It was surprisingly cold in April, about 10-20 degrees Celsius. Our second day in Kyoto with mum was a cold cloudy day with
a few small showers. We first visited Ginkakuji (silver pavilion),
which was quite far away from the station. We jumped in the very long queue
for the bus and it was about a 30min ride up to Ginkakuji. When we got
off we saw a small canal lined with cherry blossom trees.
We
headed into the gardens of Ginkakuji. It was absolutely beautiful.
There was a lot of sand (?)art. I don't remember seeing any cherry blossom trees within the garden
itself. I really recommend visiting at least once not for the silver pavilion itself but to see the gardens. It is quite out of the way which is a downside i guess.
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| Sand dome |
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| Unfortunately got a big head in the pic.. =( |
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| The (not very) silver pavilion. |
Had to stop for a quick choux cream before we embarked along the Philsophers walk that follows the cherry tree lined canal to another temple Nanzen-ji. The walk is named as such because an influential 20th century Japanese philosopher was thought to have used it for daily meditation. The walk is supposed to take about 30min, although it took a lot longer that that with many stops for pictures. It was a pleasant walk apart from the rain. The petals were starting to fall down with the rain. It probably wouldn't have been such a nice walk without the blossoms.
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| Sam's matach custard choux with matcha ice cream. Tasty! |
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| Fishing by the canal |
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| I loved seeing these random blossoms coming out of the trunk of the tree. |
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| Japanese shiba |
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| Really like these cool flowers which bloom in a halo shape. |
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We then made a quick stop at Kinkakuji (golden pavilion).
We headed back to Kyoto station where we took the train to visit Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is famous for it's thousands of torii gates. You can walk to the top of the mountain which takes a couple of hours. The a hiking trail is covered in torii gates. We walked part way up the mountain to a viewing spot then headed back down. We weren't originally planning to walk up to where we did but we were misdirected but a wrongly placed sign.
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| Random really pink branch |
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| The wind was picking up. You can see the petals falling. |
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| Senbon torii - thousands of torii gates. |
The two parallel rows of torii gates are the start of the hiking trail. It was here that Sam was asked by some eldery Japanese ladies to take photos with them.. Not sure if it was 'cause he was a foreigner or what but it was quite funny. =P Didn't get a picture for myself though. =(
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| Soo many gates! |
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| Stairs, stairs and more stairs. |
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| You can see where we started. The red tori gate. |
After finally reaching the bottom of the mountain we jumped back on the trains and headed to Arashiyama and for lunch. We stopped at a specialty soybean curd skin place. It was soo good but soo much. I really liked the warabi mochi they gave for dessert as well.
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| Tofu skins lunch.. Soybean curd skins were in some type of soy broth with different sauces.. Yummyy!! |
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| Sam's hot pot tofu skin lunch. |
After lunch we walked through bamboo path and into the Okochisanso Garden. This is one place I did think was a lot nicer in autumn with the red maple leaves everywhere.
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| Arashiyama - cherry blossom patches |
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| Red maple leaves.. Wrong season?! o_O |
On our way back through the bamboo we visited Tenryu-ji and it's garden. There were soo many beautiful flowers and sakura trees. It was my first time visiting this garden and I really enjoyed it. Many sakura petals had fallen which was absolutely beautiful floating on the water and gently resting on the mossy carpet.
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| Really liked these flowers |
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| Sakura petals fallen in the water |
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| Sakura petals on moss carpet |
The little girl above was soo cute! She would pick up the stones turn them around in her hand then put it back. Pick up another and repeat the same process.. SUPER SUPER CUTE!!!
It was one LOONNNGG day but we did many things which was quite satisfying. It was nice to get back to the hotel and have a rest before heading out to dinner at an izakaya restaurant. We got some karaage, grilled skewers, gyoza and some salad. Overall it was a really good and tasty.
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| Anmitsu |
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| Green tea parfait! |
