Kyoto: Rain, Temples, and Shrines

Knowing I wanted to explore Kyoto, I had checked into the ever popular Shinkensen, better known as the bullet train. The high-speed of the train can make the journey in under 3 hours, but the price tag is quite limiting for budget travellers as it was solidly over $100 each way – ouch!

That’s what got me digging further and I found my perfect solution, the Willer Express Bus Service. My ticket to Kyoto was only ¥3500 as compared to over ¥13,000 on the train. It did however take eight hours rather than three, but as I have less restrictions on time than on finances it was the go to option for me!

The bus ride was surprisingly comfortable. The seats leaned about halfway back, there were footrests, we stopped every hour and a half, and it rained the whole way there.  Arriving in the evening, I had some sushi and relaxed figuring out what I wanted to see in the area – not all bad.  

The next morning, it was still unfortunately raining, but this time that didn’t matter as I had a lot of ground to cover! I had planned 4 nights, 3 days in Kyoto expecting to go to Nara as a day trip while I was there to check out the biggest Buddha in Japan and perhaps to pet a deer or two, but that only gave me two days to cover the beautiful (and spread out) city of Kyoto.

As I was staying in Gion, I started my rainy morning trek down the street at Yasaka-jinja Shrine and made my way slowly through Maruyama Park, Chion-in Temple, and Shoren-in Temple which were all pretty close by and on my way up to Heian-jingu Shrine.  

Unfortunately the Shrine was partially under construction, it was still raining, and the garden behind it had a fee I wasn’t willing to pay to explore in the rain.  From there, I headed inward to Nanzenji Temple and Eikande Zenrinji Temple before trekking down the Path of Philosophers.  

The Path of Philosophers is ranked as one of the prettiest paths in Japan and is about 1.8km long – just over a mile.  Now, I’m sure during cherry blossom season or even fall it is beautiful, but unfortunately, right now it was just a very green path next to a creek, in the rain.  It really missed some of the enjoyment from it.  

In any case, at the end of the path was my next destination: Ginkakuji-Temple, also known as the Silver Pavilion.  Admittedly, this Temple was worth the entrance fee as the grounds are beautiful, but it was very crowded! The Pavilion is set amid a garden with a pond and small shrine next to it. Having made it this far, I decided to hike the two miles across to the Imperial Palace.

On my hike to the Imperial Palace, I had a Japanese guy pull his car over and ask where I was from, where I was headed, and would I like a ride.  I’m sure he was convinced this tourist was lost as I was a solid mile from any tourist attraction. As it had stopped raining, I declined his offer and continued my trek.  

I actually passed one of my hostel roommates on the trek in the middle of nowhere, and eventually when I got to the Imperial Palace I ran into her again, and we struck up conversation.  Turns out she’s in the United States Army and based in Seoul.  

We hiked all over the Imperial Palace grounds and around the Sento Imperial Palace only to discover you need advance reservations to go in either.  In all fairness, it does explain why the Imperial Palace was not marked as a must see item anywhere…

From there, my roommate and I decided to hike up to Kinkakuji Temple, the Golden Pavilion, together since we both were fast walkers and headed in that direction, another 2+ miles.  

The Golden Pavilion was absolutely stunning.  It is gold as the name indicates, and sits on a lake that was so still it reflected the image almost perfectly creating twice the beauty. It’s a good thing the Pavilion is worthwhile because there is almost nothing else on the Temple grounds.  

Therefore it was time to walk back down towards our hostel, stopping at the Nijojo Castle, a very solid distance away.  Fortunately, conversation was good, and we made the walk effortlessly.

The Castle was surprisingly interesting although the interior was almost 100% empty, but the carvings and wall paintings were interesting.  Apparently they didn’t know what tigers looked like since they aren’t native to Japan so they painted them as they thought they looked… They were wrong.  

In any case, it was an excellent last tourist destination, and probably a good thing places were starting to close as my feet were also approaching done.  After the Castle, we walked to the Nishikikoji Food Market to check out all of the delicious food, but places there were also slowly closing causing us to have to find dinner elsewhere – darn!  

We actually headed back to the hostel, got a sushi recommendation from the hostel and headed back out.

The recommendation was on point as it was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant where you select what you want to eat as it circulates past you.  Each plate is color coded to tell you the price of what’s on it, and at the end the plates are tallied to determine what you owe.  

Since we had walked all over all day, we pigged out.  It was delicious.  And even when we thought we were done, we had to try a couple more because we were curious what they tasted like.  Weirdest item: Raw horse meat and mane.  

The horse meat was pretty tasty but the mane was really just a chunk of fat from the neck… Not so delicious, but definitely an adventure! Stuffed and ready to sit after walking around twenty miles that day, in the rain, we slowly returned to the hostel taking a couple short detours to check out a few temples and watch for geishas.

No sooner had we sat down in the hostel than a guy came in, asked if we wanted to join him and another person for a drink, and my logical question was…. Who are you? Turns out it was two of our other roommates, so we all went out looking for a bar after I switched shoes in hopes of alleviating the pain in my aching feet.  

Turns out, Kyoto is not known for nightlife, especially midweek.  We actually tried about eight different bars before one would serve non-Japanese speakers and didn’t have a high cover charge or rather “seat charge”.  

We eventually found a place and sat down to chat.  We had the American army in Seoul girl, me, a Dutch guy who was in his first week of around the world travel trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, and another American from North Carolina who was a couple of months into his year or two long travel journey.  

It made for plenty of conversation, and eventually we realized how late it was and returned back to the hostel.  It was a very successful first day in Kyoto.