kyoto
1/400s f/5.6 ISO100 55mm
Tōfukuji (東福寺) is a large Zen temple in southeastern Kyoto that is particularly famous for the colours of its autumn foliage, though many trees have red leaves all-year round. It's also home to a 22-metre tall Zen gate.
Read MoreA7R & Voigtländer Super-Wide Heliar 15mm | 1/40s ISO100 15mm
If you were to think of "Japan", there's a high chance that you'd conjure up images of "red gates" in mountains, after you've thought about sushi, cartoon characters, neon lights, underwear vending machines, men in suits, business cards, bowing, sumo, blowfish... you get the idea.
Read MoreHazy Kyoto Sunset | A7R 1/1250s f/4.0 ISO100 55mm
As you probably know by now, I am an advocate of walking through backstreets and seeing what's around, away from organised tours of "look at this, check it from your list". Kyoto does very well in this regard – there are many streets full of old buildings, stonework, brickwork, and little features.
Read MoreOn the Saturday, we spent our time in the rainy vicinity of Kyoto. On Sunday morning, we decided to brave the [now torrential] rain, and take a trip down south, to Nara. Unfortunately, what is supposed to be a 45 minute journey ended up being almost 2 hours due to the weather. It was almost like being in the UK! No matter. By the time we arrived the rain had almost stopped, and we set off walking around this peaceful city.
Nara is famously full of deer. They're wild, but very docile. Some even bow for the tourists (they expect some food for their efforts). Unfortunately, there were too many rowdy tourists to enjoy the area near the main temple, Toudaiji. People were shouting, posing strangely with the animals, and generally acting in a manner which I did not think was fitting for the scene.
Toudaiji. There's a massive Buddha inside, but if you want to see it, you'll have to visit
After we'd seen the impressive Toudaiji, we saw in which direction the crowds were headed, and turned 180° and started walking. I'm very glad we did. We could finally relax, as there were almost no people up in the hills, though we did "meet" one Chinese tourist group.
The rain made everything feel extremely lush, as if anyone caught taking a quiet nap would be consumed by the vegetation. Moss covered almost everything, which was really quite beautiful.
There were almost as many lanterns as deer
We walked from the temples in the north of Nara, around to the eastern edge. At this point, we were elated when the sun split two clouds overhead and we were greeted with our first proper shadow of the day. I ran down to get a photo of this bucket, as it was the closest object at the time. The sun then disappeared, after just a few seconds.
I mentioned the deer. Well, up in the hills they don't seem to pester the (few) tourists, and generally go about their business. This made for an all-round nicer experience, more in keeping with the deer we saw in Miyajima. Unlike the deer in Miyajima (click to see them), these ones had little white 'bambi' spots (which may mean they were fawns, but I couldn't tell you for sure). We did see a few fawns, though. And they were too cute for words!
The journey back to Kyoto wasn't anywhere near as bad as the outward journey. We took a different train line, and made a B-line straight for a shrine I really wanted to take a photo of. It's rather famous. It has thousands upon thousands of bright red Tori gates ascending high into the mountain. I'd envisioned getting there around magic hour, but there basically wasn't one. By the time we got there, it was pitch black, but still quite beautiful. Another benefit of visiting a bit later, was that we were the only people there at this time, and so could take our time and really relax on our final night.
Well, that concludes our weekend trip to the Kinki Region of Japan. I hope you've enjoyed the photo-journal, even though it's a little photo-heavy. If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear them.
I recommend a journey to Kyoto and Nara. I think that even if the weather is pretty atrocious, it's possible to have a great time and even the rain doesn't detract from the beauty to be found in this historic area of Japan. See you next time!
The first photo of the day - rain was the theme of the weekend
We decided to visit some parts of Kyoto we'd never been to before, and headed west to Kinkaku-ji (aka the Golden Temple). We were going to have breakfast in a nice café, but it was closed. We settled for a very nice brunch in the French Embassy (random, I know), and hopped onto a bus.
I have to thank Charlotte at this point, for holding the umbrella of a disgruntled photographer. And for putting up with me, too! Well, I managed to take the above photo (click the photo to cycle through three alternate treatments), and we set off walking through the grounds.
We then headed to the Gion district, famous for Geisha and small townhouses. We did spot one Geisha, but I decided not to chase her down the street for a photo. Apparently there have been complaints from the Geisha that tourists are becoming more and more aggressive in their photo taking, almost achieving paparazzi status. I decided not to join the club, and pointed my camera directly ahead and snapped a photo of the nicely turned-out couple just ahead of us.
Kimono and Yukata
After an excellent udon dinner, we ventured outside again. This time we walked through the backstreets to visit some of the pagodas, and generally relax amongst the townhouses and dwindling evening crowds.
As light fell, the rain stopped. Clouds parted ways in the far distance, and we could actually see a tiny slither of sky.
Steam can be seen rising from the rooftops and the forests
Light drops off incredibly quickly in Japan. We headed back down the sparingly lit streets in search of dinner...
We managed to grab a table in a roof-top izakaya overlooking the city. From our table, we noticed another temple down-below, which was still lit up at 10pm, and we decided to go and have a look.
The lit-up temple is in the far left of this photo
It was very relaxing to walk around the grounds of the temple, with everything so beautifully lit, and only a handful of tourists. The crowds earlier in the day reminded me why I tend to avoid tourists hot-spots. Here in Gion, at night, there are so few people around that I really recommend an evening stroll through the backstreets and temples.
We then decided to grab some ice cream and walk back (45 mins) to the hotel, and get ready for the following and final day.
N700 Series Nozomi to Kyoto
A while ago, we planned a city-break to Kyoto in the Kinki Region of central Japan. The Kinki Region, also known as Kansai, is a popular tourist destination for Japanese and non-Japanese alike. Much like the Kanto region in the east, the Kinki/Kansai region is not an administrative unit, but rather a cultural and historical one. It's famous for food, culture, Geisha, and temples. It's not famous for rain - but it should be if our weekend was anything to go by!
Our pilot for the evening. I'm somewhat reluctant to call bullet train drivers simply "train drivers", and pilot seems more fitting.
Train or plane?
I've not taken a shinkansen (bullet train) for over a year, so I was rather excited. As we pulled out [exactly on schedule, naturally] from Tokyo Station, the intensity of the rain increased until it was streaming sideways across the window. I wonder what the view from the front window was like...
I took the Nozomi class shinkansen and arrived in Kyoto after two hours of ultra-smooth, ultra-fast train travel.
Kyoto Tower
Directly outside Kyoto station is the bus terminal, which I thoroughly recommend using to navigate around the city in a timely fashion. Walking everywhere means you will not see everywhere. Some temples are pretty close to each other, but definitely look into getting the bus to cover larger distances with ease.
The bus is also a good way of protecting oneself from the elements
Our accommodation was in the northern Sakyo Ward, which is around 30 minutes on the 206 bus from Kyoto station. The flat fare of ¥220/person (pay when you get off - and please have your change ready!) seems pretty reasonable.
A rather fetching clock, and a puzzling piece of paper...
After almost three years in Japan, we've experienced our fair share of Engrish, but this really has to take the cake. I have no idea what it means. Whatever it means, Charlotte has until 10am tomorrow morning...
The "best" Engrish we've ever seen... to what exactly does the first bullet refer? Answers on a postcard...
I'll post some photos from the weekend in subsequent posts. I took far too many to cram into one post, even after some rather ruthless culling. I hope you enjoyed the start of this journey - stay tuned!
