up along the mountainside, so at some points there were great views of Kyoto.
At one of the many shrines, almost near the highest point of the grounds, watching some people pray.
Heading back down along another path...have you seen enough otorii gates yet?
Almost back at the main shrine. The first photo is of a Korean-styled shrine I walked by on the way back down (which is obviously not a common sight in Japan).
From the southeast corner of Kyoto at Inari, I hopped back on the JR train (obviously beats riding the slower buses anytime) across the city to the west corner of Kyoto in an area known as Arashiyama (at the foot of the mountain Arashiyama). I had no initial intention on going there, but based on a recommendation from a traveller I met at the hostel (who I had also seen at the hostel in Osaka), I decided to check it out. My first stop was the designated UNESCO World Heritage Site Tenryu-ji Zen temple. There was a fee to get into the main temple building, and a fee to the adjoining Sogenchi Garden. Since I was on a budget, I decided the garden would be of greater interest - it's supposed to be one of the oldest landscape gardens in Japan. I think I made the right choice:
At the entrance to Tenryu-ji.
Along the path up to the main temple building.
In front of the admission gate area.
The main temple building.
From inside Sogenchi Garden. The main attraction is the placement of the rock formations in the pond (shown in the first 2 photos). The 5th photo is from outside the bathroom in the garden...they really know how to squeeze every penny out of you haha.
After exploring the entire garden (yeah I think it's apparent I like to get my money's worth haha), which didn't take much time, I wandered into the adjacent Sagano bamboo grove/forest - think the bamboo grove scene from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". I've never been in a bamboo grove before, so that was interesting. The bamboo were so dense and grew so tall that there was very little ambient light. From the path through the bamboo grove, I wandered into Kameyama-koen (or Kameyama Park). An tourist attraction of Agashiyama is the Iwatayama Monkey Park, where tourists get to see wild monkeys. I had been told and had read that it was also possible to encounter wild monkeys in the hiking trails of Kameyama-koen, and there was a fee to get into the monkey park, so I decided to give Kameyama-koen a shot. Well I worked my way up the slopes and even off onto an unmarked dirt trail in the wooded area, thinking I'd have a better chance of seeing a monkey, after 15 minutes up the path of no sightings, I turned back around (I wasn't dressed for hiking, and I had more of Kyoto that I wanted to see). So, no monkeys for me, but the views were pretty nice.
Through the Sagano bamboo grove.
At Kameyama-koen. The first photo is from a viewpoint overlooking Katsura-gawa (Katsura River)...can you spot the lone tiny temple on the mountainside? Well there's a close-up in the 3rd photo haha.
Working my way back to the train station. I passed by Nonomiya-jinja shrine (first photo) and stopped briefly to try green tea-chocolate mix soft serve ice cream (actually quite delicious and not too sweet).
Back at Kyoto station, I caught the bus to revisit the Higashiyama district to see some of the temples I missed the first time. My first stop was Chion-in, another famous temple in Kyoto, since it is the head temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism. It even made an appearance in "The Last Samurai." The temple grounds were very large...I probably spent 30-60 minutes looking around. And the best part? The temple was free (minus one small area I had no intention of visiting)! From there, I walked the street up to the entrance of Heian-jinja, famous for its very large otorii gate hovering over the main road.
The San-mon (the main gate) of Chion-ion...there were many steep steps...
See I told you.
On the main temple grounds. The third photo is of the inside of the main hall that I took from the outside walkway (you're not supposed to take photos of the inside, but it's for my own personal memories). You can see the monks performing daily chores, like cleaning the outside of the temple buildings, in the fourth photo.
Exploring deeper into the temple ground. Again, lots of steep stairs. There was a lone monk meditating in the little building (shown in the third photo), tapping a bowl (you can see them in the photo) at perfect regular intervals, and since I didn't want to disturb him, I didn't explore further from that point. You can catch a glimpse of the end of his robe to the left of the doorway.
Some more photos as I was leaving the temple grounds. I spent a minute watching that preying mantis slowly make it's way up to the top of the sign haha (it's looking at me in the photo!).
The giant otorii gate at the entrance to Heian-jinja.
Everything happens for a reason. It just so happened that this Friday was the 25th, and on the 25th of every month, the Tenjin-san flea market is held in front of the Kitano Tenman-gu shrine - it's one of Kyoto's two biggest markets and supposedly a great place to pick up some interesting items for more unique and less touristy souvenirs. The problem it was on the other side of town, buses are not the fastest in the city, it was already around 4:15PM when I got to the giant otorii gate of Heian-jinja, and the flea market ended at 5PM. So I didn't have time to take a look at Heian-jinja, and instead had to make a detour off the path I had in mind. Luckily a bus headed in the direction of Kitano Tenman-gu arrived at the bus stop in front of the otorii gate, so I quickly hopped on it. It took me almost 45 minutes to finally get to Kitano Tenman-gu (due to traffic, and the route wasn't the most direct), so I was afraid I'd miss the flea market (given the Japanese well-known punctuality). Although many stalls had closed up or were beginning to close up, there were still quite many open, so I still got to take a look around, though I could tell I had probably already missed the good stuff. The stalls still open were mainly selling various Japanese and Western snacks, typical touristy souvenirs, and cheap toys (similar to what you'd find in a dollar store here). So I made my way through the stalls to Kitano Tenman-gu and explored the shrine as well, even though it's not a major tourist attraction, since I had gone through so much trouble to get here anyway. It was actually a pretty nice shrine (and free). On the way back out, passing through the flea market again, I managed to spot a stall selling chopsticks that I had missed earlier, with the seller providing custom name painting for chopsticks. I thought this would make a pretty good souvenir, better than anything I could find in the souvenir shops, and it was pretty cheap (only 300 yen for the chopsticks and 100 yen for the name painting), so I finally bought my first souvenir of Japan!
Some of the stalls at the flea market.
See, Kitano Tenman-gu turned out to be a pretty nice shrine. They even had some floats and ceremonial items on display (in the 4th and 5th photos)! They had some bull statues around too, which people were rubbing for good luck...the one I took a picture of looked the most interesting.
The detour actually worked out pretty well in terms of route planning. I was able to catch a direct express bus back to the northern Higashiyama area (which I had planned to go to after Heian-jinja), so it worked out perfectly and didn't take as long as it did to get to Kitano Tenman-gu. There are plenty more temples in the area, but the sun was already starting to disappear (meaning most temples would be closed by now), and my main intention of going to northern Higashiyama was not for the temples, but for Tetsugaku-no-michi, or more commonly known as the "Path of Philosophy" (or Philosopher's Path/Walk). It's a narrow 2km walking path that follows an old canal running north-south. The path covers 5 popular temples, and is supposed to offer a scenic, peaceful walk. Well, unfortunately when I finally got there, it was almost dark, and there were no street lights (!), so I didn't get to see how scenic it was. But it was very peaceful, and it was a perfect place to do some contemplating, minus the constant harassment by mosquitoes (the water in the canal didn't have much flow). It was a pretty nice walk, but I had no clue where exactly it ended, especially since it was almost pitch dark...the only lighting came from the light of the few tiny cafes that lined the path every now and then. So I knew if I continued the path, I'd eventually get lost, so I headed off the path and blindly worked my way through some small residential streets (which were just as dark and poorly lit) until I finally got to a main street, where I managed to find a bus stop. I took the bus to the downtown Kyoto area known as Kawaramachi, where the two shopping arcades of Kyoto were located, hoping to find a place to eat. Like the days before, I seemed to have some trouble finding a (affordable) place to eat! So I ended up buying a bento box from a Lawson convenie inside the Teramachi shopping arcade and sat on the bench outside the store, watching the nighttime shoppers pass by.
Along the Philosopher's Path.
An Esso gas station (the only one I saw while in Japan)! It was across the street from the bus stop I found.
At the Teramachi and Shinkyogoku shopping arcades. The third and fourth photos are of Nishiki Market, a narrow shopping street selling foods of all kinds, including many Kyoto specialities. It's often referred to as "Kyoto's Kitchen", and being a food lover, it was on my list of things to visit, but when I got there, all the shops were already closed (I think I got there a half hour too late)! So I didn't get to see or taste anything interesting.
Some photos from downtown Kyoto...obviously much different from the downtown areas of the other major cities in Japan. Downtown Kyoto had unique covered, lighted, gated sidewalks not found in other major cities' downtown areas.
Along the Pontocho district - the main bar/nightlife area of Kyoto. It's much smaller the nightlife areas of the other major cities I had visited - the 2 main streets were very narrow (one so narrow it was the width of only 2 people). But this made for a better atmosphere in my opinion...I can't think of anywhere else where you could experience a narrow well-lit alley lined with tiny bars, small high-class restaurants and lounges, and a few dance clubs, karaoke bars, and hostess bars, all with a distinct yet subtle Oriental feel (without worrying about getting mugged hahaha).
Still in the Pontocho area, alongside the Kamogawa (river). The light spilling over from the balconies of the high-class restaurants onto the reddish-brown sand (at least it looked that way at night) made sitting along the river a perfect relaxing night spot...I think all the locals chilling out beside the river is enough proof, and I'm sure you'll agree from the photos. Yes, that's me in the 3rd photo enjoying the view!
The chopsticks I bought. I chose the rabbit design since I was born in the year of the rabbit, the colour red since the Chinese consider red to be good luck, and that's my name in Chinese painted on the opposite side of the chopsticks.
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