Wednesday, 16 September

*Must be more children in the hotel as there were children's plates, cutlery and cups on the breakfast buffet this morning!

Overcast and light rain on and off today – temperature when we left the hotel 25C, so we decided to head to Kyoto for a day of temples and sights in the old Capital City.

Our local subway line (Yatsubashi) to the JR subway to get to the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) station, "Shin-Osaka" in Central Osaka – really its not as complicated as it sounds! From Shin-Osaka we catch the Shinkansen to Kyoto, just one stop, about a 15 minute trip. (By car, Google Maps says its about 48 kms and almost an hour’s drive.)

All the major subway stations are very busy bustling locations. For example Osaka/Osaka Umea station is said to handle about 3 million people per day. It has multiple levels of tracks and platforms coming into and out of the station. The stations themselves are filled with shops selling a multitude of products and all seem to be busy! All ticket machines are in Japanese with English option (just push the “English” button!) Each subway line is shown above the ticket machines. Once a ticket is bought, insert the ticket into the turn stile to get into the corresponding platform. You must retain your ticket to exit. If you don’t pay enough and ride to a further station, the exit turnstile will not let you exit until you go to another ticket machine to buy the additional fare. Everything is automated but there is at least one attendant at each bank of turnstiles (many attendants at the busier ones) to let through pass holders and assist passengers as required.

There are 2 temples close to the Kyoto station, so it was another walking day! Both temples were originally part of the same Shin Buddhism sect, but split centuries ago, now Higashi-Honganji temple is known as, Eastern Temple of the Original Vow, the other being Nishi Honganji, or, 'The Western Temple of the Original Vow'.

First stop: Higashi-Honganji Temple
 
We visited several buildings on the grounds – most impressive was the “Founder’s Hall”, largest wooden structure in Kyoto and one of largest in the world. It has 175,000 roof tiles, 927 floor mats (about 3 ft x 5 ft) inside and 90 (huge) wooden pillars. In the main temple we observed some sort of ceremony, but most was lost on us, due to the language barrier.

Second stop:   Nishi Honganji Temple, where we took a quick tour inside. At both temples we received our 'temple stamp’, in our temp book.

Third stop: Nijo Castle (UNESCO World Heritage Site)
 
About a 2 km walk north of Nishi Honganji Temple are the Nijo Castle and grounds. The total site area is about 70 acres.  Originally built in 1603, currently the castle is in year 4 of as 20 year restoration. We toured the castle’s main building and viewed the various rooms (each with a purpose). Amazing to experience a building with so much history, seeing where the Shogun lived and did his daily business! We also went for a walk around the garden that surrounds the castle and moat.

Fourth Stop: Shopping side street enroute back to the subway station. This area was more of a neighbourhood shopping area, as we were a bit off the beaten tourist track(which is not that unusual for us). Here we ran into our first 100 Yen store of the trip. A nice small tea store, three bike stores, several scooter stores and many more of the smaller Mom and Pop variety of stores.

Next we found the closest JR Station and made our way back to Kyoto Station, had a hot dog and hamburger and grabbed the Bullet Train back to Osaka.

Lots of walking again today, but a bit of an earlier evening than the last two nights. Time for a Mister Donut doughnut, a couple of drinks, and to bed, to be ready for tomorrow’s adventures.