Day 112 in Japan - Kyoto in Autumn Day 1

-       Woke up pretty early for a Saturday. We are all packed in pretty tight in our little apartment (5 people!), so we all had to work together.

-       Ate a toast and coffee breakfast, did the last of our packing for the weekend and then headed off to the train station.

-       First stop was Sannomiya to activate Anna’s JR Pass. I wish that we could qualify for one of these! They are so much cheaper for long-distance train travel, and they are also quite pretty.

-       Then onto Osaka, then Kyoto by special rapid train. As we had managed to pick one of the 4 most popular weekend of the whole year to visit Kyoto, the train was SUPER packed (particularly past Osaka) – Mum and Dad met some new friends from Melbourne in the crush.

-       The trip took about 2 hours all up.

-       Kyoto station was also really busy. We booked Anna’s shinkansen ticket, and posed for photos with the Astro Boy sign outside the station (not sure why there was an Astro Boy in Osaka, as Osamu Tezuka is from Osaka/Kobe – duh!)

-       Lined up for a taxi in a long line behind a lady who had shoes and a bag made out of the same material. Fashionable.

-       The taxi man had really rough Japanese – it was really hard to understand, but we got by. The 15 min trip was only 1200 yen!

-       Walked a very short distance along Nene road in Southern Higashiyama to our Ryokan – Rikiya. Oh man, what a location! It was perfectly located (right next to Kodaiji temple), and was my first ryokan experience. While it was probably a little older and slightly run down, I think we really lucked out with the place.

The view from outside our ryokan

-       We couldn’t find anyone to leave our bags with for a while, so I called the phone number ande ended up waking up a poor little old lady who showed us to our rooms, and then brought us tea and snacks.
- The rooms were awesome.
- We saw our first geisha out of the window of the room that Anna and I shared, while we were eating our snacks. She just walked past the window down Nene street, followed by a few photographers trying to get a snap of her.

Watching geisha pass by outside our window

- We headed out to see some of the local things first. Our first stop was Ryozen Kannon (Kannon is a version of the buddha that is associated with compassion and forgiveness or something), where we saw a huuuuge buddha, walked through him/her (the entrance was in the butt. Awkward!), saw a WWII memorial, and our first Kyoto autumn leaves.

Ryozen Kannon (top - inside the Buddha's belly)

- Next, we headed on an epic quest for lunch. Well, actually, we walked up a little street nearby that looked like Diagon Alley! It was a brilliant little shopping street, which I later found out was called Ninenzaka (Two Year Hill). Lunch ended up being curry soba with duck for me (a Kyoto specialty).

Ni-nenzaka

Kyoto lunch!

- After we were all filled up with delicious food, we walked up the hill to follow a large crowd to an unknown attraction up there. When we arrived, we still couldn't quite figure out what the fuss was about, but realised it had something to do with TV, and I guessed that it was related to this years NHK historical drama. I was right, too! We were at the deathplace of Ryoma Sakamoto (and another samurai, Shintaro), one of the most famous samurai in Japan, on the day before the anniversary of his death. This is apparently the subject of the drama of the year, and there were hundreds of people making the trek up the mountain to see the actually grove he died in. We didn't follow, because we didn't quite understand what was going on. Anyway, he was a cool guy who almost singlehandedly changed the future of Japan, and assisted greatly in bringing about the Meiji restoration.
- Next, we followed the road around south. Anna and I had a quick detour up a long set of stairs into a serene little forest grove, and then we found ourselves back on Ninenzaka (the Diagon Alley-like place), then followed it up Sannenzaka (three year hill), then up the next hilly shopping street (known as Teapot Lane) until we got to...

Looking down Teapot lane from Kiyomizu entrance

- Kiyomizu Temple (i.e. pure water temple) is one of the most famous temples in all of Japan. It was nominated for one of the New 7 Wonders of the world (thanks Wikipedia), and apparently everyone in Japan agreed that this was a good weekend to see it, because they were all there with us　：P Through the large main gate, and then up to the pagoda area. We had a quick detour through the "womb" of the goddess(?) Kannon - a totally dark walk through some catacombs under the temple, following a string of large wooden beads to a wishing stone, which would grant the purest of wishes. Then we headed with the masses around the cliff temple, to see the beautiful autumn leaves starting to change colour. It really was quite uplifting when the lovely view first hit your eyes, and even despite the crowds, it was a lovely experience. We drank water from Otowa no taki, the underwater spring that gives the temple it's name, and will apparently grant wisdom, health and longevity (pick 2). We had a stop at an interesting looking, very large buddhist graveyard, Mum and Anna used the worst squat toilets in Japan, and then we headed out.

- We all split up for a little shopping in the interesting shopping streets (Teapot Lane, Ninenzaka and sannenzaka) on the way back to the ryokan.

San-nenzaka

Ni-nenzaka

Taiyaki and Takoyaki outside the ryokan

- Short rest before dinner. We decided on a place Mum had found in some brochures, so we caught a taxi into central Kyoto (walking past Yasaka Shrine in the process) for dinner at a Nepalese restaurant - the Yak and Yeti. I highly recommend this awesome little restaurant to anyone who is going to Kyoto and wants a break from Japanese food.

- By this stage we were pretty well wiped out (and Dad was full of Neplaese beer), so we went straight home. Mum and Dad and I all had nice traditional style baths, and then hit the hay for another epic day tomorrow!


Food Highlight of the Day: I know I am in Kyoto, and it should be tofu skin, or my curry duck soba, or Kyoto kaiseki of some kind. But it's not. It's my Nepalese butter chicken curry with delicious and flaky naan. It was just stunningly good, and filled my hungry stomach perfectly.