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Published: January 19th 2014
Fushimi Inari
Sacred springIn June and July 2013, our family spent a month in Kyoto. We spent two weeks together as a family, then I (Paul) went back for two more weeks on my own. This is a trip report of our time in Kyoto.
Below is some information on our favorite things to do and other details (like where we stayed and the weather).
Top 10 Favorite Things to Do. Kyoto was incredible, in terms of things to do.
Of all the places we have been in Asia (and we’ve been a lot of places in Asia), Kyoto probably more layers of history than anywhere. It’s more like Rome, Jerusalem, Istanbul, or Cairo than most other Asian cities.
Even with a month, it was impossible to see it all. There are 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in and around Kyoto, and several more in nearby Nara. And there were tons of other sights (non-WHS) that were well worth seeing.
None of the sights are jaw-dropping, like the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, or Forbidden City. But collectively, they give a deep, rich sense of Japanese history and culture. And Japanese culture is extremely
rich and deep.
Below is my subjective list of favorite things to do. I had particular interests – Buddhist sculpture, Japanese gardens, green spaces, historical progressions, and places that are still very much alive in terms of religion and culture (rather than places that feel more museum-like or pickled).
The places below are ones that I particularly enjoyed. They are listed roughly in order, starting with my very favorites:
1. Traditional Kyoto streets: Strolling from Ginza to Kiyomizu-dera and back. Here the sight is traditional Kyoto itself.
This walk is particularly appealing at dusk or early morning, when there are no crowds and it’s quiet. Traditional Kyoto is absolutely gorgeous, one of the prettiest places we have ever been.
Start at Kawaramach or Gion Shoji stations. Walk up Shijo Dori a bit and take a right on Hanami-Koji. This is one of the prettiest streets in Kyoto.
Hanami-koji is usually mobbed with tourists, so try to come here at least once early in the morning or in the evening. Early morning is particularly quiet and charming.
Follow Hanami-koji till it ends at the entrance to Kennin-ji (temple). Kennin-ji is wonderful.
Walk through Kennin-ji to Yasaka-dori. Take a left and walk up the hill. Cross Higashioji-dori, a 4-lane road. You’ll see Yasaka Pagoda ahead up the hill.
Yasaka Pagoda is old and lovely. Circle around it to the right. You’ll see a road going up hill to the right.
This is one of the prettiest streets in Kyoto, Sannen-zaka. It’s touristy, but it’s also marvelous. The shops are fun enough, but it’s prettier when the shops are closed and it’s empty.
As you start uphill from Yasaka Pagoda, be sure to turn around and look back behind you, back downhill towards the pagoda. It’s one of the prettiest views in Kyoto.
You can follow Sannen-zaka all the way up to Kiyomizu-dera. Kiyomizu-dera is famous, and fine, but felt slightly over-rated to us. Check it out, though.
Then head back down to Sannen-zaka. Ninen-zaka branches off to the right as you go back down hill. Look for the steps branching off to the right. Ninen-zaka is another traditional street, like Sannen-zaka.
At the end of Ninen-zaka, walk a bit back downhill to the left. A road branches off to the right (can’t remember the name) that
Traditional streets
Ninnen-zaka at dusk heads for Kodai-ji (a nunnery / temple). Take this right.
If Kodai-ji is open, it’s worth visiting. It’s one of the least crowded and best overall temples in Kyoto.
Stay on this road, past Kodai-ji. The road ends, doglegs to the right and then back to the left, and then enters Manuyama-koen (park).
Enter the park, take a left at the main park path, and walk through Yasaka-jinja. You’ll come back out on Higashioji-dori, which you can cross and walk down Shijo-dori back to Gion Shijo or Kawaramachi.
This 45-minute walk takes you through Kyoto’s prettiest traditional streets, two of my favorite sights (Kennin-ji and Kodai-ji), and two other major sights (Kiyomizu-dera and Yasaka-jinja).
To us, this was the best of Kyoto, and we walked this walk again and again and again, at all times of the day.
We went early in the morning to avoid the crowds, during the day to enjoy the shops and the Chinese tourists dressed as geisha, and at dusk to see the sunset and have it all to ourselves. Sunsets particularly are glorious - breath-taking and chill-inducing every time.
2. Fushimi Inari. This is Kyoto’s
Fushimi Inari
Thousands and thousands of red torii most famous sight, with good reason.
It’s a sacred Shinto mountain with 4 km of trails. All along the trails are miles of bright red torii and strange, other-worldly, spooky shrines and graves. Don’t miss it.
And don’t worry about getting lost. It’s a loop. Just go, and explore, and dawdle, and check out all the weird little nooks and crannies.
There is enough weirdness up on Fushimi Inari to last you a lifetime.
We went on a day that was pouring down rain, and had the mountain to ourselves. I went back on a sunny day, and went early to avoid crowds.
3. Strolling in Arashiyama and Sagano: Visiting Adashino Nembutsu-ji and Otagi Nembutsu-ji. Arashiyama is one of the more famous areas in Kyoto, mostly for its bamboo forest.
Arashiyama and adjoining Sagano make a great leisurely day-long stroll. It’s more fun on weekends, when the cute shops in Sagano are open.
The bridge and island park in Arashiyama are fun. There are nice walks along either side of the river as well.
Near the bamboo forest, Nonomiya Shrine is free and worth a peek.
The bamboo forest
Bamboo Grove
Adashino Nembutsu-ji, Sagano in Arashiyama is fine enough, but the bamboo grove at Adashino Nembutsu-ji (see below) is much better.
The stroll gets really good as you leave behind the crowds of Arashiyama and head up the much quieter lanes of Sagano. Either there will be nobody else there, or there will be hikers heading up or returning from hikes to shrines up nearby mountains.
Sagano is charming, with cute shops and restaurants along the lanes.
There are also lots of roadside shrines in this area. This is one of the most intriguing things about Kyoto – everywhere seems to be sacred. All along roads and lanes are small roadside Buddhist and Shinto shrines. In the woods, every spring is an electric green, moss-covered shrine. The land is holy, sacred. It feels that way when you’re there. It’s real.
Sagano also has two super-charming temples: Adashino Nembutsu-ji and Otagi Nembutsu-ji.
Adashino Nembutsu-ji has a collection of Buddhist graves that used to be scattered throughout the mountains, a stunning bamboo grove, and a moving, touching, bittersweet, powerful, chilling shrine to stillborn children.
Otagi Nembutsu-ji is the most charming temple we saw in Japan. It’s a recent temple, not
much history here.
But the abbot had the idea of teaching local women to carve stone using traditional Japanese methods.
The temple grounds are covered, literally, with enchanting, whimsical, funny, cartoonish carved stone figures. It is literally too cute (
kawaii) to believe.
This is generally a great area to escape crowds, to stroll quiet lanes, to get a sense of rural Japan without leaving the city.
4. Todai-ji, Nara. Along with Horyu-ji (see below), Todai-ji is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan. Nara is a very easy daytrip from Kyoto, and well worth the effort. There’s a ton to do in Nara, and it’s a charming place.
Todai-ji can be mobbed with tourists, especially Japanese school groups. Mobbed. I went first thing in the morning one morning, and had the place to myself. It was worth the trouble of getting up early.
Todai-ji is particularly fascinating if you are interested in Japanese art and sculpture. If you aren’t, you might give it a miss.
Daibutsu-den (one of the temple buildings) is the largest wooden building in the world, and it houses the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world.
Daibutsu-den, Todai-ji, Nara
Largest wooden building in the world. Largest bronze Buddha in the world. It’s flanked by two other large statues.
It sounds a bit cheesy. But it’s not. It’s awesome. And spooky and real, when you’re in there by yourself.
Also don’t miss Hokke-do, much less famous but equally spectacular. It’s up the hill. It has 16 incredible, old, historical Buddhist statues arranged just as they have been arranged since the 700s.
To me it was incredible that these Japanese temples are pretty much just as they were since the mid-700s. And they are still active.
The statues at Todai-ji are stunning too – really fine art, as fine as any I have ever seen.
5. Kennin-ji. Kennin-ji is a Zen temple right in the center of Kyoto. I mention it in the Kyoto walk above.
Our apartment was right near Kennin-ji, so we walked through it several times each day, at all different times each day. It has sentimental value for us. It’s also a great sight.
The grounds are gorgeous. As with other Zen temples, you can stroll around the exterior grounds all you want to for free
Paying to go inside is definitely worth doing too. There are some great
Kennin-ji
Super-cute young women in traditional dress, chit-chatting and taking it easy taking photos with their iPhones paintings and gardens.
The day I went in was also fun because people were just hanging out and chit-chatting, and having fun. People were sitting by the gardens, chatting, just passing the time, enjoying life. It was beautiful, but also very relaxing and pleasant.
6. The mountains behind Nanzen-ji. Nanzen-ji is another Zen temple, much like Kennin-ji. It’s within easy walking distance of downtown Kyoto, and the area around it is beautiful as well.
Nanzen-ji has the usual Zen temple stuff – entrance gate, large temples, Zen / dry / rock gardens and green gardens. It’s worth exploring.
Nanzen-ji Hojo (abbott’s quarters) is a good Zen / dry / rock garden, worth seeing.
What is most interesting about Nanzen-ji, though, is a walk that we stumbled upon. The Lonely Planet Kyoto guide got us started, then we just sort of stumbled along for the rest of it.
There is a small mountain-side temple (Nanzen-ji oku-no-in, I think) that you can find by going to the acqueduct at Nanzen-ji and sort of heading up hill past it.
You pass a last outpost of Nanzen-ji, then start following a dirt road that becomes
Sacred spring
This is in the mountains behind Nanzen-ji. It was a fascinating place, like a Miyazaki movie. a trail. There’s a small temple up there, with a sacred spring. It’s weird, otherworldly. This is what LP Kyoto got us to.
You can keep going on a path uphill, towards the ridge. There’s another spring about halfway up to the ridge. It’s also a small shrine, and it’s even more sacred-feeling and otherworldly.
The trail continues up to the ridge, where it meets the Kyoto Trail.
We didn’t know about the Kyoto Trail, but if it hadn’t have been so hot, we would have bought a map at a hiking store and hiked the Kyoto Trail a lot.
(There is a hiking store with maps on like the 6
th floor of Yodobashi Camera near the train station. Yodobashi Camera is a hoot.)
There are mountains surrounding Kyoto on three sides, and the mountains are laced with clearly-marked trails. Many trails pass shrines and temples, large and small.
Anyway, we took a right where we met the Kyoto Trail and walked along the ridge till we came to Himukai Daijingu, an interesting Shinto shrine with some strange, weird cave-shrines around it.
It was a good walk. We didn’t plan it; we just
Shisen-do
Gorgeous, not crowded, worth seeking out sort of stumbled along, and new and weird and fascinating things kept appearing as we walked. It was, “Wow, that’s weird and eerie” again and again and again.
It was like being in a Miyazaki movie, but it was real life.
From there to here, from here to there, sacred things are everywhere.
7. Enryaku-ji. Enryaku-ji is a huge, historically-important mountain Zen temple. It’s a bit of a hassle to get here, so if your time is limited it’s missable. But it’s green and cool and fascinating.
There are three great things about Enryaku-ji: 1) the cool, green mountain setting, great for strolling and hiking; 2) the variety of Zen temples and temple life (pretty much everything Zen is here, all in one place), and 3) Kompon Chudo.
Kompon Chudo is the single weirdest, most holy, most spiritual, most alive thing I saw in Japan. It felt the most like temples in Lhasa (Jhokang) or South India (Madurai). It was real. I was transfixed.
It’s hard to describe. It would take too many words.
In the temple, there is a viewing platform. You look out over a totally dark
well of blankness.
There are three ultra-lit, golden statues, with praying platforms in front of them. When I was there, monks were praying loudly and actively in front of all of them. They were throwing wooden prayers into fires, and chanting, and incense was burning everywhere.
It was intense, sacred, holy. Fascinating. Weird. Alive.
8. Kodai-ji. Kodai-ji is a Zen nunnery right in central Kyoto, very accessible. It’s also slightly off-the-beaten-track. I went twice, and neither time was crowded.
It’s beautiful. It sort of has everything that a Zen temple has – beautiful dry / rock garden, lots of manicured green, temples, bamboo, beautiful grounds. It doesn’t have statues, but it has everything else.
And there were no crowds, so you sort of have it all to yourself.
9. Horyu-ji, Nara. Horyu-ji is a bit of a hassle to get to, so if you only have 3-4 days, you might not make it.
It’s the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan, and one of the oldest continually functioning Buddhist temples in the world.
Horyu-ji was built in 607, and it features the oldest wooden buildings in the world. It
Horyu-ji, Nara
Oldest wooden buildings in the world. Unchanged, inside and out, since 607. also features the oldest Japanese Buddhist statues.
It’s a treasure-house of art masterpieces. Like Todai-ji (above), the buildings and statues are just as they have been since 607.
It’s still an active temple too. There were monks walking around among the tour groups, and lots of praying going on as well as touring.
The collection of early Buddhist statues, still arranged and worshipped as they have been since 607, was magical. It was not a museum setting; the statues were still very much alive.
10. Tie: Kibune and Kurama walk and Takao / Jingo-ji river walk. Well, it’s a top 10, but these both should make it.
Kibune and Kurama is a walk that goes over a mountain, from one train stop to another.
There are temples and sacred spots the whole way. It’s fascinating. It’s well-trodden, so you won’t get lost, but not overly-crowded.
It’s also very accessible, because you can take the train to the start point and from the end point.
It’s a painless and easy way to get out of Kyoto into the green of the mountains, and to see some off-the-beaten-track sacred spots.
Takao
Jingo-ji, Takao
On the way up to the mountain temple / Jingo-ji is a little more challenging to access. It’s a pretty long bus-ride out. But it’s worth it.
Jingo-ji is a totally empty mountainside temple. It’s beautiful. There are two other temples nearby.
The highlight here, though, is a walk along the river below Jingo-ji. It’s an hour-and-a-half walk along a clearly-marked trail to another village (Kiyotaki), where you can easily take a bus back to Kyoto.
The river walk is gorgeous, and green, through a gorge. There are several spots where you can wade or swim in the clear mountain river.
It’s a great combination of totally empty mountainside temples, which are beautiful, and rich, quiet, solitary greenery along the river.
Here are some other sights we enjoyed:
Great Zen / dry / rock gardens: Daisen-in, Dotuku-ji; Shisen-do; Kennin-ji; Ninna-ji; Kodai-ji; Hojo, Nanzen-ji; Tofuku-ji; Ryoan-ji
Great green gardens: Sanzen-in, Ohara; Taizo-in, Myoshin-ji; Koto-in, Daitoku-ji. There are tons of others. Every one was worth the time and money.
Great places to see Buddhist sculptures: Todai-ji, Nara; Horyu-ji, Nara; Nara National Museum; Kofuki-ji, Nara; Sanjusangen-do, Kyoto; To-ji, Kyoto
Super-crowded places – So crowded it somewhat spoils the fun: Kinkaku-ji.
Sacred spring
This was on the Kurama to Kibune mountain walk. Beautiful, but way too crowded; Ginkaku-ji - also beautiful, but way too crowded; Ryoan-ji - can have it not crowded if you go early; Sanjusangen-do - crowded, but worth it.
Walks and weirdness. Some of the best stuff in Kyoto is walking in the mountains, and seeing all the weirdness (e.g., sacred springs that are shrines). These included: Fushimi Inari; The mountains behind Nanzen-ji; Ninna-ji 88 temples pilgrimage walk; Enryaku-ji; Daigo-ji; Kurama to Kibune; Strolling in Sagano; Otagi Nembutsu-ji (Sagano)
Other details: Lodging. When we were together, we rented an apartment with a company called Japan Experience. When I was solo, I stayed at Khao San Kyoto Hostel. Both were excellent
Food. The food was excellent. When we had an apartment, we mostly bought bento boxes and prepared food from the grocery stores. It was affordable and consistently delicious.
When I was solo, I mostly ate out at budget restaurants and Japanese fast food restaurants. Everything I ate was delicious. The prices were about the same as US prices. I never spent more than $10 US for a meal, and I could usually find a lunch special for $5-6
Actually,
for lunch, I usually bought onigiri from a convenience store (7-11 or its equivalent). Onigiri cost about $1 each. An onigiri is a triangle of rice with pickled seaweed or tuna and mayo or something inside. They are delicious, healthy, filling, and made for travel. I bought 2-3 onigiri first thing in the morning, threw them in my pack, and I was gone. I just ate on the run, whenever I got hungry. Then I would eat a sit-down restaurant meal in the evening.
Weather. Kyoto was quite hot. We had a week of solid 37 C / 100 F, with high humidity. It was too hot to have much fun. Most days were 34 C / 94 F, with high humidity
The heat and humidity were tough. It was the same climate I grew up in, in Raleigh NC (USA) – green, wet, hot, and humid summers. Not very pleasant, honestly
We have traveled a lot in the tropics (Malaysia / Thailand / Indonesia), and Kyoto in the summer felt hotter than that. There was a young woman from Singapore staying in the hostel, and she said Kyoto in summer definitely felt hotter than Singapore to
Koto-in, Daitoku-ji
A gorgeous entryway into a gorgeously uncrowded, super-green garden. her.
It didn’t rain all that much, though. It was supposed to be the “rainy season,” and it rained some, but not too much at all. The heat and humidity were harder than the rain. We just went on and did stuff, but we sweated buckets.
Best guidebook. Judith Clancy’s
Exploring Kyoto is a superb guidebook, definitely worth buying and carrying if you have more than three days in Kyoto. I’m a guidebook fanatic, and this is one of the best I’ve ever read. Best website: Talk Japan
In sum, Kyoto is fabulous. Even the modern Japanese part of town (typically maligned in guidebooks) was fun to us.
Kyoto is not a pickled, museum-ified city. It’s a fairly typical (but fun) mid-sized Japanese city that happens to have an astounding range of historical, artistic, and religious sites tucked away here, there, and everywhere. Nearby Nara is superb as well.
You could easily spend a month in Kyoto and not see everything. We did.
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