Japan Trip 3

So many pictures I want to post.  It's hard to know what to put in and what to leave out. All I can hope is that these posts will give you something of the flavor of what being in Japan was like.

Okay, our third full day we walked back to Kyoto station and got a day pass for the subway and bus line.   We also stopped at a bank and exchanged some traveler's checks for yen.  Then we took the bus back to a stop near the Kiyomizu stop and hiked up to the Kodai-Ji Temple.  The first picture is taken at Kodai-Ji Temple.  The entrance was a little hidden, but very cool once we located it.

I should stop for a minute and say that before we left for Japan we had made all these specific plans of what temples and shrines we wanted to see each day and how we would travel to them, etc, etc.  Those plans nearly completely fell by the wayside when we got there.  For one thing, we way over-estimated our time and ability to get from point A to point B.  In addition, we took more time to explore and look at the shrines than we probably thought we would, rather than taking pictures and rushing to the next one.  So we ended up hitting the main temples, shrines and castles that we wanted to see and tossing the rest of the plans.  We'd spent each evening deciding what we would do the next day.  Kodai-Ji wasn't in our original plans but it was awesome!   We even stopped there and had a "soft cream" at a little stand.  Soft ice cream.  It was fun.  And tasty!

Anyway, as noted Kodai-Ji was waaaaaay cool.  There were some dragon figures there and more cool and fun paths through the woods.  There were also some obnoxious American tourists for awhile unfortunately, but they didn't hang around.  

From Kodai-Ji we could see the head and shoulders of a massive white stone  Buddha  above  the  temple  buildings  and  through  the trees in the forest.  We walked over there when we left Kodai-Ji and it turned out to be a shrine of the unknown soldier.   We lit some incense and took some picture of the place and of the ducks in the little stone pond there.

After we left the unknown soldier shrine with the large buddha, we walked back down to the bus stop and took the bus over to see the Toji Temple.  The Toji temple has the largest 5-tiered pagoda in Japan, and like most of the temples, it has well-kept and pretty grounds.  There were also a herd of turtles sunning in the ponds at Toji Temple. Lost and lots of them.   All the structures at Toji Temple are massive.  You can get something of a feel for their size because the last picture in this post is me standing in front of the Toji Temple pagoda.

After leaving Toji Temple, we walked over to the nearest rail station.  Along the way we passed a bakery and a book store, so of course we had to stop in both.  We got melon bread and cheese bread at the bakery for later.

At the rail station we took the Toji line back to Kyoto Station and then switched to the subway and went back to the Teramichi shopping district.  At the Shiyakusho Station (subway stop for Teramichi) is an underground mall, so we had a late lunch there before going to Teramichi.  I had Kitsune soba.  Yum!

We did less shopping this afternoon because my feet were seriously killing me.  I did buy bandaids and a new pair of tennis shoes!  I figured if I were going to walk any more I was going to have to have another pair of shoes.  So I bought a pair of reeboks.  I asked for them in a size 8, and he came back with them and said "biggest size we have."  Apparently the Japanese have significantly smaller feet than I do.  Luckily they fit well.  That pair of shoes saved me on this trip.  Comfortable and easy to walk in.  The funniest thing is that when I took them out of the box back at the ryokan, a flyer was in the bottom of the box.  It was a page of "Instructions for Use".  I was startled, never having seen a pair of shoes with instructions before, so I started reading it.  The shoes are made with a uneven bottom surface!  The intent is to force your leg muscles to work and exercise in order to keep your balance.  I started laughing.  Leave it to me, the person whose feet were killing them, the person who is older and semi-steady on my feet anyway, to buy a pair of uneven, unsteady shoes.  Anyway the shoes gave me no trouble at all.  They're a pleasure to walk in and really saved me on the trip.


At any rate we went back to the ryokan after shopping, me almost limping by that point, and stopped to pick up snacks, real food and beer for the evening.  Plus we had our melon and cheese breads.  We got back and spent part of the evening getting everything repacked and ready to go to Miyajima Island the following day.

The other unfortunate thing was that I was coming down with a bad cold on this third day.  I must have picked it up on the airplane going over.  I didn't let it slow me down too much on the rest of the trip though.  And that was day three.