It’s a good job that I did save the bit about Kyoto until last, because the three shrines that we saw today were amazing – All of them were on the slopes of the Higashiyama or 東山, the mountain to the east of Kyoto (see what they did there), so the other one thought that he was getting legs like a super model from climbing all those steps. Not if he eats so many Okonomiyaki, say I….
Anyway, the hotel was perfectly placed for seeing two of the three shrines we saw today. Firstly, we went to see Chion-in which is now the home of the Buddhist monks – there was a fine garden (with raked stones – very Japanese), and some amazing architecture. One of the things that it shared with Nijo-jo (which we saw yesterday) was a Nightingale floor. Keeps those pesky Ninjas out.
Following a brief stop for lunch, we whizzed across town to the Golden Temple, or Kinkaju-ji which was quite simply breath-taking – the entire top two levels of the temple were covered in gold leaf and there was a Chinese phoenix ontop – this coupled with the autumn leaves was quite spectacular. Apparently, one of the monks got so obsessed with the building that he burnt it down – bit extreme really…
Finally, on the way back to the hotel, we went to Eikan-do which is the biggest of the shrines that we saw today. The halls, gardens and statues speak for themselves and the amount of gold throughout the place was quite incredible. You can see things better on the website than I can ever hope to describe them.
A couple of things struck me about Kyoto:
· November (maybe a week later than we went) is an AWESOME time to go and see the city; the colour of the leaves is unlike anything else that I have seen anywhere – the red is so deep that they should Pantone this stuff….
· Also, Kyoto is cut out for Japanese tourists more than it is foreigners – There are plenty of signs in Japanese, but very few in English (unless they are telling you to NOT to do something – smoking / entering / walking on the grass / taking photos…) so unless you want to learn Japanese or fork out for an audio guide, then you might want to read up ahead of time to make sure you know what you are looking at. And it’s worth it – trust me
· Pick your temples and don’t try and cover off everything – it’s like Rome like that – you can easily get blase about what you are seeing. If you are trying to pull 6 sights a day, you aren’t going to do it justice – and barring any mad monks, it should be there for the next time as well!
So now, I am blogging / snoozing on the way back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen again, and it has been a great trip, but I think it is time to get back to Sweden and reality again. The other one has become addicted to Starbucks (because there are thousands around Tokyo alone), so it is time to replace the ’benti no hotto no ratte’ (Venti hot latte) with en macchiato!!!
Ja mata, Nihon!!!
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