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Japan – Day 11 (Kyoto)

Today was a pretty lucky, good day. The two buses I took showed up on time and got me where I needed to be, I somehow managed to get to all of my locations in between tourist buses (and I didn’t get hit by one like yesterday), and didn’t feel rushed at all for anything. Things just worked out. I was tired after yesterday so I slept in a little and headed out around 9am. Since I didn’t finish the northeast quadrant of Kyoto a couple days ago, I decided to pick up where I left off along the Philosopher’s Path at Eikan Temple. This place was pretty jammed, and the fact they were letting mega buses into the historically pedestrian walkway was stupid. If you don’t have the parking facilities for these dumb things you need to just ban them and send them somewhere else. At $10 to enter and hundreds of people per hour, the temple is making plenty of money without the bus tourists. But, that’s not my decision, and I already ranted about that yesterday, so I went inside and wandered around.

Eikan is a temple I never really got to when I lived here, it just never really interested me and was always crowded, so I figured I’d go see it now. It’s a pretty place, the momiji were everywhere and totally gorgeous. The walk inside the buildings and the little museum they send you through is neat too, they have quite a few artifacts and scrolls and really old books you can look at. The garden is also nice, and there was a walk up to the top of a hill with a pagoda that offered a nice view of the area. I ran into yet another couple from Chicagoland, which was funny, they are the third or fourth ones. It really is a small world.

After Eikan I got back on the Philosopher’s Path and stopped at Kumano Nyakuoji Shrine, just a little thing off to the side of the road. The Philosopher’s Path is full of little temples and shrines like this, but I didn’t stop in all of them. The good thing about the Philosopher’s Path is that along the mile or so long stretch there are only really tourists on the ends where the major temples are, the middle is mostly residents. Like everything else, there were far more tourists this time than before, but it was still manageable and I moved at a stroll pace to hear the birds, watch the fish and ducks, and admire the leaves and fall flowers both still on the trees and floating gently down the canal. When I got to the end of the path at Ginkakuji it occurred to me that I forgot to stop at an ATM to get cash and I only had 500 yen left with me. I rolled the dice and walked up, and lucky again the fee to enter was 500 yen so I didn’t have to double back and walk a mile to get money.

Ginkakuji itself isn’t all that remarkable, but the gardens around it are spectacular. I spent a good hour wandering around and admiring the nature around it. This place wasn’t my favorite as a 20-something, but I appreciate it now as an older person with bad knees. After leaving Ginkakuji (and passing three separate huge tourists groups coming up on my way down!) I only had to wait a little while for the bus to take me to the 7-11 near my hotel, but where it dropped me off was a Family Mart that happened to have an international ATM, so I didn’t have to walk all the way over to 7-11 then double back to Sanjusangendo. Funny thing about Sanjusangendo, this was a place that both times I was here before, for 14ish months I kept saying I needed to go there, but then somehow for some reason I never got to go. Wash and repeat at least 20 times, when I last left in 2004 I STILL hadn’t gone to this frikkin’ place even though it looked cool. So I made it a point today to go there, finally. It was pretty cool, although I think I appreciated it more now than I probably would have back then. The 1,000 statues are amazingly detailed, each one is different: different eyes, eyebrows (one had a gigantic unibrow), jewelry, what they’re holding, facial hair, you name it. So even though they look like they’re exactly the same at first glance, when you look closer you can appreciate allll of the little details. The 28 guardian statues were super interesting to read about, and the wind and thunder god statues at the end were neat (the thunder god if you kneel to it and look up its eyes turn thi bright orange-yellow color and no matter where you move they follow you and it’s kind of creepy but neat). The back side has a lot of information and artifacts from the 850 year history of the building, the largest wood building in Japan they say, and was interesting to read. I wandered the grounds for a little bit, then stopped at McDonalds for food, then headed back to the hotel early. As is becoming my tradition here, I showered and jumped in the soaking tub, and now I’m chilling and watching sumo wrestling on NHK. I really like sumo wrestling, there’s so much strategy to it and so much ceremony and pomp. Anywho, off to Osaka tomorrow!

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Japan – Day 10 (Kyoto)

My day started off early, I was actually out the door by 7:30am and walked to Kyoto station to take a train to Arashiyama. First, I hiked over to the bamboo forest because I heard if you don’t get there early it is SWARMED with tourists taking photos. Which is funny, because before social media that place was usually empty, except for people taking engagement photos or whatever professionally. Well, once again the secret is out, and it’s packed by 8am. R.I.P. Bamboo Forest and Nanzenji aqueduct, two cool places now taken over by Instagrammers!

After the forest, I went next door to Tenryuji, a temple on the edge of the mountains with a gorgeous koi pond and autumn leaves. Then I took a walk over the river bridge to Monkey Mountain, which is now marked with lots of signs and pictures of baby monkeys. At least, that’s what we called it 15ish years ago, now it’s known as Iwatayama Park. Back then, it wasn’t advertised much, and the only way I found out about it was a local told me. Then to get there you had to get a hand drawn map, and the entrance wasn’t marked, and you had to walk 20 minutes or so uphill on these stairs that were falling apart with no railings, and finally when you got to the top there was a small shack where YOU went inside if you wanted to feed the monkeys. There were a few benches, and an open area to see the monkeys. The rest was all forest for the monkeys to go to where they wanted. Now they expanded the shack to include toilets and an office and to accommodate that they brought in electrical power lines up the mountain, they built a second path to control the crowds going in and out (because the crowds are crazy now compared to then…I saw more people there just today than I did the other dozen times I’ve been there combined!) and paved portions of it, they put in rest areas and a playground for kids, more benches for people to sit, they do a “feeding” show to lure the monkeys out, and worse they destroyed a lot of the woods behind the shack so tourists could go up closer to the monkeys. So, more tourists (particularly kids), more feeding, less forests, leads to a population explosion. The troop up there used to be about 50, now there are over 120. When I was there before, I didn’t have any concerns about the monkeys. They were happy, healthy, “friendly”, and in great shape. Today, there were several that looked like they had some sort of urinary tract infection going on, three that had back legs they wouldn’t put on the ground like they were broken or twisted, and they were constantly fighting. The keepers (now 5 instead of just 2) said it was because it was mating season, which is true I suppose; but I can barely recall infighting before when they were one troop. Now their population is so big they’ve separated into multiple troops and have less area to live in, which is likely the bigger reason why they were almost constantly fighting. It’s still a great place for photos, but it made me really uncomfortable seeing it now versus my memory of how it was before. I have to say it broke my heart a little, that mountain was one of my favorite places in Japan. I went almost once a month, weather depending, when I lived here. I have so many photos of the monkeys from 15+ years ago, I was looking at the adult monkeys to try and recognize any of them since they can live up to 30 years, but I guess I’m not that good with monkey identification, I didn’t spot anyone I knew. Anyway, I walked back down and hopped on a bus to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion.

If I thought the crowds were bad here before they are insane now, thousands of people were in the park grounds. It wasn’t unexpected, Kinkakuji was always crowded even back then. However, this time double decker mega tour buses were coming 3 or 4 at a time and dumping hundreds of people off all at once. It was a never ending stream, and took some patience to get photos. I got it done and made my way around the grounds to exit, except they changed it. The mega buses must have been enough of a problem that they plowed a big part of the trees at the exit and turned it into a tour bus parking lot. Buses were pulling in and out of the cramped space and there wasn’t really a separate walkway for people. As I was trying to exit, I passed by where the handicap taxis were on the right and they were unloading a young girl into her wheelchair. Just as I and a couple others were about to walk past, a mega bus whipped into the lot and pulled forward so fast we all had to stop in between two handicap taxis where they were trying to unload the girl. As the bus pulled forward the driver paid so little attention what was going on anywhere but in front of him he actually side swiped the handicap taxi, pushing it into all of us waiting on the ground and almost squishing us between the two taxis where we were sandwiched. There was nowhere to go, so when the taxi he hit started being shoved sideways all we could do was jump away and fall into each other. Fortunately the dad of the handicap girl had the instinct to grab her out of the wheelchair before we all were pushed into it, and everyone grabbed each other to support one another so no one actually fell. It was the passengers on the bus yelling at the driver that actually got him to stop, and so we all walked away unharmed even though the taxi took some damage. After we all checked that everyone was okay and the bus was repositioned out of the way, I stuck around for a couple minutes just to make sure we weren’t needed for an accident report or anything, then moved along.

Up to that point I was kind of sad about the crowds, but wasn’t letting it damper my mood and actually felt like I was having a good day; once that happened though I was really sour and although my next stop was going to be Ryoanji I decided I was done with mega bus crowds and wanted to go to Nishiki Market. So I walked to the bus stop and waited almost half an hour for a bus Google Maps said I should take that kept not coming and when it finally did come and I hopped on, it wound up going in the complete opposite direction I needed to go and then ended just a few stops down. I’ve realized that unlike everywhere else modern in the world, Kyoto doesn’t sync its bus system with Google Maps…neither its routes nor timetable, so Google Maps so far has been roughly 40% accurate on getting me from point A to point B. No biggie, just FYI if you ever come here. When the bus route ended, I checked my map to figure out where the heck he brought me. Well, turns out he took me right near Ryoanji. I figured if the transportation gods really wanted me to be at a Zen temple today then I may as well go in. Since it was almost the end of the day it was pretty quiet with only a few dozen people. It was a nice, quiet stroll through the trees and rock garden. After that, I got on the CORRECT bus and made it to Nishiki Market.

It was almost closing time, so I raced through to check it out. I wound up in a cat specific store where everything was cat based. In Japan, cats are welcome and black cats are considered good luck. So there are stores with nothing but black cat merchandise, and stores like this one that only sell cat themed stuff. Of course I had to go in, and I ended up buying like $70 worth of stuff. The two shopkeepers were super friendly, and I hung out for a while just laughing and chatting with them and showing each other photos of our cats at home. By the time my orders were done, the market had definitely closed and only a few stores were left open. I did stop by a grilled crab place that was still open, got some Udon at a cheap stand up shop, and then walked down the regular shopping district for a bit.

It was almost 7pm by then and I was tired, so I headed to where Google Maps again said I should go to get a bus to my hotel. I got on the bus, and it immediately turned the opposite direction I needed to go and went over half a mile before it stopped again. Uggggghh…between waiting for and riding the wrong bus my 5 minute ride to the hotel turned into a 30 minute detour. I had to walk all the way back to where I was to begin with. I had been eyeing the Baskin Robbins there before I took the wrong bus, so this time I decided to go in. I got this mint and chocolate concoction and realized after I started eating it that it had Poprocks in it and not minty things. It was the weirdest feeling, but kinda cool. After eating, I went back to the bus stop and got on the CORRECT bus back to my hotel. I logged almost 15km today, my feet are so done!

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Japan – Day 8 (off to Kyoto!)

Kyoto my love, my second home, my lifeblood, I am in you! I got up, ate breakfast and checked out of my hotel in Odawara. I had an hour to kill before my Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, so I walked over to the local castle just to check it out. It wasn’t an old castle, the original one had been demolished during the Meiji era and the castle that remained was reconstructed in the 1960s with more stuff added through 2016. Still, it was alright. I grabbed the “lunch of champions” at Lawsons before heading to the train station: salmon onigiri, egg sandwich, pop, and a Pikachu donut for dessert; then took my seat for the ride out. The guy that sat next to me was really friendly, and we chatted the entire way out.

Once we arrived in Kyoto and checked into my hotel, I walked across the street to Shosei-en garden, which had some lovely momiji trees. This actually worked out pretty well, even though the fall colors in the Tokyo area weren’t all that great, down here the gingko are at peak, and the momiji are just coming up to peak. So if all goes well I’ll be seeing colors everywhere for the 2 weeks I’m in the region! After wandering the garden for a while I started heading to Kyoto Tower, but spotted a huge temple out of the corner of my eye and changed course to go check it out. Once I got there I realized exactly where I was. Higashi-Honganji Temple was the very first temple I visited my very first time in Kyoto. The nostalgia is real y’all, and I got to say hello to the most gorgeous dragon fountain I’ve ever seen once again after 15 years. After wandering around for half an hour they announced they were closing and kicked everyone out, so I continued on to Kyoto Tower and went up just as the sun went down over the mountains. I hung out up top chatting with a guy from Detroit for a while, then headed out to Kyoto station.

It’s funny, when I was here before they were still working on the station extension and half of the outdoor terrace feature was still empty or under construction. You could go up to the top, but there was nothing there. This time they had it all finished, with restaurants and shopping and a gigantic Christmas tree, and the stairs up the 10 floors lit up in tune with music like a continuous rainbow and seeing it finished now was really cool. I went to the top where there were restaurants, but each one had a line out the door so I went back down and found the tourist information center. The last time I was here it was a little desk once you exited the train, but that’s now a building information center, and the tourist center is much larger with a fancy room to itself off to the side. That being said that’s all that changed, the people working the tourist information booth were still super eager to help, pulling out maps and plans and bus schedules and event schedules and giving you so much information on what to do, where to go, and how to do it that it was almost overwhelming…and I practically lived here before! I took everything, I’ll have a backpack tomorrow and will bring stuff with me just in case. I thanked them for all of their help then went back out to find food.

I ended up at a ramen shop not far from my hotel that was really good, then stopped at 7-11 to pick up snacks for the next couple days. For some reason this 7-11 actually had an alcohol selection that didn’t just include beer, so I decided to experiment with some of these new options (Strawberry Pocky flavored malt beverage, anyone? Delish!) and there were a bunch more to try out that I left behind because I didn’t want to look like an alcoholic by grabbing them all at once. After getting back to the hotel I jumped into the deep soaking tub and had my drinks while trying to plan out the next few days.

I think tomorrow I’m going to get up and head straight out to the northwest to visit my favorite buddies out at Sawayama, monkey mountain. I used to go out there at least once a month when it was warm enough back in the day. Then I’ll make my way north hitting all the various temples until I get to the Golden Pavilion. I’m sure by the time I get there it’s going to be packed, but I want to see my monkey friends first thing. I can’t wait! After the day I had yesterday, I’m so much happier being in Kyoto now! Oh, plus I noticed today that my pants kept sliding down. So I pulled out my belt to check and I’ve lost almost 4 inches on my waist since I started traveling in August!