On August 4th Steph, Jessie (one of Ken and Caelan’s friends) and I went on a day trip to see a few sights. We took the train to Otowa-cho Station in the Shizuoka Prefecture to see Kiyomizu-yama Park and the Kiyomizu Temple.
The park is located on a small mountain covered in trees and bamboo.
We took a trail to climb to the top, thinking we would find the temple up there. Unfortunately once we reached the top all we found was a small flat area covered in grass and some benches. We asked a Japanese man (who was taking his cat for a walk on a leash) to point us in the direction of the temple. He was not much help and told us it was very far away.
We climbed down the mountain and decided we would walk around it to search. We came across a cemetery with a small temple. We were so excited and thought we must have found the Kiyomizu Temple! The gravestones were so close together, one behind the other. I’ve never seen gravestones that close! The temple was not open, so we could not see inside. We decided to head back to the train station and make our way to our next destination.
To get to the train station we continued walking around the mountain and we came across another temple! This one had no gravestones, and it consisted of a few different buildings. We realized that this must be the Kiyomizu Temple that we had been searching for! Unfortunately the temple was not open, and there was no information available about the different buildings. It was still very interesting to see buildings in the traditional Japanese style. Hopefully we’ll find more information the next time we visit a temple.
Once we had thoroughly explored the temple area we hopped back on the train and traveled to Shizuoka City to see the Sumpu Castle Ruins and Sumpu Park. The Castle, which is located within the park, dates back to 1585 when Ieyasu Tokugawa started construction. The park is surrounded by an outer moat and a large, high wall. We could not enter the castle, but we were able to pass through the gates of the castle to take a walk around the park. The park is quite large and contains a few benches, children’s playgrounds and gardens.
We really wanted a photo of the three of us at the entrance to the park, but every time we asked anyone to take it we wouldn’t be satisfied with the outcome. So we set up the camera on the ground, propped up with our purses, and we used the remote to take our photo. It took us a few failed attempts, but we ended up satisfied in the end. This was our final result:
After this day of exploring we took the train back to Ken’s house where Fieke (one of Ken’s friends, visiting from Amsterdam) had just arrived. We hung out for a while and decided on our plan for the night and the following few days.
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