Decent breakfast buffet, slightly better but not great night in a very stuffy small room in Gifu hotel. Very budget hotel!
We packed our suitcases to go to Kyoto by van, and happily they were able to all be crammed in with the 16 bikes – amazing work by Mannu and Brad. This avoids another complicated pack with daypacks for two days while they are in transit. Then it was onto a local train with a transfer to a bullet train to Kyoto. The bullet train had a few seats left but the local train was standing room only. Such an efficient system of trains though – and always dead on time. My only problem on the train was not coughing – it was agonizing at points and the water didn’t always do it, nor did the throat lozenges.
Kyoto station is enormous. We walked to our hotel and then back to the station for an orientation tour – it is 9 floors tall, and has amazing views, another huge Isetan (dept. store), and a floor just of ramen restaurants. Good coffee and restaurants of every ilk… on an aside, the mini croissants in the breakfast buffets have been amazingly good, and the ones in the French bakery on the basement floor where we picked up coffee looked wonderful…
The tour of the train station saved us the 750 Yen admission to the Kyoto tower as we had all the sights pointed out to us from the top floor…
lots of areas to sit and eat, read or meet.
It had its’ own Lego model!
Lots of Lego fans in our group, including the Danes!
Then we hopped on the metro to visit Inari shrine, with all its Torii gates. Good to have a guide there, and the crowds weren’t as bad as expected; it was busy enough, but plenty of room to move around and even get a few shots with only a few people.
as always there were the elaborately dressed Japanese taking selfies or posing…
Not just youngsters wanting to be on instagram apparently!
A pensive pose
The gates are like a tunnel, there are so many. The Torii gates are dedicated for 2-3 years and then redone with someone else’s name, somewhat like the memorial plaques we have on park benches… I am guessing that the Inari shrine does well monetarily but they are the main temple/shrine, so support others.
We would call the colour orange, but it is a natural vermillion pigment.
The path goes up and around the mountain, where I suspect numbers would thin more, but that’ll have to be another trip as we just completed the lower loop. Our Danish farmer picked up a conversation with some Canadians wearing a t-shirt with an equipment manufacturer he recognized, and they were deep into a conversation on the effects of climate change in farming when we pulled him away!
We picked up lunch at the food vendors row on the way back down -all kinds of interesting food. I tried a strawberry matcha daifuku, which was good (the adzukai bean paste in the centre had a little chocolate flavour added). Then I watched the various reactions to others who picked it up to try, and chatted with them as we were all perched on a wall across from the stall eating it – a couple from London on a 6 month honeymoon trip around Asia, and a dutch couple who were just wondering what it was! People from all over the world here. We also learned from Tsuyen that Inari sushi comes from here – the pocket sushi that bears its name.
We hiked over to Tofuki-ji temple and admired the old latrine there (!) – Japanese toilets have really come a long way 😏. The temple was magnificent, and again not too busy – our guide highly recommended going into the gardens which are in four quadrants around the temple, but thought they might be too crowded as this is their peak season due to autumn colours. Happily they were quieter than the Kenrouken gardens we visited in Kanazawa – the zen gardens were my favourite part. Everyone else headed back to the hotel to check in, so I was wandering at will by myself in the gardens. Very peaceful
The main temple
In the grounds
some fall colour
A bridge across a waterway that is a favourite photo-op
Once the tour group ahead of me had moved off, it was actually very quiet and the birds were certainly happily tweeting! It became another nice warm sunny day, tshirts and light pants.
The zen garden
The patterns are so precisely done…
In the zen garden section there were also four distinct zones designed by the landscape architect.
more stones
and the final zone.
Next was a trip to Gion to a highly recommended vegan ramen place for early dinner; the subway system is notably older in Kyoto than Tokyo. Possibly not as much English signeage either which is a little surprising – the metro ticket machines do convert to English but are a bit trickier than those in Tokyo. Maybe I’m just not used to them? Anyway the trek out to Gion was well worth it, that is easily the tastiest Ramen I’ve ever had. Not cheap, but worth it. I was there at 3 p.m. and easily got a seat but apparently it’s lined up for hours at night. Happy to see that it’s within walking distance of the next hotel in Kyoto so I will undoubtedly be back!
I browsed the patisserie section in Isetan at the railway station on the way back, and have earmarked a couple to try. Research started on coffee shops and other patisseries for the two days on my own here!
Back to the hotel to check in and found they had me registered for four nights. Another goof by the Toronto Exodus agent, she was definitely not efficient. It is a newish hotel, defintely several grades up from last night’s and the ac works – no need to crank open the window. We had 6 p.m. briefing and then most of the crew headed over to Gion to eat and see if they could get a geisha sighting…. I wanted to go, but my nose is running like a river at this point and I have no energy left so had to save my dwindling reserves for the bike ride tomorrow. Our last ride! I am converting to flat pedals tomorrow as we will be doing a fair bit of walking, and hope that my nose dries up by then so that I can breathe going up those hills!