After meeting up in Osaka with our friend Susan who had arrived from Hong Kong, we took a train to Kyoto where we spent the next three days crisscrossing the city to see as much as possible in the available time. Kyoto is a modern, pleasant city but unlike some other repositories of historical and cultural treasures, its jewels are spread wide throughout the city and surrounds, not concentrated in the central core. As a result it takes some effort to see a range of what Kyoto offers, but it’s worth every minute for Kyoto surely deserves its reputation as Japan’s top tourist destination, receiving a staggering 50 million visitors a year!
We crammed a lot into the three days, including:* Nijo-jo, the castle built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the shogun Ieyasu;
* Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto’s famed “Golden Pavilion” built in 1397 as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and later converted by his son into a temple;
* An all-day walking tour through the Southern Higashiyama district that took us not only to some great sights, but also to the limits of our endurance. We began after breakfast and it was dusk when we walked wearily from the giant orange gate of the Heian-Jingu shrine to look for a subway station to return to our hotel in north-west Kyoto.
* A picnic lunch followed by a long walk in Arashiyama at the base of Kyoto’s western mountains. The highlights of this day were the beautiful temple of Tenryu-ji surrounded by its 14th century Zen garden, the nearby Arashiyama bamboo groves, and the stunning garden at Okochi Sanso, the former home of a famous Japanese actor of the silent movie era. We all agreed that this was the most exquisite garden we’d seen in the whole of Kyoto, and quite possibly anywhere;
* The Geisha district of Gion, and restaurant strip of Pontocho where each small eatery has its own unique, minimalist but beautiful, Japanese-style entrance.
Most of these places are located in, or surrounded by, magnificent gardens now at their Autumn best. And Kyoto is a shopper’s paradise too with all the brand-name boutiques as well as the large Department stores like Isetan, Daimaru and Takashimaya. The basements of the latter three are packed with fresh, prepared food ready for eating, ideal for travellers on the move. We made several excellent meals from the goodies we collected here on our way “home” after a busy day’s templing (is there such a word? – there is now!).
You could easily spend several weeks in Kyoto exploring its world-class sights, but visitor fatigue would set in long before the list were exhausted. Much better to live here and slowly work your way through the offerings over months or years.
“It’s Saturday again – what World Heritage site should we visit this weekend?” might be a frequently asked question in Kyoto households. What a great city.
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