On Monday morning we caught the train from Takayama to Kyoto. Even though it was raining the scenery was still beautiful – mountains, rivers, forests and rice paddies flew by. The rivers were narrow and fast flowing sometimes, other times wide and smooth. Some of the rice paddies had tall golden rice as opposed to the seedlings we had seen before. We changed to a Shinkansen at Nagoya and arrived at Kyoto at 1.15 pm. Unfortunately the tourist office recommended a smart looking hotel around the corner from the station but it only had two nights vacancy and we needed three to complete the six nights in Kyoto. Keith wandered around in the rain and eventually found the Chita Guest Inn nearby and we checked in. Then we went for a long walk around the area checking out all the yakitori bars with their red lanterns outside.
The next morning we decided to do the Lonely Planet walking tour of Southern Higashiyama. The walk started near an old noodle shop and pharmacy and we walked up a gentle hill past shops selling beautiful pottery and ceramics. At the top of the hill was the ancient temple of Kiyomizu-dera. We left the temple via a busy street lined with souvenir shops and sweet shops and walked down a flight of stairs to Ishibei-koji, a quaint cobblestone alley lined with traditional Japanese Inns and restaurants. We retraced our steps and arrived back at the busy street where we bought some small gifts for Keith's relatives in South Africa. Our walk finished at the Maruyam-Koen park.
Afterwards, we decided to walk to Central Kyoto towards the Imperial Palace Park. On the way we walked along Ponto Cho, a narrow alley next to the river with traditional wooden buildings and hanging lanterns. Then we walked through a shopping arcade on Teramachi Dori to the Nishiki Markets where we saw fresh fish, dried fish products, fresh fruit and vegetables and an assortment of pickled vegetables. The Imperial Palace Park was planted with a variety of trees and there were lots of lovely green lawns and wide paths. There were a lot of cyclists and quite a few people walking their plump manicured pooches.
On Wednesday we decided to do a day trip to Nara and caught the train there. We decided to do the Nara-koen walking tour as the park contained most of Nara's most important sites. It was raining lightly as we walked through town towards Nara-koen Park which was home to over one thousand deer. At the park we saw the five storey pagoda, some deer biscuit sellers and a Japanese girl being pursued by several hungry deer. We bought some deer biscuits and took a couple of photographs of Keith feeding the deer. Then we walked to Yoshikien Garden, a beautiful Japanese garden filled with lush moss in addition to the usual pools, trees, shaped shrubs and stones. We went the wrong way on exiting and saw a couple of large bull frogs in a pool. We arrived at the Nandai-mon gate to the Todai-ji temple which was flanked by two 800 year old wooden carvings of Nio guardians with ferocious expressions on their faces. Unfortunately they were protected by chicken wire which made photography difficult but they were very lifelike and extremely large. In the Todai-ji complex was the Daibatsu-den Hall (the biggest wooden structure in the world) which contained the Great Buddha (Daibatsu) a massive bronze and gold 16 metre high statue surrounded by small golden Buddhas. The Daibatsu is one of the largest bronze figures in the world. Behind the statue was a large wooden column with a small hole in the bottom. Apparently those who can squeeze through the hole (which is the same size as one of the Great Buddha's nostrils) are assured of enlightenment. There was a long noisy queue of kids and adults eager to try this path to enlightenment – who said Buddhism wasn't any fun?
After leaving the Todai-ji complex, we walked to the Nigatsu-do Hall where we enjoyed the views of Nara and the Daibatsu-den Hall from the verandah. We stopped for a cup of roasted green tea at the free rest house before following a path lined with stone lantern sculptures through the woods to the Kasuga Taisha Shrine. It was raining again when we left the shrine and we paid a hurried visit to the Wakamiya-jinja shrine before continuing on our walk. As we left we were surrounded by hungry deer seeking handouts and we decided to feed the rest of the deer biscuits to them. One eager doe was convinced that Keith still had some biscuits hidden away and nipped him in the belly to encourage him to give up the rest of them. At the end of our walking tour we headed back to the station to catch our train back to Kyoto.
On Thursday morning we caught a train from Kyoto station to Hanzono station on the Sagano line. We got off and marched up the hill and it took us quite a while to reach Ninna-ji Temple which was the start of the walking tour. Our final destination on the walking tour was the Kinkaku-ji Temple (Golden Pavilion). The main feature inside the complex was the magnificent Golden Temple with delightful lake and islands in front of it. The upper two levels glowed with gold and it seemed to float on the water. The surrounding gardens also offered plenty of photo opportunities. We left and walked for ages downhill to reach Enmaji station where we caught the train to Sagano Arashiyama station further on down the line to begin the second walking tour. We walked through the suburb which was like a small village and reached a temple complex. We got some photos outside including a great shot of a bull frog in a lotus pond. We saw a shop making tofu from soy beans with a pipe emitting clouds of steam from the shop front. We walked through a bamboo forest which was beautiful and then climbed up a short way in a park to get fantastic views down a valley and the river below. Then we wandered the rest of the walking tour admiring the flowers, dogs, vegetable gardens and surrounding forested mountains. We wandered into another temple complex and took photos of Buddha statues, giant red flowers and temple buildings before we caught the train back to central Kyoto as it was getting dark.
After breakfast on Friday, we decided to take a look at the ultra modern Kyoto Station building. We rode the escalators up to the Sky Garden on the eleventh floor and then went back down to the tenth floor where we took a walk along the aerial walkway. We took a short walk to the north of the station to the Higashi Hongan-ji Temple. The two main buildings in this complex were the impressive Goei-do Main Hall (one of the world's largest wooden structures) and the Amida-do Hall. At the Goei-do Main Hall there were some monks chanting – we sat and enjoyed this for a while before visiting the Amida-do Hall. The Amida-do Hall was being restored and the exterior was engulfed by scaffolding so it was difficult to see what it looked like. Just to the left of the entrance to Amida-do we found a glass cabinet containing an enormous greasy dusty- looking coil of rope made from human hair. This hair was donated by temple devotees to make ropes used in the temple construction as ordinary rope was of inferior quality!!
After we left the temple we walked to the Nijojo Castle. We decided not to go in because it wasn't a notable castle and we had plans to visit Himeiji Castle – which is Japan's best castle. From there we walked to the Path of Philosophy in the Northern Higashiyama area. The path ran alongside a tree lined canal where we saw tame Mallard ducks and large carp. It was lined with shops and cafes and ended at the Ginkaku-ji Temple (Silver pavilion). This temple was modelled after the Kinkaku-ji Temple but plans to cover it in silver never materialised due to the untimely demise of its founder. Like the Kinkaku-ji Temple the grounds of the temple were filled with lovely trees and covered in various types of moss. However there was also a Ginshaden sand garden featuring a large cone shaped structure (Mt Fuji perhaps?). We really loved it because it was totally different from anything that we had ever seen before.
After our visit to the temple we headed back into the centre of town towards Gion, the Geisha distict where we planned to do some Geisha spotting. Keith caught a brief glimpse of some in a taxi but we were too late to catch a good look at them. At that point we bumped into Ellie and Natalie from London and it was while we were talking that we spotted some Geishas at a pedestrian crossing.
On Saturday we caught the train to Osaka. At Osaka we walked towards Osaka Castle through Nakanoshima Island which was located in the middle of the river. It had some museums, lush green lawns and a rose garden at one end. We walked around Osaka Castle which was surrounded by parks and gardens, gigantic stone walls and had an outer and an inner moat (part of which was dry). We walked into the grounds and across the moat through the Otemon Gate and past the Shudokan (a martial arts training hall) where we watched some young boys wearing protective head and chest gear training with a staff. Afterwards we walked around the castle and then out of the South exit of the castle towards Dotombori in the Minami (South) area of Osaka. We found ourselves on Shinsaibashi-suji – an extremely long covered shopping street/arcade. It was really crowded and full of Japanese girls and boys with big hair and we found ourselves swept along in a sea of people. We saw two identically-dressed young girls singing in the street – we think it was some sort of Karaoke advertisement. When we reached the river we turned and walked back to the station where we caught the train back to Kyoto.
The next morning we headed to Kyoto Station to catch the Shinkansen to Shin-osaka. We transferred to another Shinkansen which took us to Hiroshima and we arrived and found our hostel around the corner very easily. We walked to the Hiroshima Peace Park along Hondori Avenue – yet another shopping arcade. We went to the Peace Memorial Museum which had a very good exhibit of Hiroshima before and after the bombing. Out of a population of 350,000, 140,000 people had died by the end of 1945! The display explained the science behind nuclear bombs, showed the damage caused by the blast and subsequent radiation and it showed the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. The most moving displays were the remnants of children's clothing and toys. After we left the museum we walked to the A-bomb dome – the remains a building on the banks of the river.
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