Day 3: Kyoto

We took a short Shinkansen hop from Osaka to Kyoto in the morning, when I realised that I had forgotten to check on how to get to our hotel from the train station. Thankfully the police post there was able to show us the way. So, if ever you're hopelessly lost, look for a koban (police post).

Kyoto is one of the cultural centres of Japan, being a former capital and chock full of shrines and temples, making Daniel sick of them. It wasn't surprising thus to see lots and lots of students coming to Kyoto. We often saw groups of students walking around with some checklist of sorts, going from location to location; probably some field trip related thing.
















The rear of the JR Kyoto station. A huge building in its own right, but loses out to Tokyo station in my opinion.


































Just two out of dozens of fruit pies that were on display at a shop inside the station.















Question: Is Daniel surprised at the variety of colourful pies, or something(one) else?















Answer: Of course it's the fruit pies!























The entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine, a temple dedicated to the fox spirit, located to the southeast of Kyoto.






















One of the key features of this shrine are the hundreds of gates along a number of paths in the hills behind the main temple.
















Apparently if one were to walk under all the gates together with their loved ones (takes about 2 hours or more), they'll live happily ever after. Guess this means that OCX and Daniel aren't fated for that.
















Each gate was donated by someone or some organisation. The surprising thing was that the gates are all pretty recent, no gate was older than 10 years old. Seems like they're replaced every now and then.
















The scenery around the paths are pretty nice, as it's set in a forested hill.















Next up was the Kiyomizu temple, a candidate for one of the new 7 wonders of the world.















The place was full of people, from students on field trips to tourists to families.















A common site at temples across Japan is this thing for people to hang wooden boards on which they write their wishes. Everything from good exam results to health to love can be seen, and in a variety of languages too.















This particular one was rather interesting. Not the wish itself (the guy's asking for good health for himself) but the way he wrote it, quite funny if you understand japanese.






















The Kiyomizu temple is set in another forested hill, which makes for a beautiful backdrop. Just too bad the time of the year we went had no particular tree flowering, hence everything was just green.
















The money shot of the Kiyomizu temple. Since it's built on a hill, the veranda is supported by pillars.















Statues of a local deity who looks after travellers. For some reason, they all had a red bib put on them, so we joked that they were getting a hair cut.





















Another common feature at shrines in Japan is a small pool for people to wash their hands and mouth prior to entering the shrine itself. This one is unique in that the water flows in via three channels above. One has to use a ladle with an extra long handle to collect the water.






































A couple of shots of some nearby traditional looking streets. Nice looking but full of tourist traps.

The rest of the day was spent at some nearby shrines, and since they close at about 4 plus, we weren't left with much to do, except to go back and bathe and then look for dinner. Eventually we found ourselves at a sushi place with 105 yen (less than S$1.50) for each plate. Nice place, so nice in fact, we ended up there again the next evening :P

Next up: Day trip to Iga-Ueno and the Ninja museum. 楽しみにしてください！