Oh Deer! It's bloody cold

Today was an early start as we had a great deal to explore including a trip over in Nara. So we set out for the station around 8:30 to firstly get a JR train to Kyoto's most visited shrine, Fushimi Inari. This is a must even if you're not a massive fan of temples and shrines as it's unique and FREE!!!! On top of that it is also very beautiful especially on a nice day.

We knew immediately that this was going to be busy even at 9am and the flood of people also getting off our train confirmed that. At the entrance of the shrine was the very large bright orange torii in front of the Romon gate and a short walk leads you to the shrine itself. In my opinion the shrine itself isn't particularly spectacular especially if you've seen others in Kyoto already but just behind it is torii gate hiking trail.

There are two dense, parallel rows of gates called Senbon Torii ("thousands of torii gates") one marked for the way up and one for the way back. There were lots of tourists around the early section even at this time in the morning, we struggled to take pictures without someone else getting in shot BUT.... we'd spotted that the way down was really empty it was only a 5 minute walk up so we went back down and got ALL THE BEST PICTURES before going back up to continue the trail.

The torii from this point on weren't as densely packed and varied in size, we latter found out that companies donated the gates and have their name and date inscribed on them, nothing like a bit of advertising to remind us of our world today.

The walk led up to the mountain summit providing plenty of opportunies to turn back, making it accessible for most. When you reach about halfway there is a viewpoint giving spectacular views over Kyoto (I'd assume most people reach here and turn back). There is a further circular path to ascend to the summit which takes around 30 minutes which you really don't need to do as you've probably seen enough torii by now but if you fancy the walk through the woods and a little hike up then go for it!

On the way back you can skip out some of the sections that we covered earlier meaning we didn't get swarmed by the crowd too much (as it was MUCH BUSIER). It didn't take us long from summit back down as we weren't trying to find the perfect picture to put on Instagram..... The route took us about 2 hours but it could have easily taken longer with more people around. 

Back on the train bound for Nara we were filled with anticipation as we'd heard from a couple of friends that it was one of the highlights of their trip, we were not disappointed.

After a quick stop at the supermarket, grabbing food for a picnic. We headed about 1km to Nara Park, home to the hundreds of bowing deer. They've learnt this neat trick from the visitors feeding them over the years... And it definitely works.

At the entrance to Nara Park there is a temple Kōfuku-ji which is free to roam around and admire the pagoda but this wasn't the main reason we visited so after stopping a few times to watch others feed, pet and take pictures of the deer. A local Japanese gentleman gave us some acorns to finally feed the deer!! They seemed to go "nuts" for these and found a special affinity for Laura's coat which they seemed to think was yet more food.

We decided to look after numero uno before we continued to feed the deer and spend time admiring the very tame deer and headed right (south section of the park) behind the Nara National Musuem. It might have looked like a warm day but it certainly wasn't and it was bloody freezing, a pinic now didn't seem to be a sensible move! We found some shelter and shivered through lunch. We explored the south section of the park, we found it to be a pleasant section with a lake and pavilion with plenty of deer chilling.

As we had a fair bit of time of our hands as we weren't going to make it back to Kyoto to visit another temple. We decided to explore the grounds of Kasuga Taisha Shrine whose approach is lined with hundreds of stone lanterns (with a couple of deer popping up here or there). The shrine is famous of the decorative bronze lanterns hung all around the interior which can be seen at a distance for free, to see them up close there is a paid inner section, I don't believe it's necessary to pay as it's latterns could be admired from outside.

Next up was a 20 min walk to the North of Nara Park to Tōdai-ji home to the largest bronze Buddha in not only Japan but the world and consequently the world's large wooden building!!! As we approached Tōdai-ji we passed Nigatsu-do a pretty temple on the hill where we were able to overlook the enormous wooden structure.

Entrance to the grounds are free but to see the main attraction it cost 1000 yen (£7) but was well worth the money to see something very unique to not only Japan but the world. The Budda is 15m high and is really a sight to behold, even the smaller Buddha seated to the left and right are impressive but this statue dwarfs them both.

On our leisurely walk out of the park we finally used the deer crackers purchased earlier in the day and see if yet again we could make the deer bow it was still very cute. Although once those deer see that you have food.... Many more come over and all try to get in on the action... Again Laura's cost took the brunt of the encounter.

I would highly recommend a least half a day over here to see and do everything and enjoy the time with the deer, and given it only takes about 1 hour from Kyoto station, it's well worth the visit.

That evening we met up with a couple of friends (Jill & Dave) who happened to be in Japan at the same time as us but doing a slightly different route, close to their hotel. We had some great food, drink and catch-up about our experiences so far at a little place called Hot & Spicy. 

Oh look another temple in Kyoto

There's so much to choose from in Kyoto that after a day we felt like we'd visited so many temples and shrines around the city but we had barely started as they are really are everywhere and this isn't an exaggeration!

We decided to mix it up a bit and visited Nijo castle for ¥1000 each, the gardens are really nice & the castle has lots of original features, however to preserve the interior designs of each room you're not allowed to take pictures! I'd say it's worth a visit.
We then walked for about 30mins to the palace which is free to go in, the grounds are so big we couldn't work out where the entrance was. When we finally made it inside it was pretty quite so we got some good pictures of the buildings which are pretty impressive. You can tell it was the former ruling palace of the Emperor of Japan as it's so grand.

So that was our morning walk done, we then got a subway down to Kyoto station it cost us just ¥500 (£3.50) we then took a JR train across to Saga Arashiyama Station the whole journey took about 1 hour.

It's really easy to follow the crowds from the station and it takes about 10mins to reach the entrance for Tenryuri Temple. It costs ¥500 to go in the gardens and an extra ¥300 each to go into the buildings we did both. The Japanese Zen Gardens are really beautiful and you can see why it's a world heritage site. The interior is plain and open so the gardens nicely frame the landscape as a backdrop instead of lots of artistic designs inside the rooms.

You can meander up through the gardens to exit at the start of the uphill walk through the bamboo forest. As expected it was pretty busy even at 3pm!

We then decided to take the 30-40 minute walk to see the houses it was really quiet walking there and many of the shops were closing up but we got some good pictures and it was a nice stroll.

On our way back we just had enough time to visit Jojakkoji Temple I really liked this one there were fewer buildings but the zen garden was great it kept talking you up steps to different views of the town below.

We finished the day with a walk back down through the bamboo trees and along to the famous Togestsukyo Bridge, if you walk across the bridge there's a sweet shop which has loads of free samples which were needed after a really long day of walking and site seeing.

For dinner we found a tapas restaurant which was open later than a lot of restaurants and the lamb chops and beef were really tasty with a nice glass or two of red wine.

Key-o-toe

Morning! Today was our first full day in Kyoto and as we found a free waking tour the night before we headed the 2km over to the Statue of Izumo-no-Okuni to met our guide for the morning, Dominic.

It was interesting learning about the Kabuki and the importance of Okuni to the classic Japanese dance/drama performance which eventually led to women being banned (even to this day!!!) in performing it in official theatres.

The walk led us through the Higashiyama area of the city which famous for its Geisha district, here we got to learn a little more about the Geisha and Maiko, their education and strict lifestyle.

We saw the theatre where the Maiko normally perform and their school, Kyoto itself has around 300 Geisha and it was staggering to learn how much money they can make for a an evening in a tea house. It's not for everyone though as it's a very tough profession taking 5 years of true dedication to pay back all debts owed for costumes, hair, board and lodging. Seems like way too much effort if you ask me.... The cost to see them perform privately in a teahouse for 2-3 hours would cost over the £1000 mark.

Next was a quick stop in the grounds of Kennin-ji where Dominic explained about the tea ceremony (which we were lucky enough to experience earlier in Kanazawa). The walking tour continued to a little temple, Yasaka Koshindo Temple (full name is Daikoku-san Kongo-ji Koshin-do). It is now famous for its fabric monkeys that are hung around, giving it a colourful, intragram-esc, appeal. Apparently if you give up one of your bad habits, tie it up in the monkey your wish will come true...  I don't think they have enough monkeys for me!

On our approach to the monkey temple we saw Hōkanji Temple (Yasaka-no-Tou) which is a 46 metre high pagoda (tower) which looks overlooks the Higashiyama District and is so close to all the traditional houses.

Our final stop on the walking tour took us to Yasaka-jinja Shrine when the gods must have been angry at us as the heavens opened so we temporarily found shelter before rejoining the group to see how the Buddhists perform a purification ritual. 

NEED FOOD!! After consulting Dominic we walked a few hundred metres from the Shrine to one of his favourite Ramen restaurants. It was our first taste of Ramen and certainly wouldn't be our last as it was delicious and relatively inexpensive.

Having recharged our batteries we planned to visit a few temples which we'd researched as Kyoto has over 1600 temples so you got to be a little picky with limited time.

-  Shōren-in Monzeki Temple

This temple is a rarely visited retreat on the main Southern Higashiyama tourist route and has a superb garden giving very picturesque shots from the temple itself.

- Heian Shrine

This temple was a little walk away from Shōren-in. It is a colourful shrine with vast gardens (although we didn't go in the gardens as you have to pay and we didn't have time)

- Nanzenji Temple

We now had to walk back on ourselves a little to reach this temple but it has it all: expansive grounds, a fine kare-sansui (dry landscape) garden, intimate subtemples and soaring halls. Its also the start/end of the Philosophers Walk.

- Jisho-ji (commonly known as Ginkaku-ji - Temple of the Silver Pavillion) 

We took the Philosophers Walk from Nanzenji on this trail of about 2km following a small stream and stopped of at a couple of smaller temples on route, Reisen-dori and Hōnen-in Temple. Unfortunately though we didn't make the Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the silver pavilion) as it closed at 5pm like most temples. Again... To ambitious to get to every temple and do a walking tour in one day! Our feet were a little tired so we caught the bus back to our apartment it would have been another 6km and we didn't fancy it!

In the evening we tried a restaurant that served okonomiyaki a popular dish in there area which is a type of Japanese pancake / omelette which was heated on the hot plate on our table. It was definitely different and topped with Worcestershire sauce (but I'm not the biggest fan of eggs).

After eating like a local we decided to drink like one and proceeded to a sake bar(JAM + SAKE) and both tried three different samples which were all subtlety different, the blossom flavoured one was a little too floral for our palettes.