Kyoto; Thursday, 17 April, 2025

As I only had a couple of hours left before I needed to head to the station to catch the train back to Tokyo I got up early and braved the 7am breakfast crowd, which turned out not to be so bad this morning and I only had to wait in a queue for coffee.

After breakfast I quickly hopped on the metro and went a couple of stops over to visit the Heian-Jingu Shrine. The shrine was built in 1895 in celebration of the city’s 1,100th birthday and is built as a classic Shinto shrine, complete with ornate coloured roofs and woodwork.

Sadly at the time of visiting the main temple building was undergoing renovation which meant most of it was hidden behind scaffolding, but I was still able to explore much of the site and then head into the temple gardens which were some of the pretties I’d seen so far.

The gardens stretch in a u-shape all the way around the main temple building and include lots of cherry trees that were still in blossom, as well as a couple of ponds, one of which had large stepping stones across it.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the gardens is over on the eastern side where a large covered wooden bridge crosses the pond close to a temple building, both of which are reflected in the still pond water. Add in the cherry blossom and it made for a very pretty view.

By now I was starting to run out of time so I headed back from the temple to the hotel to quickly off-load the photos from my cameras into the cloud and then checkout of the hotel and head over to Nijo station to catch the train back to Kyoto.

In Kyoto I headed over to the Shinkansen platforms to wait for my train back to Tokyo. I headed up onto the platform and was quite shocked to find that the train immediately before mine was running two minutes late – clearly it is my mere presence that sends even the Japanese rail network into a spiral of delays.

Thankfully, my train was on time, if completely full, but after stowing my luggage I was able to settle into my seat for the journey back to Tokyo. I’d booked a seat on the left hand side of the train and with the generally clear skies I wasn’t disappointed this time with Mount Fuji and it’s snow covered peak visible for the full four minutes that it’s in view as the train speeds past.

A little over two hours after leaving Kyoto we were on final approach to Shinagawa station and the start of my stay in Tokyo.