Day 60 – Kyoto
Today we had planed to focus on the East Side of Kyoto’s tourist attractions. We ended up leaving Santiago Hostel nice and early at 10am and walking into the sunny streets.
A short walk from the hostel is Yasaka Shrine (which was actually close to Kodaiji Zen Temple). Here was a massive shrine and large Tori Gates. There were lots of people dressed in Kimonos (Traditional Japanese dress).
Adjoining Yasaka Shrine is Maruyama Park. The park has a stone bridge across a pond. We saw the typical carps and then were also lucky enough to see a turtle before it swam under the bridge. From the park we walked towards Heian Jingu Shrine.
Maruyama Park
On the way to the shrine, we were distracted by a massive gate. The gate was for the Chion In Temple. We walked around the temple grounds, which involved climbing heaps of stairs as the temple was built into the mountain side. The main shrine was closed due to renovations until 2019.
We finally walked towards Heian Jingu Shrine and literally as we were 20 meters away, the doors were closed in front of us. This was due to the parade that would be going through town today. As we had let the parade in Nikko disrupt our plans, we had decided not to attend this parade unless we had seen all the sights we had wanted to see for the day.
Doors open 🙂 Doors closed 🙁
Without lingering we left Heian Jingu Shrine and walked to the Keagi Incline which is an abandoned rail track, that was used a long time ago. The track has become famous during the Cherry Blossom season, but still looked nice in autumn. It was a nice place to have a Family Mart sandwich for lunch.
Keagi Incline
From the Incline, the map was showing a path towards Nanzenji Temple, but it was closed, so we had to walk down the main streets. The highlight of this temple was the Suirokaku Aqueduct, which is in the grounds. The aqueduct dates back to the 1890s and was made from stone.
Took so long to wait until everyone was out of the picture
From the temple we walked down the 2 kilometre long Philosopher’s Path. The path follows what looks like a man made stream and is surrounded by trees. Walking down this path we went to my favourite temple of Kyoto (so far) which is the Ginkakuji Temple, also known as the Silver Pavilion.
The pavilion is actually white, but the garden was awesome. Sand was sculptured with excellent attention to detail in a Zen styling. There was also various other trees and sections but the sand was my favourite.
Finally we walked towards the hostel and the final stop, which was the Kiyomizu Temple. To get here we had to climb a steep hill, which most people take a bus or car on. The temple was very busy, but was once again beautiful and with large grounds.
The views of Kyoto at sunset were very stunning, which could be seen from the temple. Once we were done, we walked back to the hostel and relaxed our surprisingly not sore feet. I love my shoes!