Kobe to Kyoto: Fushimi Inari & the Golden Pavilion

Burgers for breakfast! Well, this IS Kobe beef steak country after all!

We are off to Kyoto (pop. almost 1.5 million) today: the HQ of Nintendo. 

While Kyoto did suffer from smaller-scale conventional bombing raids in 1945, it was largely spared from the atomic bomb due to the intervention of the US President at the time who argued for its removal from the target list due to the city’s immense cultural and historical value. Nagasaki copped it instead.

We started the day in the Ushi river area. This is MATCHA heaven - if you are ‘in’ to matcha (finely powdered green tea). We had one whole hour here so people could buy matcha tea … go figure.  Less than an hour yesterday for the Ritsurin Garden ??? 

Nevertheless it was a very pleasant area walking along the river and hard to believe this is Kyoto. Cooler today: 14 deg C.

We tried sticky rice dumplings with roasted matcha glaze (mitarashi dango) - sweet but not too sweet; won’t be buying them again though. Also tried matcha icecream.

Finally found out what the drunken racoon is all about. This is tanuki; a figure in Japanese folklore that is celebrated as a lovable, drunken buffoon - often found at the entrance to bars and sake shops.

Next was Fushimi Inari shrine, dedicated to the god of rice and sake by the Hata clan in the 8th century. It also features dozens of stone statues of foxes (inari) and the key often seen in the fox’s mouth is the key to the rice granary.

It really is quite impressive: a seemingly never-ending tunnel of vermillion red torii gates, peopled by a never-ending line of tourists (like us).

We did the ascent halfway up the mountain to the Yotsutsuji intersection where there are great views over Kyoto city, having negotiated with Kubo to do this while everyone else had lunch and to meet back at the bus; we ate our 7-Eleven sandwiches at the bus parking station, waiting for the bus to turn up.

Finally: Kinkaku-ji Temple - aka the Golden Pavilion - is a Zen Buddhist temple designated a World Heritage site.

Covered in brilliant gold leaf above a reflecting pool and topped with a bronze phoenix, it was originally built in 1397 but burned down in 1950 and re-built in 1955.

We arrived at the hotel about 4:30 p.m.

We missed the bus to the downtown area due to a navigational stuff-up and walked instead. Did the same coming home even though I swore I was NOT walking back … this added 7 kms to the 11 kms already walked today. Ouch!!

Still, we can say we definitely saw the downtown area! In the downtown area are lovely buildings. 

And lovely views from Sanjō-Ōhashi bridge straddling the Kamo-gawa river - and which marks one end of the Tōkaidō (the feudal route to Edo).

Best part was (finally) taking the weight off my feet to have dinner: at a gyoza restaurant - with a couple of white wines (and a Kirin beer for MF-san who was in the bad books because he cannot work Google maps …). We were entertained by some 80s music and the video clip of David Bowie’s ‘Lets Dance’ which was shot in Australia: a brilliant piece!

Walked (don’t talk to me about it!): 18 kms.