日本之旅第七天：6月8日2013年, 星期六 -京都
Japan Trip Day 7: 8 June 2013, Saturday - Kyoto
日本の旅行第七日：６月８日２０１３年（土曜日） - 京都
Day 7 was a day of historical sites exploration. That was because we were visiting Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan. But first, breakfast! From the goodies we bought from Life Supermarket on the previous day, we had fresh milk, some pies and pastries. I always enjoy visiting supermarkets in Japan, whether it's a 24-hour convenience store or a huge supermarket like Life. They always have tonnes of goodies which you won't be able to find in their cousins in Singapore.
All these for three people.
Next, it's time to travel to Kyoto. We had to transit at Yodoyabashi Station and the whole trip cost 590 yen per pax and took about an hour.
Kyoto, here we come!
And the moment we got off at Fukakusa Station, there was a bridge we had to cross. And across the bridge, something caught my eyes. A vending machine which sold canned cider and cola drinks with Dragonball designs on them! I was totally not gonna walk away without getting some back as souvenirs. I bought one of each type of drinks and got myself different designs from the ones on display. Too bad I didn't get one with Goku design.
Woohoo Dragonball design canned drinks!
Too bad I didn't get Goku lol.
We walked along the streets for about 5 minutes or so before we reached the JR Inari Station. I had planned for us to alight at Fukakusa Station, which is under the Keihan Main Line, because it was a much cheaper route with just a 5-minute walk to reach Inari Station. The good thing about alighting at Inari Station though is it is right in front of our destination - Fushimi Inari Taisha.
We were greeted with several fox sculptures within the shrine area. Once again, this was a place I had visited back in 2006 and found it a really interesting place to visit, hence I planned it in my itinerary for Dear and Nut. What's so unique about this shrine is the endless number of torii gates throughout the area. You have to see it for yourself. And you have to do some climbing before you can witness such a beautiful sight of these rows of red torii gates disappearing uphill into the mountains.
A black fox welcomes us into Fushimi Inari Taisha.
Plenty of giant red torii gates can be seen here.
A nice spot to take a picture with the beautiful torii gate.
One of the many shrines in the area.
Tug on the strings to ring the bell for good luck.
At a certain point in the trek, some huge rows of torii gates were found, which would lead to shorter but denser rows of torii gates. Each torii gate was actually erected after donations were made to the shrine by some companies or individuals.
This is the beginning of the seemingly endless row of torii gates.
A tunnel of torii gates.
You can erect one too by donating these amounts.
Good luck charms.
More good luck charms in the shape of a fox.
Some ritual going on.
Two rows of torii gates side by side.
To visit the whole of the Fushimi Inari Taisha and all its shrines would take a good amount of climbing. We didn't have much time to climb mountains and therefore we turned back at the area which featured two rows of torii gates side by side. That was around the same place I ended my trek back in 2006 with my three uni friends.
The fox is holding rice in its mouth.
Once back down to the entrance of the shrine, we explored the various shops and restaurants. I bought two bottles of sake as souvenir from one of the sake shops. We walked past two rows of train tracks and decided to take some pictures. Reminded us of some Japanese dramas which always showed such scenes.
Looks like one of the scenes of some Japanese dramas.
Next, we took the JR Line from Inari Station to Shichijo Station. There, we would make our way to our next destination by feet, a UNESCO World Heritage site, Kiyomizu-dera. Along the way, we saw a CoCo ICHIBANYA restaurant. It is part of a famous chain of Japanese curry rice restaurants, which we have quite a few in Singapore as well. As Singaporeans, we all love curry. Therefore even though it was a rather hot day, we still decided to have hot steaming curry rice for lunch lol.
Craving for some curry.
Can't wait to sink our teeth into Japanese curry.
Hashed beef curry.
Smiley-face curry rice designed by Momo and Nut Nut.
After lunch, we walked further down the road and there was this Sanjusangendo, an interestingly-named Buddhist temple. We did not visit the place as there was an entrance fee and so we thought it would be better to spend our time and money at Kiyomizu-dera.
Sanjusangendo
Just a bit further down a bend, we reached the rows of shophouses leading up to the entrance of Kiyomizu-dera. These shops sold all kinds of souvenirs and local delicacies. We continued the climb up the gently-sloping road. Once we reached the entrance to Kiyomizu-dera, plenty of tourists could be seen trying to take pictures with the entrance gate. It is a small temple-like structure, which is actually a gate, but good enough to interest tourists to try to get a good picture with it. Some geishas could be spotted doing their walk around the shrine areas if you were lucky. And indeed we were lucky. I was lucky too back in 2006 as I also spotted some geishas walking around. We got our tickets to Kiyomizu-dera at 300 yen each, and proceeded to explore the various buildings, halls, shrines and other structures inside this vast area.
Main entrance gate to get to Kiyomize-Dera.
Spotted some geishas at the entrance.
Can you lift this heavy staff?
The main attraction was definitely the Main Hall of Kiyomizu-dera. It was built without the use of any nails. Just how smart were the ancient Japanese? It's all evident from their engineering marvel. Other must-sees must be the Otowa waterfall, where tourists could grab water from the three channels of water falling into a pond, believed to grant wishes to the drinker of such water.
We eventually took a break at a small rest-house which sold some jelly dessert. After the short rest and having tried some local dessert, we continued exploring around the area for a short while before leaving the place. Then we visited the rows of shophouses to get some souvenirs and tried some local snacks before making our way back to Osaka.
Many areas to explore in this huge area of Kiyomizu-dera.
The Main Hall of Kiyomizu-dera.
Some cooling jelly dessert.
Having a nice break.
Tourists getting some water, believed to grant the drinker their wishes.
Not a single nail was used in its construction.
The rows of shops to get some local delicacies or souvenirs.
Dear trying out some baked crackers.
Dango anyone?
We were back in Osaka at local time 7:30pm. It was getting dark and we were very hungry by then. We decided to drop by Namba Parks, a shopping mall near Osaka Namba Station. We found a sukiyaki restaurant Nikudokoro Kura and decided to try something more atas. The three of us shared two dinner sets at 4,500 yen each. The whole course consisted of several dishes of appetizers, meat and veggies. We would then grill and barbecue them ourselves. A nice experience but not really worth the hefty price tag.
Namba Parks
Nicely seasoned meat.
Some appetizers to get us started.
And some salad too.
Time to sizzle!
A nice array of meat and veggies.
More meat and veggies.
Nikudokoro Kura
Even though we spent quite a bit on dinner, we still visited Life supermarket to grab some more snacks as it was our last night in Japan. I got my melon milk again to enjoy it once more before we leave Japan the next day.
Night view of Osaka from our hotel room. The iconic Don Quijote building could be seen very clearly.
For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Osaka via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Swissotel Nankai Osaka Hotel, click here.
Links to my Japan Trip 2013
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