Today was the first day (apart from Universal) that I felt like I was part of the tourist horde because most of our other days have been spent away from common tourist spots, but today was different. Today we joined the tourist hordes as we knocked two more things off my to-do list, and both of them were totally spectacular.
We started off the day with our JR Pass, took the subway to Osaka station where we grabbed the JR line for Kyoto station (about an hour). When we were in Japan the last time we stayed in Kyoto and loved it, the city is so beautiful, so spiritual and I loved that there was a shrine around every corner. (I realized for the second time that to really do justice to Kyoto I would have to stay here for at least a week without straying from the city as there is so much to see and do, Hopefully I will get that chance again!!!)
Anyway, back to today, we knew we were heading in the right direction at Kyoto station when we joined the hundreds of other people on the platform ( of course they could also have been heading to Nara as the railine was the Nara one which would have cost Y140 from Kyoto station if we hadn't had the pass)
and I am once again grateful that it is not the weekend because I don't know how I would handle it if there were even more people at the temple grounds.
I am fairly sure it wasn't a public holiday today but there were so many people in beautiful traditional kimonos enjoying the shrines that it may be have been.
Fushimi Inari Shrine is, there is only one word to describe it, IMPRESSIVE!!! It is the most important shrine dedicated to Inari, the Shinto God of rice and has been around since before Kyoto was a capital city (which was back in 794)
The temple buildings are quite beautiful with the Roman gate, which was donated by Toyotomi Hideoyoshi who had a major influence on Japanese history, but it is was lies beyond the temple buildings and all the way up the mountian, the amazing vermillion torii gates, the most impressive part of it being the Senbon Torii 'thousands of torii gates" (the two parallel rows of gates)
On a normal day they say it takes 2-3 hours to walk to the summit, but on a day like today when it was insanely busy it would have taken a lot longer, I think we made it about half way up the mountain before we turned around and came back down.
I loved it because of not only the amazing torii gates, and the setting in the mdist of nature which was surprisingly quite peaceful considering the tourist hordes.
I did love people watching too, because there were so many women and children in beautiful kimonos.
I did manage to get some great photos, but because there were so many people I don't think that they were as amazing as they could have been.
Our next stop for photo ops and knocking off the to-do list was Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, which was about an hour away from Fushimi Inari. You can take either the JR Sagano line (to Saga Arashiyama) or the Keifuku Arashiyama line(to Arashiyama) and once there you can take a 'scenic railway" from Toroko Saga(which is across the track) This train runs every hour but we decided not to bother waiting as we had just missed one.
Walking was a great option as we got
that slice of life feel too because we were going past people's houses and the town on the way to the grove, and by walking we also managed to avoid the crowds, because we just wandered, eventually making our way to the grove and even with all the other visitors sharing the experience with us it still felt like a tranquil spot and we were able to get away from the maddening crowds.
It was quite a romantic setting with couples (many in kimonos again)
wandering through the groves and temple grounds and again I enjoyed the people watching as much as the natural environment.
I have heard some people say that they were disappointed with the groves as they weren't as impressive as they thought, but Samara and I wandered around without complaint.
In fact the weather was getting a little overcast which caused a great ambience and I could imagine how eerie it would be on a foggy/rainy day.
From the grove we walked again, getting a little lost on the back streets but eventually made our way to the Togetsukyo Bridge (Moon crossing bridge) which is supposed to be an iconic landmark of Arashiyama and that I have to say I was a little disappointed with (although would have been impressive in it's heyday of the Heian perod 794-1195 when the nobles would flock to the area to enjoy the natural setting)
Of course if I came back in December when lanterns line the bridge and the bamboo grove (Hantoro) it would be beautiful, or in the summer when cormorant fishing happens on the river, or autumn with the magnificent fall foliage..
..(damn I need those tattslotto Gods to pay me a visit so that I can knock everything off my to-do list...although I don't think it will ever be done because whenever I go somewhere or see something like a you tube video it triggers off another list of "I want to do that" but on my last day on this earth I want to say I had a good crack at it)
I thought the town and bamboo groves were very pretty and well worth a visit but there was still so much I wanted to see in Kyoto and we just ran out of time.)
We said farewell to Kyoto and headed back to the ryokan,
via Dontonbori for one last stroll enjoying the night lights and but another delicious and cheap meal.
(I still don't understand why people say Japan is expensive, they're obviously not eating in the same places that we are).
It's our last night in Osaka and I am sad to say goodbye, we've had some great adventures and more memories to store, and the hope that one day I'll be able to come back again.
The only issue is that we are now heading into the last leg of the holiday and although I will be happy to go home and see the rest of the family and friends it means going home and not knowing when the next adventure is going to be. But enough wallowing about that...I still have a few more days in Japan and I am going to make the most of them.