Kyoto once being the imperial capital of Japan, the city is rich with history. From palaces and castles to shrines and temples, the city has many UNESCO world heritage cites encompassing the Edo period, samurai culture, and imperial Japan.
Today was another adventure packed day with over almost 11 hours of sight seeing, we got to experience some pretty cool places today. We started the day at the Rokuonji Temple. Originally an aristocrat’s country estate, it was later turned in to a Zen Buddhist temple. The Gold Pavilion sits on the grounds next to a pond, a building with the second and third floor entirely covered with gold leaf.
Next stop was to see Ryoanji Temple, another temple that had its beginnings as an aristocrat’s villa. This temple is famous for its rock garden, said to be the best example of the karesansui style rock garden. We were able to enter the temple and see the rock garden as well as walk around the temple.
We stopped for lunch to get some Japanese udon noodles, and went to a shop a bit off the tourist track. It was a self serve udon noodle shop with tempura eggs and veggies. I’m not even sure what I ate because I just pointed at a random photo in the menu that looked good but what ever it was, it sure tasted wonderful.
After lunch, we made our way to the Nijo-jo Castle. This castle was constructed by the first Shogun of the Edo Shogunate and also housed the last Shogun, before he surrendered his authority to rule the country to the Emperor. Even after the end of the Edo Shogunate, the castle was transformed in to a palace and was used as residence by the Imperial Family unit 1939.
After Nijo-jo Castle we went to the Kyoto Imperial Palace, which was the residence of the Japanese emperors until the capital was moved to Tokyo in 1869. We didn’t get to go inside the palace but we got to walk around the outside and through some of the gardens. The grounds of the palace are massive, measuring at 5.2 km by 4.5 km. The size of the palace was also impressive, with tall buildings and grand gates. Even though we didn’t enter the buildings, the view from the outside was pretty spectacular.
Finally, our last stop for the day was Fushimi Inari Taisha. The head shrine of Inari, the god of rice, sake, and prosperity. A very important shrine that is said to have 10,000 torii gates leading up to the shrine. Torii gates are generally at the entrance to Shinto shrines, and signify the crossing over from the mundane to the sacred. On our way up towards the shrine, we had a very beautiful view of the city and got to see some bamboo growing in a forest. An absolutely wonderful and beautiful way to end the day.
