I woke up at 8am this morning and already had a full day of traveling planned out. Trudy, Derrick, and I left our apartments at 9am to head to Inari. Inari is located south-east of Kyoto Station, three stops away on the JR Nara Line. The train cost 140 yen. We arrived at Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, also known as the tori gate shrine. To get to the main shrine at the top, we had to do an intense uphill hike and pass through about 30,000 tori gates. It was really nice since we went in the morning, and it wasn’t too hot yet. The immense number of tori gates was inconceivable, and the hike ended up being better than we had imagined. On our way out of Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, there was a huge ceremonial service going on since they were supposedly moving many of the holy relics to other sites. There was a huge crowd, and we were able to watch for a while as well. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, so it was really cool to see something new.
Next, we took the train to Tofukuji to visit Tofukuji Temple. We had to pay 400 yen to get admission into the temple and then another 400 yen to see the garden. The temple had two really nice zen rock gardens, and the garden itself had some nice zen gardens and plants. I’m not sure if it was worth the 800 yen total admission cost, but it is an experience I can cross off of my list, and it was a beautiful day to visit a natural site.
Lastly, we took the train from Tofukuji to Shijo Station, which cost another 140 yen. From Shijo-dori, we walked to Ryozen Temple and Kodai-ji Temple. Ryozen Temple was a memorial for the unknown soldiers of World War II, and it had a huge statue of Kannon on top of the small building. It only cost 200 yen to enter, so we gladly paid the cheap fare and additionally received a stick of incense to place in front of the statue as an offering of remembrance. It was really cool, and it is still hard to describe the sheer scale of the statue. The reason I found this building in the first place was because I could see the statue from Kyoto Tower, and it stood above the trees against the hill. I’m glad I was able to find it and finally visit it today. After Ryozen Temple, we found Kodai-ji Temple almost immediately next to it. Kodai-ji Temple cost 600 yen to get in, and we were a bit skeptical as to whether or not it was worth the steep cost. As I always figure, however, I reasoned that we should pay the cost to get in since most of us will never visit that site again. It turns out that we were glad that we did. It was a very large garden with many assorted structures along the way.
It was extremely hot outside today, so we were really tired and sweaty by the end of it all. We took the subway back to our apartment, and I immediately took some allergy medication since my allergies have been really bad from all of the pollen in the air. I wish there were more people handing out the free small tissue packs with the advertisements on them. I could really use them right about now. So the allergy medication made me really tired, so I took a nap before dinner. Trudy, Shae, and I finally got dinner around 8:15pm. We had a lot of homework to do, so we decided to go to Nakau. The small bowl of tanuki went on sale recently and is now only 100 yen. It is so great! I ordered that, along with a small salad, for a grand total of 200 yen. I figure it balances out anyways since I had to pay so many admission fees to get into temples today.
So, the rest of my night was spent doing Japanese language homework and working on my studio architecture project. I had to swing by the convenient store on my way back from dinner to get a 100 yen large Coca-Cola since I was so tired from my long day of walking, along with the side effects of the allergy medication. This is my last week in Kyoto, so hopefully I can make the most of it and get all of my work done.
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