Kyoto Bound

This morning was not too exciting, which is a good thing when you are catching trains. We arrived in Kyoto and had the afternoon free to explore the city or surrounding areas while our rail passes were still active.

Even though it was his free day as well, our guide opted to come with a bulk of the group to Uji and Nara. Awesome!

Uji is famous for growing the best green tea in Japan called gyukuro. It is grown in small patches and protected from the sun with tarps. Tea is a big deal in Uji as they make cookies, noodles, ice cream, mochi, everything tea flavoured! Tea would have to wait as we had a temple, gardens and museum to visit.

Byodoin temple is featured on the ¥10 coin. It was constructed in 998 and houses an elaborately painted room called the Phoenix hall. There are two large phoenixes on the roof. 

Unfortunately, the temple was under repair, but the gardens and museum were great.

Then it was time for lunch and a chance to duck out of a downpour. I had green tea udon noodles with a sweetened matcha and mochi ball dessert. Yum!

Next we hopped back on the train and rode to Nara. Now, we were told that we would see a huge Buddha and a surprise. We got maps as soon as we got off the train which had pictures of cartoon deer in a few spots. Being an ass, I pointed to the deer on the map and said, "I want to see this deer right here please. Can you take me to this deer?" as I had been asked many, many times about the moose or bear in our national parks. Serves me right! As soon as we got out of the taxi...



Ha ha! You win this round karma. Anyway, the Sika deer are very tame and almost sadly domesticated. People pet them, take photos with them, and buy and feed them cookies. This explains so much about tourists' behaviour in Banff.

Despite my sarcasm and being put in my place by the deer, we really were in Nara to see a temple housing a huge Buddha. Todaiji was started in 728 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.



Very serious business as you can see. Inside is Daibutsu, Great Buddha, the largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocona. Dude is HUGE! Those candle stands are about as tall as I am. 

Fun fact: in 855 the head of the great statue of Buddha suddenly fell to the ground; and gifts from the pious from throughout the empire were collected to create another, more well-seated head for the restored Daibutsu.After harassing deer again on the way out, we were headed back to Kyoto to see the famous temple of 1,000 torii gates, as featured in Memoires of a Geisha.  



Fushimi Inari Taisha has many shrines and sub-shrines and thousands of torii gates. 

It also heavily features kitsune, foxes, the messengers of the gods. They come in pairs, one holding the key to the rice grainery and the other the ball of wisdom in their mouths. 

We were amazingly fortunate to see two real foxes running alongside the torii in the adjacent forest! Too quick and too dark for a photo though.

It was rapidly getting dark, so we left Fushimi Inari Taisha and hopped the train again. Finally, it was time for sushi train dinner. IT WAS SO EXCITEMENT!!!

I ate all the sushi. I decimated the fish population. It was incredible.

Full of sushi and shamed into stopping, I headed back to the room and a desperate search for a laundry mat.