Japan Trip 2

I've realized that I'm going to have to give a nearly day-by-day account of this trip in order to post all the cool pictures I want to post.  I can skip travel days, but the rest are pretty full of picture worthy material.

The last post was about our arrival and first full day of playing.  This post will be about our second day.

After our usual wonderful breakfast, we went to Kyoto Station and picked up the Nara Line south to Inari Station and went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.  Fushimi Inari is definitely one of my favorite places in Japan.  These orange gateways are referred to as "torii", and Fushimi Inari has millions of them.  They have two pathways going up the side of the mountain that are completely lined by torii.  The picture here is the entrance to the two torii pathways from the top.  Going up the torii appear blank (see next picture down), but from the other side going back down they have kanji writing on them (next picture).  The pathways are completely awesome.

At the top of the torii paths there is another pathway leading up the mountain that we took.  Not many people take it, so it was perfect for us.  I don't know how far up we went, but we came across an area that was full of what I call little fox shrines.  There were hundreds of them.  The picture down lower in this post shows some of the little shrines.  In one area there was a natural bowl, cup-like area in the mountainside that was full of small shrines.  I wish I could describe it adequately.  We didn't take pictures of that particular area or even go down into it because there were people dressed in white traditional Japanese clothing who were holding ceremonies and praying.  We just moved quietly past, with the smell of incense in the air around us.  It was really a cool extra hike, very peaceful and quiet with good views and not strenuous hiking.  Also I saw my first bamboo forest, which was also cool.  

After coming back down the mountain, we did some minor shopping at the touristy places around and in Fushimi Inari Temple, then took the Nara line back one station, got off and found the 207 bus to take us to Kiyomizu Temple.  We did take it in the wrong direction initially, but got turned around (got off and took it in the right direction) and rode it up to the Kiyomizu-michi stop.  We got off and walked up a VERY steep hill to Kiyomizu Temple.

A few comments about that.  I continuously forgot that Japan is comprised of mountainous islands.  There's not all that much flat land, and the mountains are pretty vertical. This "hike" up to Kiyomizu Temple was one of those nearly vertical places.  Probably it wasn't all that long, but it seemed like it was.  Also, although I wished the sun had been out more on this trip, I'm actually grateful that so much of the time it was overcast.  The temperatures were in the mid-70s, but the humidity was so high that I spent a lot of time sweating, including on this climb up to the Temple.


Kiyomizu Temple is famous for it's open air stage that overlooks Kyoto.  The view from here is pretty spectacular.  The last picture is of a portion of Kiyomizu Temple rather than of the view.  I didn't enjoy this temple as much as I might have ordinarily because I was tired, and my shoes had rubbed a second blister, on the opposite foot from my first blister from the day before.  So we didn't explore Kiyomizu temple as much as we probably should have.  Nor did we shop at any of the shops lining the streets  approaching Kiyomizu Temple.  By this point we were hungry.

We went back down to the bus and took back to Kyoto Station.  We finally just ate at a place there in Kyoto Station, since it was so late by then and we were starving.  I had curry, which was okay.  I was so hungry by then I'd have eaten almost anything.  

After reviving at lunch, we went back to Teramichi for shopping.  We found an Animate store and spent quite some time there doing anime shopping.  I bought a Japanese fan with cats on it at a shop on the way out of the shopping area.

Two things happened on this day that were repeats of my initial trip to Japan.  One was buying the fan.  I also bought one the first time I went over.  The second was: at Kiyomizu Temple, I was stopped by a group of school kids with their teacher, asking if they could practice their English on me.   That's what happens when you're a blond in Japan.  I enjoyed it though.  This group was older than the group from my previous trip.  That time it happened at Nijo-jo and it was young grade-school kids.  This group may have been middle-school.

After shopping we returned to Shimizu ryokan.  We stopped at a Lawson's on the way and I picked up beer and snacks, since our room had a small refrigerator.  My friend always picked up something more substantial to eat when we stopped for evening food supplies, but evening beer and snacks worked for me.  

And that was our second full day.