Kyoto Day 2

So while the clouds had lifted late in the afternoon on Day 1 to make way for some sunshine, this was not the case Day 2. Nope, it was a pretty dismal day, although I was fortunate that the rain was mostly limited to sprinkles for the first half of the day while I was out seeing the sights.

The first place I visited was called Kyomizudera. This one was accessed by climbing up a steep residential city street that transitioned into a full blown shopping street closer to the top. Many foods and souvenirs being sold. At the top though, wow. A huge vermilion gate and a towering pagoda are set at the foot of the mountains.

As you climb up the stairs, you find the Kiyomizu Temple, a huge structure that sits on a complex wooden column and beam foundation that allows it to perch on the side of a very steep hill. The views over the city are amazing, and the building itself is impressive as well. Here are some pictures:

Afterwards, I grabbed a quick lunch and then took a bus and a train over to the Fushimi Inari shrine area in southern Kyoto. This shrine, being slightly more out of the way, had a bit fewer souvenir stores, which was nice. I walked though a small town center near the train station and came to a large concrete plaza with a giant torii gate. This particular shrine sits atop a mountain with trails leading up to the top. Many of these trails are actually more like tunnels, because they pass under hundreds of small, red torii gates that are only inches apart from one another. I read that they are all gifts from worshippers.

Inari is apparently the Shinto god of rice, and he uses foxes as his messengers. Because of this, there are many scary looking fox statues on the way up the trail.

Part of the way up, I noticed a trail off to the side that some other people didn't seem to be taking, and I decided to check it out because it looked interesting. It ended up taking me back through a dense bamboo forest. It was very peaceful, as there were no other tourists to be seen anywhere. As I went along, I kept hoping it would connect back up with the other trails, but all I found a long the way were some empty or unattended shops and lots of mosquitoes. After walking for a while and not feeling like I was getting anywhere, I decided to turn back.

I made my way up several staircases on my way to the top. As usual at these mountain shrines, the price of water from the shops along the way goes up by about 50 yen every ten minutes. So, remember to buy your water at the bottom, kids.

As I boarded the train, the rain really started coming down. I decided that it'd be a good idea to head back to the hostel for a bit. I had sent some emails about trying to see Ando's Church of Light, only a 30 minute train ride away. However, after checking my email, I learned that it was closed for the next few months for restoration work. Bummer. Eventually I decided now would be a good time to haul my stuff to the next hostel for the night.

After dropping my stuff off at the new hostel close to Gion and downtown Kyoto, I went and browsed the large shopping streets, protected from the rain by the glass roof. The rain wasn't too bad at this point, just drizzling. I had dinner, and as I started to head back to the hostel, I could see some seriously ominous clouds in the distance. Very dark clouds.

I got home and was getting ready to head back to the Irish bar to meet the bartender from the previous night and her friends. As I talked to my new bunk mate in my new room, he too said he'd been to the same bar the previous night. Turns out he'd left like, right as I had arrived. He said he knew the bartender too. So, me and this Finnish guy named Aki headed over to the bar together. We ended up meeting the bartender, her Japanese friend, and two other married friends who were leaving for Australia the next day. We hung out and played some weird Korean drinking game. They also decided to play that popular Japanese game "Feed weird food to the foreigners". They actually ran out to a convenience store to buy us natto (sticky fermented soybeans - very strange, and surprisingly a popular breakfast food), umeboshi (salty, pickled grape sized plums - not a fan), some kind of dried squid jerky (actually pretty good), and takowasa (soupy raw octopus with wasabi - against all common sense, this is also pretty good).

Later after they left, Aki and I went on to find another place. As we were on our way, the skies really opened up in a torrential downpour. We had walked across the river to that area with all the little restaurants and narrow streets, and we ended up stopping into a bar no bigger than a small apartment living room. Eventually, we made it home, very wet.