On the morning of August 12th we were supposed to wake up at 4:15am to catch the 5:15 train for Kyoto. We set two alarm clocks for this purpose, but somehow managed to sleep through both alarms!! I woke up at 6:15am and quickly woke everyone else up.
We all quickly got ready and caught the 7:15am train instead. The trip from Shimizu to Kyoto took about 6 hours on 5 different trains. When we finally arrived in Kyoto we needed to find a hostel, so we found a payphone and called a few numbers from our guidebooks. We finally found a hostel called Higashiyama Youth Hostel. It was a bit more expensive than some of the others, but the cheaper ones were all full.
It wasn’t until after we checked into the hostel (and paid for it) that we realized the strict rules! It had specified bath times, a 10:30 curfew, lights out at 10:30, specified wake up times and eating times, etc. No wonder it was one of the only vacant hostels!!
We left our bags at the hostel and went exploring. We first went to the Heian-Jingu Shrine, also called the shrine of Peace and Tranquility and it was built in 1895 to celebrate the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto. The shrine gardens were beautiful and made use of ponds and flowers creating a stunning garden view.
We then took a walk through the streets and found a street with 4 small temples along it. It is amazing how well they all fit in and blend into the street. All the new architecture was built around the temples so not to disturb the beauty of them. We did not enter any of these temples.
Later that evening we went to Kyoto tower and took the elevator to the highest point freely accessible. Unfortunately that point is not very high, so we did not have a very good view of the city. Close to the Kyoto tower we found a karaoke bar, and spent the rest of the evening singing karaoke.
Karaoke bars are very different here than they are in Canada. Actually, the Japanese invented Karaoke! The way it is set up here is there are individual rooms, each with a TV, couch and table, and groups come to sing in their private room with their friends. This way only your friends can listen to you sing, instead of a bar full of strangers! Each room has a telephone in it, and you use it to call the bartenders to order drinks or food, which are delivered to your private room. At the end of each song the TV informs you how many calories you burnt while singing.
We had so much fun! We were all dancing and singing our little hearts out, while our very embarrassed waiter kept coming into the room with our food and drink orders. We wondered why he looked so embarrassed whenever he entered our room. When we peeked into the other karaoke rooms and saw some Japanese sitting politely on the couches singing quietly, we realized quite quickly why he was so embarrassed watching us screaming the songs while jumping and dancing on the couches.
The next morning we woke up at 5:30am to get an early start on our day, and hopped on the subway. Things were going great on the subway until all the lights went off on the train, then the doors closed, and the train started moving slowly into the tunnel. We looked around and realized we were the only people on the train and the train had just been put out of service!! Luckily the conductor saw us, and after laughing at us, got the train going again and we got off at the next station.
Our first stop of the day was Fushimi-inari Taisha. This was an amazing sight because there were tunnels made from hundreds of Toriis next to each other, each representing a different temple or shrine in Japan.
I tend to praise myself for always being so prepared and organized. This is why I travel with two digital cameras… just in case!! For some reason, my organization and preparedness did not follow through that day, or maybe it was just a stroke of bad luck, but as we were finishing off exploring Fushimi-inari Taisha BOTH my camera batteries died!! I was left carrying around two dead cameras for the remainder of the day and was not able to take any more photos. Luckily Fieke had a camera and is a good photographer, so I trusted her to take photos for both of us for the rest of the day until I was able to charge my cameras that night.
Our next stop was the To-Ji Temple. This temple was a very very tall temple. It has the highest pagoda in Japan (57m high) and it was established in 794. Most of the original buildings have been destroyed, but were rebuilt in the 17th century.
After exploring that area, we went to the Kiyomizudera Temple, also called the Clear Water Temple. It was established in 780 by a Buddhist priest, but most of the present buildings were built around 1633. The temple is on a mountain and gives a beautiful view of Kyoto. Since it is on a mountain most of the temple is supported by large wooden pillars that hang out over the mountain. This is also the location of the Otowa-No-Taki (Sound of Feathers) Waterfall. It is believed that if you drink this water your sickness and illness will be cured. People believe the water has therapeutic properties, and there was a long line of people waiting to drink from this water.
On our way out we found a restaurant called The White Lover, and we stopped there to have a bite to eat. Following lunch we continued on to the Chian-In Temple. This temple is famous for having the largest entrance and the largest bell. We were so tired, and hot, that we couldn’t walk up the hill to explore the bell, but we saw and admired the enormous entrance!
We then went to the Kinkakuji Temple, also called the Golden Temple. It is an amazing sight. The whole temple is covered in gold. One of my cameras had a tiny bit of life left in it, and I wanted to save the photos for something spectacular, and this seemed to perfectly fit:
For dinner we met up with Ken’s Japanese friend Oayi and her husband. We went to a nice restaurant that served us 11 courses!! This meal was a huge luxury, considering we had been eating rice balls and vitamin water out of convenience stores for the majority of the trip!
The following morning we went to the Arasiyama Monkey Park on Iwatayama Mountain. This was my favourite place since arriving in Japan. The monkey park is a mountain, caged off so the monkeys do not escape. When you enter the park, you enter the caged region, so there are no barrier between you and the monkeys. It was amazing (and a little scary) to see the monkeys running free. The only caged area was for humans. It was a small hut at the top of the mountain where people could rest and escape from the monkeys. It was also used to feed the monkeys through the caged windows.
There were strict rules to follow for our safety, for example: never look a money in the eyes (they find it threatening). Also, we needed to eat all the food in our bags before entering so we wouldn’t be attacked for our food!!
The monkeys were absolutely adorable, we saw some mothers with their babies, and others eating, while other younger ones were playing and running around.
We left the park, ran back to the hostel, and then hopped on a train headed to Fukuoka… or so we thought.
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