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Birthday Boy
Anthony celebrates his 35th Birthday in the shadow of a fox and yet still he smiles! Well, our last day in Kyoto and a glorious day greeted Anthony's birthday.
We got up bright and early and headed for the Fushimi Inari shrine, home of over ten thousand torii gates. The logisitics of positioning these thousands of bright orange arches must have been a nightmare, but it was very impressive on the hillsides to the south of Kyoto. Anthony was overjoyed to see the place guarded by his pet hate - foxes!
That concluded we hopped onto a train and then a bus to go to the Kiyomizu Temple, one of the 21 nominees for the new Seven Wonders of the World. As we arrived we approached by two students from Kyoto University, who were members of a club in the English Department who every Saturday offer a free guide to a particular monument to English speaking tourists. This symbiotic arrangement helps tourists know more about the place they're visiting and the students with their English. Our guides were Yuko & Ayumi, Yuko was a second year English student and Ayumi was in her first year, so Yuko was our main guide and an excellent one she was too.
Kiyomizu was the main place
Fushimi Inari
Home of 10000 Torii gates Anthony had wanted to visit in Kyoto and to get the added bonus of personal guides really made the experience all the more special. First we were taken down into a dark room and when I say dark I mean pitch black!! The idea was that the only sense you used in the room was your touch on the beaded bannister around the perimeter of the room. After a series of twists and turns we reached the rotating stone, where you place your hand on the stone, make a wish to Buddha and then spin the wheel and Buddha will grant your wish - and no neither of us wished to get out of the room in one piece!
We were next taken to the veranda, simply put it is a piece of genius. The temple was built in 780 and the veranda was built over 70 foot high and without a single screw, nut or nail, today engineers still can't work out how it was built, such was the genius of when it was built over thirteen centuries ago.
We continued around looking at the many aspects of the shrine, until we reached the waters of Kiyomizu
Fushimi Inari
Some more of the 10000 Torii gates! - there are three to choose from each offering a special gift - longevity, match-making or wisdom - Buddha also teaches not to drink more than one as that is greedy!! Anthony & I both picked longevity, we'll have to wait to see if it works!
We bid our generous guides farewell with many rounds of "arigato", particularly on our part and headed to Yasaka Shrine & Chionin Temple, both beautiful in their own way and huge also. We also caught sight of what seems to be a Japanese tradition of going somewhere holy and picturesque to have the wedding photos done!
Our next religious sight was Eikando Temple, where not only were the gardens lovely, but we also got to take part in a traditional tea ceremony, although I have to say that my green tea did look more like cold soup than tea, all the same I made sure I drank every drop, so as not to offend our generous hosts!
Our last temple of the day and in Kyoto was Ginkakuji, originally built as a silver coloured version of Kinkakuji, that we'd visited earlier in the week. Here the gardens were gorgeous, but the
On the road up to Kiyomizu
The biggest and most popular temple in Kyoto - does it show? temple was a bit of a let down after the magnificent buildings we'd seen all the rest of the day and the week. Still, it could have just been temple fatigue!
That all done, it was teatime on our last day in Kyoto, so we headed back to the ryokan, via the closed Kyoto Imperial Palace, got all our dirty washing together and headed for the launderette. We then went out for dinner and toasted Anthony's birthday. So that's Kyoto - off to Nagoya tomorrow (Sunday), don't know what to expect there, but bet it's different, everywhere else has been!
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Gill
non-member comment
Fantastic photos
Your blogs and pictures are great top see and read and we are all enjoying reading them. We can't wait to see the next batch and I am particularly looking forward to Mt Fugi shots. Looking at the staircase at Eikandu you'll both be very fit when you return! Keep working those chopsticks, much love, Gill.