We began our travel in Kyoto today, focusing on the north-west / western area. With yesterday’s rain receded and replaced by a bright blue sky, it’s good time to visit the shiny “Gold Pavilion” temple, Kinkaku-Ji (金閣寺), and Ryoan-Ji (龍安寺), with its “zen” rock garden. And in the evening there would be the “lantern road” event in Arashiyama (嵐山).
Kinkaku-Ji (金閣寺)
The Kinkaku itself is of course the highlight. There isn’t much else in the temple complex, but that alone is worth the visit.
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- Shari-Den (舎利殿). Or commonly known as the Kinkaku (金閣).
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- Nice reflection.
Ryoan-Ji (龍安寺)
It is just over half hour walk from Kinkaku-Ji (fine to do in winter, but not a good idea during the sweltering Kyoto summer!). After seeking enlightenment by the rock garden, we took a pleasant walk around the temple. It’s a popular place for viewing autumn colours, and surprisingly there were still a bit of autumn leaves left in late December.
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- They prepared a mini version of the rock garden – for the visually impaired to sense by touch.
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- Nice walk around the pond.
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- Fallen autumn leaves like stars.
Arashiyama (嵐山)
There are some good walking courses in Arashiyama, passing by various temples, gardens, and the famous bamboo forest. During the an annual “lantern road” event in late December, many of the sites and paths would be decorated with lanterns. The event lasts for about a week, and today would be the final day of this year’s.
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- Arashiyama can be reached by the retro Arashiyama Electric Rail (嵐電) The Ryoan-Ji station is a 10-minute walk from Ryoan-Ji itself.
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- Arashiyama station (嵐山駅). Today was 21st Dec. It’s almost Christmas!
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- Dogetsu Bridge (渡月橋). A symbol of Arashiyama.
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- From the other side.
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- Bamboo forest
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- You can book a ride with these guys for a tour around Arashiyama.
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- Okouchi-Sanso (大河内山荘). It’s a Japanese garden built for the actor Okouchi.
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- With some time to spare before the light-up time, we stayed in the tea house for a while as it’s pretty cold outside. (A cup of tea and sweet are included as part of the admission in Okouchi-Sanso.)
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- The garden leads up to a little hill, with good view over Arashiyama.
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- Light-up in the bamboo forest as well.
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- Many screen backlights among the crowd.
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- Looking closer at each lantern, can notice the patterns are different.
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- Lantern Road!
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- Dogetsu Bridge (渡月橋) light-up.
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- Back to the Arashiyama Station. It’s cold at night and after dinner time. While waiting for the next train we got some hot curry udon noodles.
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- Back to Kyoto, we found a highly-rated ramen place Daiichi Asahi (第一旭) not too far from Kyoto Station. The queue in front of it even at 9 pm showed its popularity.
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- After waited in the cold for over half an hour we were finally inside.
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- The noddles were good as normal, but it’s stacked with endless pieces of pork slices. And it’s a rarity in Japan that the pork was very lean. Great.