Today we planned a day-long tour to get the most our of our last day in Kyoto.  We had to catch the 7:20am shuttle from our hotel to Kyoto Station to meet our tour guide, so Margaret and I had to get out to the 7-11 pretty early.  We found the selection to be even better.  Today for breakfast I had Japanese-style spicy fried chicken and an egg roll.  Margaret had some salmon sushi.  Once again, a quality breakfast.

Purification ritual

The tour, which was just for our group, covered several sights around Kyoto that it would have been hard to get to on our own.  The first stop had us heading up into the mountains that ring the city, to visit the Buddhist Kiyomizu-dera Temple.  It features a huge terrace built out of the mountainside, constructed entirely without nails.  The views from the terrace, looking out over the forest and the city beyond, were beautiful.  To enter the viewing area for the temple itself, we had to remove our shoes and purify ourselves by washing our hands.  We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the temple itself, but everything was very ornate and impeccably maintained.  Our guide Emiko taught us how to throw a coin offering, then perform the correct series of bows and claps while making a wish.  (Reflecting on how things are going in the US right now, I think many of us shared a similar wish.)  Here we also saw what was to be a constant for the day: huge crowds of tourists.  Much like Florence, we were surrounded by people from all over the world come to see the sights of Kyoto.

Our next stop was a Shinto shrine, Fushimi Inari-taisha.  It features ten thousand red torii gates that have been erected along a path that winds up and down a small mountain.  (Our guide told us that long ago, a businessman who was struggling built the first gate as an offering, and his business then succeeded.  Since then, thousands of businesses have constructed their own gates.)  You can walk through the gates and see the names of those that constructed them. Most were in Japanese characters, but we saw a few more modern company names sprinkled in.  Here and there we saw gates that were falling into disrepair, and were wondering what effect that had on the luck of the business that had built them.

Golden Pavilion

We then went to a restaurant by the river for a buffet lunch.  Many of us ate way too much in an effort to taste everything.  In many cases I wasn’t sure what I was eating, but most of the time it was very good.  The huge restaurant, as well as all the sights we saw, were mobbed with crowds of schoolchildren in uniforms, visiting on field trips.

From the restaurant we walked to the nearby Tenryuji Temple.  The best part of this area was the beautifully landscaped gardens.  The attention to detail was stunning.  We saw several gardeners working on different patches of land, literally pulling out blades of grass one at a time in order to create the perfect effect.  Judy, Margaret, and I spent a fair amount of time wandering the various paths around a pond and across a hillside, even though by then it was raining.  The many paths of the garden, and the rain, also allowed us to escape the crowds for a bit!

Next up was maybe my favorite part of the day — the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.  Walking up the path felt like entering a tunnel, with densely-packed, ramrod-straight bamboo trees surrounding us, the background a constant whisper of rustling leaves far above.  I would have loved to walk through here alone, but alas, many others clearly felt the same way.

Our final stop was one more temple — the Kinkakuji Temple, known as the Golden Pavilion.  This temple is covered in gold-plating, and shines out dramatically behind a large pond.  We weren’t able to go inside, but the grounds around the temple again were stunningly beautiful and meticulously cared for.

By this time we were pretty wet and very tired, so we unanimously decided to skip the souvenir shop that was supposed to be our last stop of the day.  In exchange, we were able to negotiate a drop-off at our hotel, rather than at the Kyoto station.  This was a great relief to everyone, as we were ready for a quick dinner and bed.  We found our quick dinner at a nearby ramen restaurant — very small and casual, but delicous.  Large bowls of ramen cost about $5!

Margaret and I have been gradually making our way through the many amenities provided by our hotel.  In addition to the heated toilet seat, robe, and slippers, today we discovered that we have a shoe dryer!  This came in very handy after today’s rain.