Power Touring

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Saturday, May 16, 2015



I was awoken at 6:30ish this morning to the sound of Fred getting ready to go running. It didn't take him long to come back though because it was pouring rain outside. I went back to bed until my alarm went off at 7:15am. The rain was still coming down pretty well, so I took that opportunity to upload some pictures to my blog. Around 8am the rain was dying down so I began getting ready for my day. The boys had planned on leaving around 7 or 8am to catch a train from Kyoto to Tokyo. When I was ready to leave for my next hostel at 8:45am, they were just getting up. They had to tease me that I was up and out before they were (I didn't expect anything different, I've had to wake them up for all our early morning excursions and this one was all on them. I did pack a little loud expecting it to wake them, though.). The rain had died down to a sprinkle, so a couple subway stops down I was walking to my next hostel. I chose to change to a new part of town so I could see some new things and was close to the Kyoto Station for an early departure to Hiroshima the next day.
I was too early to get in my room, so I dropped off my luggage and rented a bike (again $5/day) from the hostel to do some more touring. My plan for the day was pretty aggressive to achieve so I just told myself to see how far through it I was able to make it. I wanted to hit 8 places that were spread all the way across Kyoto (See the map picture I attached so you have an understanding of how ridiculous I am). The challenge was I had arrive at the last one before 5pm because of the early closing times here in Japan. Guess what - I made it to them all! Let the power touring begin.
Since I had a late start due to the rain, I started out for my first destination right away - Daitokuji Temple. It is quite a ways from my hostel and about half way there (around the Kyoto Imperial Palace location), I was beginning to think taking a bike instead of the subway was a bad idea. I came to appreciate the bike for the remainder of my location, though. This was another temple raved about in the LonelyPlanet guide book for it's gardens. Unfortunately, it's a huge temple complex with very little traffic (although that could have been due to the rain). I only found 2 temples within the complex that were letting people in. I opted on going to "S" which was small and cute and known for the grave of the N family that started the temple. It didn't take long to tour, so I headed shortly after to one of the most popular destinations in Kyoto.
Kinkakuji Temple was packed with people and tour groups. This temple has a shrine building completely covered with gold leaf overlooking a gigantic pond filled with lily pads and lily flowers. As you can imagine, it required many many pictures. That wasn't the extent of it though, the temple path took you through a great garden encompassing the temple. There were mini stop off points with building to look at or things to buy. The kid groups were all drawn to the little booths to buy charms (as has been seen at all the other major temples too). I would love to have my house inside a garden complex like the one at this temple, but I would have to hire an army of gardeners to maintain it to keep it as beautiful as what I saw.
A short ride away (and up a steep hill) was my next location called Ryoanji Temple. Famous for it's rock gardens, it was almost as busy as Kinkakuji. Compared to Nanzenji Temple the day before, I wasn't all that impressed. This temple had only one rock garden that was pretty simplistic. I did enjoy all the tapestries and icons throughout the building, though. This is one that if not so close to my route already, I could have skipped. Probably would have been a good idea to skip it because busted up my let on my bike pedal. Just a little blood - no big deal.
The next leg was more of a challenge. My map did not go into good enough detail to get me their easily. I ended up a little lost and had to ask for directions to get to Myoshinji Temple. The kind Japanese man who pointed out directions to me helped me out a ton. I was going the wrong direction! This was one more temple complex and the very relaxed guard let me ride right in on my bike. There weren't a lot of people there so I got to take some really neat pictures. The temples here are way more expansive than the churches back home. While simplistic in nature of the religion, they are still quite ornamentally decorated and have some pretty intricate Buddha alters they pray around.
From there I head back toward the busy downtown part of Kyoto where I would have made the boys proud. I actually stopped and ate a real lunch at a restaurant. It was another one of those you ordered from a vending machine. I had a really tasty bowl of beef on rice with a side of udon noodle soup. It was fantastic and filling to give me energy to continue my ride around the city (Little did I know, I would come to need it later on!)
Nijojo Castle was my next destination and gave me a break from temples. I almost didn't come here because the travel guide skimmed over it, but boy am I glad I didn't. The castle was incredible and did a fantastic job of explaining all the different rooms (at least the few of the XXX they showed us on the route) in terms of what they were used for. There were even some rooms that they had dummy models on display so you could imagine what it was like when people lived there! They even pointed out how the doors with red tassels are where the security guards sat so they were near the Shogun in case they were needed. The building kept going and going. It required over 800 tatme mates (the grass woven matts) to cover the floor. Some of the carvings within the building were so intricate I could have sat forever trying to pick out all the things in them. Pressed for time, I chose not to and kept moving on. The garden was no less incredible. It was also quite expansive. In fact, I ran out of memory card space for pictures - again. I was alternating taking pictures and deleting poor/blurry ones from previous locations. Near the end of my walk through the castle grounds there was a group of Japanese people huddling near a barricade that had an important looking black car on the otherside that people were waving to the person inside. My guess is she was one of teh princesses of the Japanese Imperial Family.
On my bike ride to the next set of temples, I stumbled upon a pedestrian and bike only street that was a marketplace. I had a good time biking up and down it, but didn't really find anything I wanted to stop and buy. So I moved on to the Nishi-Honganji Temple and Hagashi-Honganji Temple. These two were more huge complexes. The Nishi was much more elaborate with it's designs and had beautiful gold lamps in its walkways. Half the Hagashi was under renovations, so who knows how much more they are doing it it.These were both quick walk throughs because they are active temples you weren't allowed into their gardens and outreach buildings. A very neat stop to see the impressively large main buildings though and I happened to be there during their services. The chanting is so different than what you hear in a church. Thanks to those two not taking the time I thought they would I had time to go to my last stop that was in the southern part of the city.
I had quite the ride to get to Fushimi Inari-tashi Shrine, so I stopped at a local grocery store (which allowed me to see what one looked like in Japan - pretty similar to the US except the food types. A lot more boxed and packaged meals and very little frozen.). After a snack I weaved my way down to the shrine. This one I did not know a whole lot about but the map had a picture of it with a bunch of torii, so I had to check it out. This was by far the coolest stop of my Kyoto trip. It was a shrine covering the side of Mt. Inari and it was practically all steps leading up to the top and the staircases were encased in torii. This is where my good lunch came in handy because I hiked all the way to the top. Half way up, I almost gave up because I was really sweating from all those stairs. But the interesting fox shrines and torii kept me going so I did the entire shrine circuit. Turns out each torii is donated by a Japanese business because this is the head shrine of Inari (the patron of business). Foxes are seen as messengers so statues of them are seen everywhere in this shrine. Happy I was able to accomplish everything I wanted (more actually because I didn't know what I was getting myself into at the shrine), I went to press my luck by biking over to the roads lined with gift shops leading up to Kiyomizu Temple.
Since the temple closes around 5pm (and it was that time), I wasn't sure anything would still be open. I wanted to grab some more items from the shops and eat some of the yummy stand foods we saw before. I made it in time to get what I wanted from the shops! I had a beef filled bun, green tea ice cream puff, and chocolate cream brownie crepe for dinner (I figured I was fine treating myself with all that exertion today). Mouth full of crepe, I had a guy come up and gesture to take a picture with me. I was fine with it but he didn't understand my hand gesture to wait while I chew - he has a picture with me as my finger is up to my mouth. Finally, I was ready to head back to the hostel. I found my bike and someone had messed with it - I sat on the seat and it dropped all the way down! Lucky me, I had tried to figure out how to adjust it this morning without luck. This way I was able to put it where I wanted it 😊 Maybe I wouldn't have banged myself up as much biking around if someone messed with it earlier.
Ready for a chill evening I settled into my room before catching up on writing. I also needed to clear out my memory cards so I could continue to take pictures. There are just too many neat things to see and do, and I head out of Kyoto early tomorrow to hit as much as I can on my way to Hiroshima.

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