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Published: October 27th 2013
I was awake before my alarm went off, which was a miracle, as I hadn't had much sleep the night before. I know that you weren't meant to set the alarm on your phones, but instead use the one on the panel above your head. But as the instructions were in Japanese only I could do it. I don't know if it's because of the cocoon nature of the capsule, that I felt my alarm was really loud and woke up everyone else sleeping in the capsules. Anyway after grabbing my stuff, and the others rousing, we headed down to the shower room. The showers were nice and they had shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. I was sad to give my lovely leisure wear back. We checked out not long after nine, pretty impressive for us, leaving our bags there until later. We headed next door to Family Mart for a cheap and quick breakfast. I got a can of coffee (I need my caffeine first thing), a sushi thing that I loved when I was in Tokyo, and the best bit - a cheese and salami set. I was amazed cheese (legit cheese, not the crappy processed plastic cheese slices)
and salami, sold for less than two quid, in the corner shop. It's enough of a reason to pack up my bags and move to Japan now.
We walked down to Gion, munching on our breakfast. It took about ten minutes and we bought tickets to the subway station next to Fushimi Inari. The ticket machines were a bit ghetto and we had to look stuff up on the wall. We are totally spoilt with the technologically superior and cheaper Seoul subway. Also it was confusing on the platform as several different trains use the same platform, so we had to check the screens and the boards carefully. We made it onto the correct subway train, it was very retro, like stepping back into the 70s. It was only about five or six stops to where we wanted to be.
We got off the subway and there was a sign telling us which way to go to get to Fushimi Inari. The walk was nice and reminded me of the walk to Dazaifu Shrine, with the street filled with souvenir shops. We tried our best not to look in the shops and we did pretty well. However there
was a lovely old lady selling spices and we got talking to her, and me and Malia ended up buying some spices off her.
We arrived at the shrine and we good human being and washed our hands and our mouths out at the little fountain outside of the temple. I was so glad the lasses had shown me what to do before in Tokyo. Fushimi Inari is an infamous shrine in Japan. It is the head shrine of the 30,000 Inari-sha shrines that are throughout Japan. It has been a place of worship since 711 and is a place of worship for the gods that guard abundant drops, businesses, prosperity, and family safety. Yeah, so a lot of god stuff to pray for there. We wandered in through the gates and saw the main shrine. You could stand outside of it and take photos, but you weren't allowed in to pray, unless you had made an appointment.
We wandered to the side as there was another templey thing there. There was a sign saying no photos, but the guard came out of his office and told us it was okay to take photos. We got chatting to
Lovely Lady Selling Spices
Yes, we bought some. Kyotohim. He was a lovely bloke. He was a retired firefighter and he had travelled all over the world to compete in the firefighter games. He was really canny and told us which way to go and how long it should roughly take to walk around the shrine complex. We headed up the hill and found the Senbon Torii, 1,000 shrine gates. The toriis, gates, that are all over the ground shave been offered by worshippers from all over Japan as a testament of their prayers and gratitude. The meaning behind them is that wished will come through the gate, so they will come true. We spent ages at the 1,000 gates taking a million photos and selfies. We've got quite a selfie addiction going on. The torii and the temples are all painted in bright vermilion red, as since the ancient times, the colour has been seen to symbolise the life force and to counteract bad spells.
After practically filling all our memory cards we headed to the Inner Shrine. We bought some good luck charms here. We all got fox ones, as they are specific to this temple, and me and Mel also got these charm cards
that are meant to find you a fella. A Japanese salaryman husband will soon be ours, mwahahaha! We walked a bit further up the mountain and came across another shrine. This one was a lot quieter, a lot of people mustn't make it up this far and we sat and chilled there for a while. It was really peaceful and beautiful with the sun shining down on us.
We headed back to the subway station. We stopped in a few shops on the way. We ended up buying some spicy rice puff snacks. They were pretty good, and we also stopped into a bakery for a bready bacon thing, that was delish. We took the subway back into town to head to another temple. We got off the subway at the right stop, but we had to walk miles to get to the actual temple. We were all starving as well. We spotted a few restaurants, but most of them were closed as it was after three and most places close for a couple of hours before re-opening for dinner. The walk was taking a lot longer than we expected and we were all moaning about how hungry we
Water Ladles
Fushimi Inari were. We had been told that there were plenty of restaurants on the walk up to the temple, but they seemed to be few and far between.
We finally found a restaurant. It was cool inside, really retro, but were probably the original furniture from the seventies. We got settled and order a pork cutlet with rice and curry sauce each. We got the sets so that they came with a drink. I had a lovely iced coffee. However when the food arrived we were sorely disappointed. We were three starving lasses, and the pork cutlet was pretty meager. It was really just a bowl of rice. We were gutted, especially as it was pretty expensive, 1,000 yen. I suppose we were in a really touristy spot, so was to be expected.
Kiyomizudera Temple means pure water temple. The name comes from the waterfall within the temple complex. The temple was founded in 798. The buildings were built in the 1700s and not a single nail was used in the construction. We walked around the outer shrines first. It was pretty busy and there were a tonne of school groups there. However the vast majority of the kids
were really well behaved (take note Korea). There were loads of ladies dressed up in their kimonos, deffo a moment when I wished I was Asian and be able to pull off something like that. We ended up stalking some of them around the temple (not on purpose, but everyone follows the same circuit, so it's inevitable). We then bought our tickets and went into the main hall. We spent a while in there looking around and, of course, taking a billion photos.
We bought some fortunes. We had no idea what they said. A woman was kind enough to tell us if they were good or bad. Me and Mel got bad ones, so we tied them up on the poles, Malia's was good, so she kept it. We spent a while walking around the grounds of the temple. It was beautiful, the surrounding area was so green and the views down over Kyoto were beautiful. We watched the sun set and then walked down the main street from the temple. We had come up the side street. It was a shame a lot of the shops had already shut, so we couldn't have a good nose round
Cute Lamppost
Fushimi Inari them all. We walked back to town and headed back to the capsule hotel to pick up our bags.
We started the walk to our new hostel, Oki's Inn. However it was too far away and after about a half hour's walk we gave up and got on the bus. Also time was knocking on so we would save a bit of time on the bus, too. We found the hostel easily. It was in a market, but all the shops were shut, as it was pretty late. The hostel was gorgeous, like a traditional house and the couple running it were the sweetest ever. Proper cuties! We were in a dorm room, which was tiny, but cute. We got ourselves sorted and headed out for dinner.
The lovely couple that own the hostel (I can't sing their praises highly enough) recommended a couple of places for dinner, but because we were so late heading out they were worried the restaurants would of stopped serving so looked up a different one, that was open later. Such sweeties! The restaurant was about a five to ten minute walk from the hostel. Asuka restaurant was cute, it wasn't as posh
as the one the night before, not that it was posh, but this one was not as fancy. We ordered three sets to share between us, a beef one, a salmon and tofu one, and a tempura one. We also ordered some hot sake. Well that was rank and I don't think any of us finished our first cup of it, let alone the rest of the bottle. The food was good, the beef was especially amazing. So tender! The set came with the main meal, a bowl of rice, a bowl of miso soup, and some pickled veggies.
After dinner we went to the nearest convenience store, a huge Lawson, for some dessert. Can't remember what we had so it musn't of been that good. Then we wandered back to the hostel the long way round. It was so peaceful and quiet. So different to Korea. I think I even managed to be in bed by midnight.
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