Kyotoooooooooo! 京都！
Woke up at 6am sharp. Usual shower, brush my teeth, get dressed and off to the train station! It was only a 2hr 45minute ride from Tokyo to Kyoto by Shinkansen bullet train.
I was going to take the bus to Kiyomizudera(清水寺) but the bus stops had long queues. :(
But nevermind, even though my right ankle hurts (some illness I seem to have inherited from my mum kicked in), I walked at a slow steady pace according to the route I had planned. (download route map here the numbers you see on this map are the location of where I took the corresponding photos from)
My first stop was at a temple called Sanjusangen-do(三十三間堂). It’s a long temple and inside, houses lots of statues. Very impressive sculptures inside but photos are not allowed so too bad.
Continued walking north. One good thing about walking is I get to take my time and see many things. Small details that aren’t anything special to the locals, appear interesting to me. Before reaching Kiyomizudera, I had to walk up a hill. I stopped midway at a small, dimly-lit restaurant for lunch. I had omelette rice with teriyaki sauce.
Entrance to Kiyomizudera
This corner, has lots of shrines dedicated to relationships. Mostly female visitors here.
Famous view of Kiyomizudera.
Exiting the temple, walking down the hill. On both sides are shops. Lots of people.
Decided to take a shortcut along this river. This road goes through the residential area. Quiet and peaceful.
I forgot if this photo is correct, it should be the Heian temple (平安神宮). The temples I’ve chosen to visit, are all related to the animes/movies I’ve seen and like a lot: Lucky Star and Lost in Translation.
The next 2 photos are taken near sunset. As I was exiting Nanzenji and heading towards the train station.
I took the train back to Kyoto station and from there, took JR line to the Arashiyama, western Kyoto area. There’s a shrine that I wanted to visit because of it’s forest of bamboo. The Nonomiya shrine. I had a bit of trouble locating it because I forgot to prepare the map for this area. I managed to find it anyway, but it was already too dark and the path leading in was totally dark. There weren’t any lamp posts. It was so dark you probably can’t see your shoes.
Thus, I gave up and began heading back to Tokyo. At Kyoto station, I grabbed a Tonkatsu Bentou (pork cutlet with rice) to eat during the ride back. It was cold and thus not really nice.