Kyoto is a city bursting with history, glorious temples and gardens of exquisite beauty. The challenge for visitors is to narrow down this embarrassment of riches, to select the handful of attractions to visit during a short visit.
We’d already visited some of Arashiyama’s great draws but with just one day left in the city it was time to visit some of our last few selections. And I had to do it with a bad back, one that had given me another restless night. But at least it wasn’t quite as bad as the day before, and we chose to take taxis to avoid too much walking around.
We kicked things off after breakfast with a trip out to the north east of the city and Kinkaku-ji, famed for its fabulous Golden Temple (pictured top). And what a beautiful sight it was too, sitting by the water beneath a deep blue sky, shimmering in the heat of the June sunshine and framed by expertly pruned trees and shrubs. Of course there were tons of people there, jostling at the water’s edge to take photos of the gleaming masterpiece. While we were amid this throng admiring the beauty of the place, we bumped into our Takayama friends Matthew and Paula again. It seems we were meant to be together on this holiday…
So we spent the rest of our visit walking through the temple gardens, chatting to them about this and that. Graham got a talented craftsman to write a prayer in beautiful script in his scrapbook of our journey before moving on as a foursome to the Ryoan-ji Temple, one of Matthew’s suggestions and famous for a centuries-old Zen rock garden. It sounds wrong describing it as a rectangular plot of gravel surrounded by low walls, with 15 rocks set down in small groups on patches of moss, because the precision involved is extraordinary and the impact it has visually is considerable. Apparently, from any vantage point at least one of the rocks is always hidden from view.
I could’ve sat and contemplated its meaning – as one is doubtless meant to do – but it was difficult to get into the Zen thing with all the crowds hovering around us, cameras at the ready. So after a short attempt to get my mind attuned to it we walked off into the grounds, which included a large lake stocked with colourful water lilies.
We said another goodbye to Matthew and Paula and ventured south on our mad dash around the city to the Shinto Fushimi Inari Shrine, one that I’d particularly looked forward to seeing. After a lunch nearby of sushi, where we sat next to the noisiest eaters known to man, we walked through the busy grounds in the heat, admiring a set of striking orange buildings.
The shrine is best known for a pathway up to the summit of a nearby wooded hill that’s lined with thousands of red and orange torii, the gates that mark the transition from the profane world to the sacred. It’s an incredible experience walking among them, snapping pictures, trying to find a spot free of other tourists.
We wanted to climb to the top but my back just couldn’t take it so when we came to a natural break near a pond, we turned round. Coming downhill, we saw that the apparently plain gates – of varying sizes – are carved with the names and dates of the donors.
Our last stop, close to our hotel, was the Temple of Sanjusangen-do. Here, in a wooden hall dating from the 13th century that’s the longest in Japan, are 1,000 standing statues of the Buddhist deity known as Kannon and one giant seated statue at the centre.
We traipsed through and admired them – and they too date from the 12th and 13th centuries – while the devout prayed around us. Later we took a little walk through the pretty grounds in the sweltering heat.
In the evening I could’ve done with a spot of calming contemplation and meditation. We were keen to try more of the incredibly tasty beef they produce in this part of the world, so went to the Geisha district of Gion to find somewhere to eat, an experience that proved one of the most stressful parts of our visit to Japan. I wish that Japanese restaurants were more open to the world – in the sense of having windows so you can see inside! Regulars will know that I have a mortal and irrational fear of walking into places I can’t see – bar or restaurant – and being the only people there.
This time we ended up in a place with a private room (sadly) being served all sorts of things from a beefy tasting menu – not that we had much of an idea what it was we were eating. There were clues from some of the other entries on the menu, which included such dubious delights as arteries, intestines and rumen. It will come as no surprise that these are things we’d never normally touch with a bargepole, let alone our tongues, but having chosen from the menu, we felt committed. At one point we had sushi with raw slices of beef and all I could think about were the dreadful bowel motions I’d be enduring next day. I just ploughed on, though, eating everything, hoping for the best… And some of it was delicious even if it did look like something from an alien planet.
We left full and wandered across the river, its banks always busy with locals, and marked our last night in Kyoto in the familiar surroundings of Bar Atlantis drinking fine local lager…