The last two days were beautiful and much warmer, and we spent them in Kyoto. From here on out, it gets complicated. This is our time in the actual city, which has so much to see in it that you can never see it all. We did our best. Therefore, I can’t give you an account of every little shrine we stopped out, but I’ll give you my recommendation for the top five things to absolutely see/do.
1) Kiyomizu-dera
2) Sanjuusangendo
3) Ginkaku-ji
4) Gion
5) Kinkaku-ji
Nice jibberish, huh? Okay, here goes with an explanation:
Kiyomizu-dera is a huge, beautiful shrine complex on the mountain face above our hostel (our hostel was supremely well-located for much of Kyoto). You walk through a smaller temple and a huge, beautiful cemetery up into the hills to reach it. The new buildings are beautifully painted, but you can see more like them. The old buildings are the coolest part. It’s not a fantastically beautiful structure, but it’s very, very old and spirited. There’s a lot to see around the complex, a perfect view of the city, and a great narrow old-fashioned street running down behind it with great snack stops and shopping. We arrived on the verge of cherry blossoms, but it was still beautifully maintained and poetic. Fun fact, it’s a word heritage site and was built in the same era as the original Todai-ji complex.
Sanjuusangen-do is a Buddhist temple even less attractive but equally old. It’s long, brown, and blah. Even the grounds are blah. It’s what’s inside that matters: one thousand and one man-sized bronze statutes of Kannon, and a number of seriously cool national treasures. I got more shivers here than at Todai-ji. Just go. You’ll see. I can’t show you, and not just because there was no taking pictures there.
Ginkaku-ji, the silver pavilion. A very plain pavilion, very old and very famous. You go here for the grounds, which are amazing. Moss covers every inch of the ground, and it’s so green you’re almost blinded. You feel like you’re in a time capsule, just barely after man learned to build his house.
Gion. If you want to see a geisha, or an apprentice geisha, this is the only place in the world that you can. You have to walk up and down Pontocho and the riverfront around sundown, and if you are lucky you will catch a glimpse of one striding resolutely as tourists snap her picture for a split second before she vanishes. We saw two. Gion is also excellent for food, shopping of every kind, the arts, historical buildings, traditional narrow lanes lined with red lanterns, and people from all over the world.
Kinkaku-ji, the gold pavilion. It’s a temple painted with real gold, I kid you not. They repaint it when it starts to look decrepit. We happened to go when it had been freshly done, so it was really beautiful, although we decided the man who built the place had to me a moron. The gardens here are also nice, although personally those at the silver pavilion were nicer.
There’s a ton of other places to see and things to do, but this is already page five of the report. As you can tell, we did a lot. We did almost everything. We even got ourselves painted and dressed as apprentice geisha and had professional photos taken. And we emptied all our wallets quite literally several times. Bring your money, this is not a cheap trip. You’ll wonder where it’s all gone until you remember the entrance fees and bus rides and snacks you’ve been accumulating. But it’s worth every penny. The experience is worth all the pain and agony and every last penny. This is Japan, and if you haven’t seen it, you don’t know the country yet. Japan is so much more than just Tokyo.
Also, if you can avoid it, do not try to take the night bus back and go to classes the next day. Oh, that was a bad idea.
