After a solid month of getting ourselves acquainted with Tokyo, we decided to take advantage of a long weekend and head to Kyoto. Unlike the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, Japan's modern capital city of over 14 million residents, Kyoto is much smaller - home to just under 1.5 million residents. However, the sidewalks and tourist sights are still packed with people taking in the beauty, history, and charm of this fairly well-preserved city.
You see, Kyoto was spared destruction in WW2 thanks to then Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who persuaded Truman to remove the city from the target list for the dropping of the atomic bomb. Stimson had spent his honeymoon in Kyoto and absolutely loved it. As a result, there are many more structures that are centuries old in Kyoto than you'll find in Tokyo and other parts of Japan - though between civil wars, earthquakes and fires, many places have been rebuilt repeatedly. Still, it has a more historic and traditional feel than Tokyo does. It's definitely a "must see" if you ever travel to Japan.
Paul would tell you I'm a maniacal tourist. I tend to want to fill every minute with something to see or do - naps are off limits! But my usual pace is getting harder for even me to keep up with, and this trip was a good example of that. We both had a lousy night's sleep before encountering the early morning madness that is Tokyo station and boarding the bullet train for Kyoto - so we were already operating at a deficit. On top of that, once we arrived in Kyoto we endured the ongoing stress of having to figure out how to get from point A to point B all day long, every day. Yes, Google Maps is a wonderful tool, but when its instructions revert from English to Japanese (which it sometimes randomly does), you can get lost....and frustrated. So with that as the backdrop for our three-day, jam-packed itinerary, off we went!
After dropping our bags at the hotel, we took the subway to Fushimi Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine on the south side of town with seemingly endless vermillion shrine gates spread across a mountain. And yes, we got on the wrong train and went several stops farther than we should have and had to backtrack to the correct station. But once we got there, it was well worth it.
There are numerous shrines within the complex and a pathway that wanders 4K up a mountain. We were about 40 minutes into our climb when we saw that it would take us another 40 minutes to reach the top, so we bailed. But by that point we had seen plenty, so we were satisfied to head back down to the numerous stalls selling street food at the shrine's entrance where we enjoyed a variety of traditional Japanese dishes for lunch.
Then we returned to central Kyoto for a three-hour free walking tour of Kyoto's most popular sight-seeing district. Ben, our British tour guide, grew up in London and was therefore easy to understand. That was a huge plus. A former teacher who has resided in Japan for 15 years, Ben had a lot to share about his adopted hometown of Kyoto having moved there after spending nine years in Tokyo. He showed us the Gion district where Geishas can be spotted ( no luck for us though), a couple of famous shrines and temples, and a popular park. We walked A LOT. And did I mention the stairs? Let's just say the whole tour was uphill and ended at a very cool temple high above Kyoto. The view was amazing.
At this point, it was 5 p.m. We headed back to the hotel, on foot, to figure out where to go for dinner. We reached the hotel about an hour later, and both of us were beyond exhausted. I could hardly move! LOL So, Paul went to a nearby Seven-11 to pick up some provisions for us to enjoy in the room - cheese & crackers and potato chips as I recall - dinner of champions. I think we were both sound asleep by 8 p.m.
We agreed to take taxis the next day to make my maniacal itinerary more manageable. And luckily for us, we didn't have any walking tours scheduled. So after a good night's sleep we were ready to take on Day 2 in Kyoto.
More on that in my next blog. Until then,
Sayonara!
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