Day 91: Kyoto and Kiyomizu-dera

I had half a mind to spend another day at a cafe, but my friend convinced me that today would be the last rain-free day for a while and I should go to Kyoto. I knew Kyoto was a popular city to visit in Japan, but didn't know anything specific that was popular to do there. Being cherry blossom season, I had Google direct me to the largest, most central park. The ride from Tennoji to Gion-Shoji takes about an hour and costs ¥500 or so.

I had originally been aiming to go to Maruyama Park to the east of the station, but the river and sakura were so pretty that I began walking south near the shoreline instead.

The least overcast day to date during my time in Japan

A small park near the river

Looking north

From the map I had, it looked like I had walked to the southernmost end of Maruyama Park, but in reality I had walked to a whole new area that contained a number of Buddhist temples.

It looked as if Kiyomizu-dera was my ultimate destination, but to get there I had to cut through a cemetery. The tombstones in a Japanese cemetery are much like the houses many Japanese live in: small, cute, and really close together.

Climbing the path by the cemetery leads you to Kiyomizu-dera, which I guess is an iconic Buddhist temple, but to my naive eyes it was just a fancy orange building. The place was flooded with both tourists and locals.

Looking east towards Kiyomizu-dera

Looking west, down towards Kyoto

Past the temple there's a walking path. Tickets cost ¥400. I thought the path wrapped around a large portion of the park, but if it did I wasn't able to find out. At 17:00 they close a path that looks like it fit the description, and I had arrived 10 minutes too late. So I got about 5% of what I thought I was getting with my ticket, but it wasn't an all-together terrible 5%.

View from the "exclusive" walking path

I might have stuck around Kyoto for nighttime festivities, but the temperature had already dropped below 15 degrees and I wanted nothing more than to take the express train to Osaka and heat up a bowl of instant ramen noodles back at the hostel.