Kyoto; Tuesday, 15 April, 2025

Having learnt my lesson on Sunday I kept to my 8am breakfast slot and after a pleasant start to the day headed out of the hotel over to the bus stop near the station to catch the local bus out to the northern suburbs and then walked onto the Kinkaku-ji temple. The temple is another of the tourist hotspots, but once again I’d managed to time it to arrive just as the early morning tour groups were departing the site having already completed their visit, and before the mid-morning groups arrived.

The temple is most famous for the Rokuon-ji Kinkaku or Golden Pavillion. This is a temple building by the sites lake where the top half of the building is completely covered in gold leaf, which is pretty impressive, made all the more so when you see it all reflecting in the mirror pool below the building. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the temple complex, and stopped off at the tea room to try some Japanese maccha tea with a sugar cake before heading out of the temple and catching the city bus round to my next temple of the day.

The bus did go to my next stop, but it did it as part of a circular route with the Ginkaku-ji Temple being almost equidistant round the loop at 55 minutes either way from the Kinkaku-ji temple. I could have hopped off earlier and cut a big chunk out using the metro and overtaking a couple of buses, but as there was a hefty shower passing through I thought it might be more pleasant just to say on the dry bus.

From the bus stop it was a couple of minute walk over to the Ginkaku-Ji or Higashiyama Jisho-ji temple as it’s otherwise known. The temple is located at the foot of cliffs that rise up sharply behind the site and is best known for it’s zen gardens with lots of sculpted gravel as well as the views over the temple from the upper parts of the very picturesque garden, all better seen after I’d hidden out of the way of another shower under the temple roof for about 20 minutes.

I walked back down the temple access road and popped into one of the many restaurants that line the street for a late lunch before continuing onto the Philosophers Path. The path is a 2km path that runs alongside a small canal and is flanked along it’s whole route by cherry trees which were in the process, thanks to the heavy rain, of shedding their blossom, creating an almost snow like experience as you walk beneath them, with the water of the canal covered in blossom quickly being whisked away further downstream. The path is named for a philosopher at Kyoto University who regularly walked along the path in contemplation, and it’s easy to see why with the incredibly beautiful views and the light lapping of the water as it flows down the canal.

The opposite end of the philosophers walk brings you out at the Eikando Temple, a major Buddhist temple which covers a large site and has many different buildings, all linked together by wooden covered footpaths and galleries that you can explore (shoes off). At the time of visiting there appeared to be several ceremony rehearsals taking place, or possibly exams of monks/priests in training, which tourists were welcome to watch. After wandering round the internal parts of the temple you can also explore the grounds, which includes climbing up to the base of the pagoda located up the side of the cliff from where there were excellent views back over the city from the west.

From the temple I wandered back down to the main street and picked up the bus back into the centre of Kyoto and the central bus station. Next door is the Kyoto Tower, which is the tallest structure in the city, and, from the 100m high viewing platform, a great place to take in the views of the city. What surprised me the most about the platform was the entrance price, with the entrance being less than £5, a fraction of what observation towers in other countries charge. I spent quite a bit of time taking in the views of the city, as well as identifying places that I wanted to visit on my remaining days in the city and watching the sunet.

The tower is on top of a major shopping complex that goes down multiple levels and merges with the food court in the basement of the railway station, and it was down here that I came across a Kaiten-zushi restaurant – a sushi bar where everything is served off the conveyor belt, which of course I had to try for the full Japanese experience. The main thing it showed me was that the UK rip-offs are massively overpriced and don’t carry anywhere near the different number of dishes that a random example in the basement of a railway station of a provincial city in Japan does.

Slightly over stuffed from the conveyor belt I headed back up into the station and over to the platforms for the train back to Nijo and my hotel. There was one train just about to depart, but that was already packed, not that was stopping more people cramming themselves on. Thankfully, the next train that was due out within 10 minutes was just pulling in on the neighbouring platform so I decided to have a seat on that and take the three-stop journey back to Nijo in more comfort and without the risk of having all the sushi squeezed back out of me.

Back at the hotel I had a quick nightcap before turning in for evening.