Kyoto

The Heian shrine

We have now left Kyoto after a week of temples, shrines, big Buddhas and origami. It was such a fantastic city. We stayed in the best hostel in the world (definitely the best hostel on this trip), Khaosan Kyoto. It was so cosy. It had bunk beds with little curtains for privacy, bed lamps, free internet and a lovely common room with bean bags, cushions and typical Tatami flooring. The best thing though was the people, who were so interesting to talk to and most had a lot of knowledge on Japan to share with us. 

Origami night at the hostel

One girl we got quite friendly with turned out to be the daughter of the British comedian Phil Jupitus. On our first day in Kyoto we went straight off to explore the Heian shrine which is one of the locations off lLost in translation. There were hardly any tourists there (probably because it was so cold) and the gardens were beautiful. We are right at the beginning of cherry blossom season which is a big deal in Japan. The Japanese flock to view these beautiful trees and have picnics underneath them. We think we saw a couple of cherry blossoms but were later told by a tour guide that they were probably plum blossoms. Either way, they looked very pretty and were a stunning backdrop to a lot of the temples. After this shrine, we walked along the Philosophers road, which is a typical Japanese street along the river, scattered with blossom trees and Japanese architecture. It was a gorgeous walk and we bumped into a Canadian man along the way who said its one of those things you don't find anywhere else in the world. For lunch I had chips on a stick which was a new and novel way of eating chips I thought. We then visited a temple called the Silver Pavillion which is one of Lonely Planet's must-sees. I wasn't as impressed as I was with the shrine because it was packed with tourists and you had to pay to get in. It did have some fantastic Zen gardens though, which were like 'Heaven on Earth'. I said this to Jemma and then we later read in the guide book that the gardens are designed to actually represent Heaven on Earth so they clearly got it right if this was what I felt when walking through them! That night we went back to the hostel and learnt how to make origami including crabs, cranes and stars. We got chatting to people in the hostel and ended up going to bed quite late.

The Zen garden

The rest of the week blurs into one big session of temples, food and socialising in the hostel and I can't remember day for day what we did so I will have to have a think offline and come back and write it later because we are off to the Hiroshima memorial museum now.

For now, have a look at the two photo albumbs, they speak for themselves. Kyoto is a really beautiful, cultural, historical city.

Kyoto Photos:   Kyoto 1  Kyoto & Osaka