Published: 2025-05-15
Bus tour day! Did I remember to take a photo of the bus? No! 😅 You’ll have to take my word for it that it was a sweet drop-top double-decker dealio and we were cruising around the western part of Kyoto today with the wind in our hair and occasionally almost losing our hats!
We left Kyoto station this morning and our first stop was the World Heritage site Nijo-jo Castle, the location of a former Imperial Villa. We actually got to go inside (with our shoes off) and see all of the beautiful artwork along with depictions of how the various classes of people would be presented in various scenarios. One of my favourite details is that the floorboards sounded like birds chirping (I believe the exact term was “nightingale floors”) due to the way that the nails were made and the effect of wood movement. It was quite busy, and I often found myself accidentally taking part in a Japanese elementary school field trip (there had to have been at least three separate classes there at the same time as us).
After the tour inside the villa itself, we wandered the grounds and took in the surrounding gardens. There was one point where a bridge crossed the moat surrounded the villa and there was a vending machine for “carp food (¥400)”. Sure enough, there were at least a good two dozen absolute units of carp below us, and one very opportunistic pigeon. On our way back to the bus, one of the ponds had an (obviously) paid actor of a heron doing its best posing work.
Our next stop was at Kinkaku-ji, a Buddhist temple that is covered in literal gold. Before we entered the grounds, we made a stop for lunch at an incredible restaurant called Itadaki; essentially a Japanese-European fusion restaurant. I had (effectively) Wiener schnitzel but somehow even more amazing, along with crazy good salad and miso soup.
After we ate, we entered the temple grounds. The selfie I included in the gallery below is the only photo Heather and I had time to take together before we basically got pushed out of position by an onrush of bodies with a single focus on getting a photo. I wasn't mentally ready for how many people there were. I’m not sure you can tell through my sunglasses, but there was actual real fear of what I was seeing coming around the corner in the path.
Anyways, one of the benefits of being 6’2” 188 centimetres tall in an Asian country is that I’m pretty much a lightning rod and can see over everyone. The problem was just the number of “everyone” 🫠
Anyways, I’m sure if there was a less-busy time of day or time of year to visit the temple, it would have been a far more chill experience. The structure itself along with the grounds were extremely beautiful - the gold must absolutely sing with a low sun angle. There is also an incredible gold-plated sculpture of a crane (bird) on the peak of the roof that I wish I’d had a 300mm SLR lens to reach out with to get a better look at it.
Once we left the grounds, the next stop of our day was the Imperial Palace, which as far as I can tell is still in use in some form… I’d love to elaborate, but as our tour guide informed us, it was inexplicably closed this week out of the blue. This was honestly fine as it was starting to get late in the afternoon and some of us were getting a bit tired from the heat and the sun and the walking and the people. Heather and I headed back to our abode while the others jumped onto the eastern leg of the tour.
I can almost order myself an iced caffe latte without sounding too dumb. Baby steps 🥴
Nara tomorrow to visit the deer who bow to you!
