Kyoto, Cherry Blossoms, and a trip to Nara

Sunday, April 07, 2024
Nara, Nara, Japan
The train station in Takayama is quite small with only 2 platforms. We had prepurchased some sandwiches and snacks from Family Mart for our train journey (FYI the sandwiches are very nice and fresh and even the crusts are cut off!).
It was a scenic journey with Cherry Blossoms everywhere - those extra few days have made a huge difference to those blooms!
We then arrived in at Kyoto station, changed trains a couple of times to get to Sanjo Station which is close to our hotel. In this area, Cherry Blossoms are everywhere!! So Gorgeous!! We checked into our modern hotel and went exploring. There is a lot to see here and 3 nights will barely touch the sides.
Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and has a whopping 17 Unesco World Heritage Sites. Kyoto is mainly famous for its hundreds of temples and shrines. In total, there are over 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines.
First on the agenda was the Gion District. Gion is Kyoto's most famous geisha district. It is filled with shops, restaurants and ochaya (teahouses), where geiko (Kyoto dialect for geisha) and maiko (geiko apprentices) entertain. Gion attracts tourists with its high concentration of traditional wooden machiya merchant houses. Due to the fact that property taxes were formerly based upon street frontage, the houses were built with narrow facades only five to six meters wide, but extend up to twenty meters in from the street.
A nice (and expensive) place to dine, the street and its side alleys are lined with preserved machiya houses many of which now function as restaurants, serving Kyoto-style kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine) and other types of local and international meals. There are also tea houses.
The area was crammed with people. Many tourists were dressed up in traditional kimonos for photos with the cherry blossoms, but we didn’t see any Geisha - these tend to be a rare sighting. 
Complaints about tourists behaving like ruthless paparazzi have been numerous in recent decades. In fact, from this month in Kyoto, tourists are banned from many of the private streets (photos are also not allowed with steep penalties) - there were police everywhere. Tourists can still walk the main thoroughfares, making them very busy. It was busier than anywhere in Tokyo we saw.
We then went to Pontocho Alley - a long and narrow strip of restaurants near our hotel. is one of Kyoto's most atmospheric dining areas. It is a narrow alley running from Shijo-dori to Sanjo-dori, one block west of Kamogawa River. It is an alley packed with restaurants on both sides offering a wide range of dining options from inexpensive yakitori to traditional and modern Kyoto cuisine, foreign cuisine and highly exclusive establishments that require the right connections and a fat wallet. Timmy and I stopped for a couple of drinks at a cocktail bar before meeting Joan and Bernie at an English-themed bar where we had cheap meals and a few pints. The fish and chips with chopsticks was a novel experience.
For our first full day in Kyoto we walked to Nishiki  Market. Nishiki Market is a narrow, five block long shopping street lined by more than one hundred shops and restaurants. Known as "Kyoto's Kitchen", this lively retail market specializes in all things food related, like fresh seafood, produce, knives and cookware, and is a great place to find seasonal foods and Kyoto specialties, such as Japanese sweetspickles, dried seafood and sushi. We enjoyed wandering along the alley checking out the produce for sale - Tim and Joan had freshly cooked tempura prawns. 
The next activity was catching a train to Nara. This ancient city is home to three World Heritage sites, comprising Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara, Buddhist Monuments in the Horyuji Area, and Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range. Filled with natural beauty, charming townscapes and National Treasures, Nara is less than an hour by train from Kyoto.
We just didn’t have time to see many things at Nara, but we did want to see one of the famous UNESCO World Heritage sites here - Todei-Ji Temple. This is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Japan. Tōdai-ji was not opened until the year 752 CE. The construction of the temple was an attempt to imitate Chinese temples from the much-admired Tang dynasty. The temple has undergone several reconstructions since then, with the most significant reconstruction (that of the Great Buddha Hall) taking place in 1709. Its Great Buddha Hall houses the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana. The temple is a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", together with seven other sites including temples, shrines and places in the city of Nara.
It truly was worth seeing and the photos of the temple simply do not show the size and scale but it is huge (until 1998 it was the largest wooden building in the world). The huge bronze statue was also very impressive. The Nara Park adjacent to the complex is full of deer. The deer are very friendly and approach tourists for food. Many vendors sell biscuits to feed to the deer. There are quite a few vendors selling food also - so this sufficed for a lunch on the run. 
We returned to Kyoto - Joan had had enough of what was turning out to be a pretty big day, so we all caught bus 17 from Kyoto Station which dropped Joan off near our hotel, and took Timmy and I onward to Ginkakuji Temple (the silver pavilion).
Ginkakuji consists of the Silver Pavilion, half a dozen other temple buildings, a beautiful moss garden and a unique dry sand garden. It is enjoyed by walking along a circular route around its grounds, from which the gardens and buildings can be viewed. Despite its name, the Silver Pavilion was never covered in silver. Instead, it is believed that the name arose as a nickname more than a century after the building's construction to contrast it with the Golden Pavilion. Alternatively, it is explained that moon light reflecting on the building's dark exterior (which used to be covered in black lacquer) gave it a silvery appearance. It was a beautiful and tranquil spot.
At the bottom of the hill was the beginning of the 2 km long Philosophers Path. Before we embarked on that walk, we refueled with a beer and a snack! The Philosophers Path was an absolutely gorgeous walk. The path follows a canal which is lined by hundreds of cherry trees. These trees have exploded with color, making this one of the city's most popular hanami (cherry blossom viewing) spots.
After this, we walked back to our hotel through an area which was obviously very wealthy, and walked past quite a few temples. By the time we got to our hotel, we had walked 17,000 steps and were exhausted. After hot showers, we caught up for a beer with Joan and Bernie and then Tim and I went to dinner in Pontocho - we found a restaurant up some stairs where the chef prepared our meals in front of us. We enjoyed dinner immensely (I had my first Okonomiyaki). We followed this up with a drink or 2 at another bar before calling it a night, exhausted after a busy but fulfilling day!

Comments

Rachel
2024-04-11

Love the blossoms! Amazing scenery. I asked Jake what he saw in Kyoto & he said ‘can’t remember’ 😜 surely it’s more memorable than that 😳

beco70
2024-04-11

Haha Jake

2025-02-15

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