The Cultural Capital: Beautiful Kyoto

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On Wednesday my friend Lentle didn't have any classes and she suggested visiting Kyoto. Of course I didn't say no to that.

I started the day with onigiri for breakfast. Oh they were so good! You could buy them at the conbini for between ¥100 - ¥170 and they were just perfect for a light meal. おいしいです!

I thought the monorail was pretty cool. Because it doesn't have a driver, I could sit at the front and got a great view whilst driving towards Kobe city and the mountains of Mt. Rokko and Mt. Maya. This time we got off at Uozaki station to take the Hanshin lines towards Osaka ... Lentle really dislikes Hanshin, saying they're like the NMBS of Japan. I didn't really have anything against Hanshin, but because of Lentle I mostly sticked to JR for most of my trip.

Anyway, at Osaka's Umeda station we changed onto a train bound for Kyoto. It was a bit weird that there didn't seem to be any discount tickets for tourists, as Kyoto is one of the main tourist attractions of Japan. In total the round-trip costed about ¥2000, which is about the same as what I would pay in Belgium for a trip like that. I enjoyed the train ride though. I liked seeing the more rural and small Japanese towns that we passed on our way to Kyoto.

Once arrived, we got a map from a tourist information centre, and took a look around Gion - which is the area in Kyoto known for its Geisha's (though we didn't see any). We happened upon a shrine, called Yasaka Shrine, which we visited as well as the adjacent park (Maruyama Park) and the Chion-in Temple.

We then walked on in a northerly direction, seeing some smaller temples, small Japanese gardens and stunning nature along the way. Our next destination was a large shrine called Heian Jinguu, which could easily be found by spotting the gigantic tori ...

After visiting the Heian Jiguu Shrine we walked eastward trying to find the Philosopher's Walk, a nice and quiet path alongside a river that became known because Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro allegedly used it for his daily meditation. Lentle said it would be close-by, but it turned out to be farther than we thought. We ended up in a bunch of small, winding residential streets. I was starting to get hungry because it was already past noon, but after a while of walking I decided that I was willing to give up lunch if only I could find a vending machine to buy a bottle of water. Luckily this wish was granted after some more walking around, and we found the Philosopher's Walk not long after that. We decided to sit down and rest our feet for a bit whilst enjoying the calm atmosphere of the Philosopher's Walk.

At the end of the Philosopher's Walk lies Ginkakuji, also known as the Silver Temple. I originally didn't plan to visit this one, as it is less beautiful than it's big brother Kinkakuji (a.k.a. Golden Temple)but Lentle wanted to take me to Ginkakuji so I didn't object. As we had entered the Philosopher's Walk at a random point, it was only a 10-minute stroll before we reached Ginkakuji. First though we stopped to have an ice-cream. The old ice-cream vendor had some interesting flavours for sale, for example a black-coloured ice-cream that apparently tasted of sesame seed. Even though part of my Japan experience consisted of trying new foods, I decided to play it safe this time and chose a vanilla-and-cookie ice-cream. The cookies used for this ice-cream were Oreos, so that was pretty awesome (and tasty!).

Admission for Ginkakuji was ¥600, ¥100 more than Kinkakuji which was more beautiful, but I decided to pay the price anyway. As I expected, Ginkakuji temple itself wasn't so impressive (there's nothing silver about it whatsoever), but the gardens surrounding the temple were very beautiful - one of the most beautiful I've seen in Japan actually. And after climbing the side of a mountain we got a very nice view over part of the city, so I definitely don't regret spending money on an admission ticket.

Being tired of walking around, and our next destination being located on the other side of the city, we decided to hop on a bus that took us westwards. The next destination was, of course, Kinkakuji! However, by the time we reached the Golden Temple it had started to rain. That was unfortunate, but nothing to do about it (and again, I can't really complain, because I knew it was rainy season before booking my trip). One day though I'll have to return to see Kinkakuji in the sunlight, it's supposed to be very impressive!

It was around 5PM by that time and the sky had become very gray (it was also still raining) so we decided to call it a day and return to the train station. I was happy that I got to see a lot of interesting things in Kyoto, though there's still a lot I haven't seen yet. One of the things on my list was Kiyomizudera Temple, which unfortunately I didn't get to visit. And of course there's also the Imperial Palace ... So it's clear that I'll definitely need to return to Japan to see all these things I didn't get to see this time.

We looked for a place to eat at Umeda station in Osaka. Almost all stations in Japanese cities are also shopping centers so finding a place to eat is easy. Lentle suggested trying okonomiyaki but I asked to eat something else (whyyyy? That was stupid of me, okonomiyaki is super delicious!). We picked something randomly from the menu and I have to say this was probably my least favourite dish of the whole trip. The main dish was very tasty, but the side dishes were disappointing. It looked like a normal, nice, Western-style salad but the dressing they used made it taste foul. I also got a plate with a sort of noodles covered in something black that was so sticky that it became impossible to eat.

The funny thing is though, that we thought that we were eating a typical Japanese dish, but on the next day we showed this picture to Lentle's classmate Ikeda-san and he said that it was actually Korean. Oops. My plan was to eat only Japanese food during my stay in Japan, but without knowing it I failed, ha ha.

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Photos

Kyoto
Yasaka Shrine

Kyoto
Maruyama park

Kyoto
I sense some clear Chinese inspiration at Heian Jinguu ...
(not surprisingly seeing how Kyoto was modeled after Xi'an, an old Chinese capital city)

Kyoto
Ginkakuji: the Silver temple that isn't silver ...

Kyoto
Kinkakuji

Osaka Umeda
Accidental Korean dinner ...