Last Few Days in Kyoto & A Bullet Train 🚅 to Tokyo

Ok so ive been slacking! I’m going to combine our last few days into one (probably long) post. 😬

Here it goes…

Thursday was a no plan day, well actually our plan was to go to breakfast at a cool Starbucks in Gion that was an old wooden 2 story house that had tatami mat seating upstairs and then head over to a buddhist temple from there. After that, we had no plans. I think I’ll post the pics and just explain as i go 😉

Breakfast in Gion

After breakfast we headed to the buddhist temple, there was so much to see along the way that we hadn’t expected. It seemed as if every corner we turned there was something beautiful.

And tons of signs about mischievous monkeys, but we never saw them! That was disappointing 😔

this was a sign just above the monkey sign, thought it was a nice sentiment that i had never seen before.

Finally we made it to the large buddhist shrine, just the gate to the complex of buildings was impressive!

Corner view of the same gate

The grounds here were wide and open, but tucked in the back were a few little shrines with gardens.

From there we decided to have lunch in a bustling shopping district we had visited a couple nights previous. As we were approaching the busy street where we would catch the bus, we saw a large torii gate in the distance. We were commenting on how large it was when karen said, “we are here, i feel like we should just go check that out”. We agreed and started walking toward the large gate.

Oh, something i forgot to mention. Getting around kyoto is super easy, it has a fantastic bus system as well as subway, but the buses are so convenient, plentiful and reliably on time, that that was our go to mode of transportation. Also they announce each stop in Japanese and English. Oh and google maps was spot on with bus/subway routes and timing of them!

Ok back to the massive gate in the distance…

It turned out to be a major Shinto shrine that we had read about but hadnt really considered seeing.

Heian-jingu Shrine

“Like most Shinto shrines, Heian-jingu Shrine is marked by a vermillion torii (shrine gate) out front. But the torii at Heian-jingu is anything but ordinary: It’s vast. Standing almost 25 meters high, it dominates the entire Okazaki-koen Park area.

Interestingly, it’s set so far away from the main compound of the shrine that many people assume it’s completely unrelated to the shrine. Heian-jingu Shrine was built in 1895 to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto as capital of the country…” – https://www.insidekyoto.com/heian-jingu-shrine-northern-higashiyama

It was turning out to be a pretty hot day, so we found a shady spot just inside the entrance, got a drink from the awesome vending machines (i feel like the vending machines warrant a post just to themselves!) sat on the cool stone and relaxed. Which also gave karen and luke some time to focus on their Pokemon Go game. Seriously though, if you or your kids are at all into that game, this is the place to play it! There seems to be a gym at every major tourist attraction as well as a ton of pokemon to catch everywhere you walk. There are even professional players. We saw this one guy, riding his bike with a board gerry rigged to his handle bars with 5 phones attached to it as well as a battery pack, all 5 were open and playing pokemon Go! We surmised that people pay him to keep their game going whiles they are at work or something like that. Oh and its not young kids playing this game, its EVERYONE! Adults and kids. Its pretty cool and has been a fun aspect of the trip!

Ok back to the amazing shrine…

So the website i quoted above said not to bother to pay the fee to tour the gardens unless its cherry blossom season. It said they were not that great (to paraphrase)…they were wrong. Luckily we had done no research on this shrine so we didnt know they weren’t highly regarded (by whover wrote that article). The garden was so beautiful with a meandering path. It is definitely a must see!

There were two trees located on either side of the main temple. In the temple you can shake a stick from a metal container. This stick has a series of characters written on it. You take the stick over to the counter and they give you the corresponding fortune. If the fortune is bad you tie it to the tree and leave it at the shrine if it is good you take it with you. We had a hard time figuring out what the fortune said since it was written in Japanese. We decided to do the only safe thing and tie them to the tree 🤗😂

Ramen lunch 😋

⛩Fushimi Inari Shrine⛩

Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.

Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari’s messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds. Fushimi Inari Shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital’s move to Kyoto in 794.

–https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3915.html

It took about 2hrs to climb the 2.5 mile hike, it was worth it. Such a uniquely beautiful trail, the vermillion gates set in a forested scene. It was breathtaking!

Each of the torii at Fushimi Inari has been donated by a Japanese business.

Ritual cleansing before entering the shrine.

It was really crowded for the first half hour of the walk. Then it thinned out. There were not as many people ambitious enough to go to the top, which was nice!

One of many fox statues

Smaller shrines dotted the trail along the way to the top.

The last set of stairs to the top!😅

Made it!!

There was a pokemon gym at the top. Had a nice rest and a quick battle and we headed back down.

Nanzenji Temple

Legend has it that when Emperor Kameyama withdrew to his retirement palace in Kyoto, disturbing things began to happen there. Doors flew open by themselves and the royal family felt ghostly hands press upon them. The Buddhist priest called to perform an exorcism burnt incense, prayed and chanted, but to no avail.

The emperor turned next to the Zen priest, Fumon. In the year 1290, Fumon sat down in the palace and began to meditate. When he was through, the spectral squatter was gone. So impressed was Kameyama with the power of Zen (the story goes) that he handed over half of his palace to Fumon in order that he might teach – https://www.japanvisitor.com/japanese-culture/nanzenji

The entrance to this Zen temple was unique in that we were able to climb a steep staircase to go up into the temple gate for a spectacular view.

There were parts of the garden that were carpeted in meticulously groomed moss. I know moss doesn’t sound super exciting, but it was impressive! 😂

From there we took the Philosophers path along a canal stopped for an awesome noodle soup lunch and made our way to the next temple.

Ginkaku-ji Temple

Originally designed as a retirement villa for the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490) , Ginkaku-ji Temple was modeled on its sister temple Kinkaku-ji Temple (the Golden Pavilion). Yet Ginkaku-ji Temple was never plated with silver, and the main temple building remains an unpainted brown–and in its way, exemplifies the Japanese idea that something plain can be beautiful.

This temple is one of the only remaining wooden pavilions that is original. Most of the others have burnt down and been reconstructed, which makes this Pavilion very special.

My pictures of the gardens do not do it justice. 😔

We then hopped on a bus to get to the Imperial palace, not realizing how late it was by the time we got there, we made it just in time to tour it before it closed 😅 The highlights were definitely the gardens.