Japan - Day 8

Day 8 brought us another day of exploring Kyoto's beautiful shrines and temples. Our main plan for today was to see the Kiyomizu-dera temple, located to the east of Kyoto's center at the top of a hill that overlooks all of city beneath it. This temple is famous for its overhanging balcony in which visitors can walk on and enjoy the sights of Kyoto below them in the peaceful surroundings of the temple. We wolfed down breakfast (peanut butter toast, miso soup etc etc yum yum) and head out for the Ohayo Gozaimasu express (the buses) to make our way to the temple. The sun was out and therefore showed promises of another fine day in Japan.

Our bus pulled up to Kiyomizu-dera so naturally we assumed this was our stop. We got off. No one else did. The bus drives away leaving us to realise we'd gotten off prematurely. This wasn't an issue however as it meant we got to walk up some very pretty back alleyways of Kyoto up the hill towards the temple. We passed small shops selling small ornaments of temples, clothware, sweet treats like Mochi (a sweet rice cake filled with red bean paste) and more. We also accidentally

passed a 6 story pagoda as well as a Geisha girl walking around the town. We didn't pass up the opportunity to take photos. Eventually we hit the main street with hundreds more souvenir shops heaving with crowds all headed up to the temple.

We climbed up and up, got sweatier and sweatier and eventually made it to the entrance to the temple a large red archway covered in carvings of red white and gold. It was massive. We passed through and head to the main temple, part of it was closed for renovations so initially we felt disappointed like we did at the Toshogu shrine in Nikko. However we soon realised the main feature, the balcony was still open and that's all I'd really come to see. The all wooden balcony stretched out over the cliff edge, covered in greenery from the trees and bushes that grew around it. Beyond that sat the city centre of Kyoto beneath us. The Kyoto Tower (a tall orange and blue pinhead like building) looked no bigger than a matchstick. Once again we had glorious sunshine so made for some good photos. A crazy japanese man with missing teeth offered to take our photo. He even did some close ups of us. Once again I had not showered and instantly regretted that decision. After putting on our best poses, we head back down the hill towards Kyoto in search of some lunch.

Lunch was had at a local Yaki-Tori resturant - something we had been planning to try all holiday! Hurrah! Afraid not.. they were only serving their lunch menu which was strangely not Yaki-Tori! Instead I had a chicken noodle soup and Dan had something I can't remember. A beer was shared here too and we talked about seeing a real tea house for tea ceremony. Tracking one of these down was alot harder than we anticipated and unfortunately, after an hour or so of searching the Gion's backstreets we couldn't make out what was and what was not a tea house. Our legs were tired and we needed some rest so we decided to head back to the hostel for a recharge. This would come in the form of Japanese Rice Wine aka Sake! Our hostel offered a sake tasting experience for a mere 500yen! Bargain. We were each served 3 shots of sake, each brewed differently. It quickly became evident as to why it was so cheap.. all three tasted awful. I felt bad because I've actually had some really good sake and this was not up to standards!

The next logical step after downing 3 shots of sake and a beer at lunch was obviously to hire bicycles and have a cycle around Kyoto. Which is exactly what we did. These were also cheap at 500 Yen for the whole day. These were old school red ones that you could fix a basket to for shopping with. Kyoto is pretty flat so cycling was a breeze! We flew past commuters on the pavement before veering off onto quiet backstreets, running adjacent to the railine, passing urban housing areas and up onto a pathway that ran alongside Kyoto's river. We passed small farms with farmers harvesting crops. If you looked to the right you'd see the main Kyoto city against the pink dusk skyline. There were mosquito everywhere and I definitely took a few mouthfuls. Lovely. Our goal was to cycle to the Arashiyama forest. This is a forest lined with bamboo trees and was meant to be a must see! However it was further than anticipated so ended up turning around and heading back for some dinner.

As Dan was ill the previous evening, I had to show him the Okonomiyaki restaurant I had been to the night before, so we ended up going back to the same restaurant to finally complete my Okonomiyaki hatrick. We walked to the restaurant and when we arrived realised it was rather busy. We waited for 10 minutes or so before being taken to our table, only this time we were taken to the private section downstairs where we had our own private room with sliding doors and a table in the centre. This was very low off the ground and had two benches either side of it where the ground beneath the table had been striped out so you could still sit properly. Our server informed us to ring the bell on our table when we were ready to order and for any future requirements. What luxury! I can't remember what I had but know it was tasty and even Dan really enjoyed it!

After dinner we decided to give Pachinko another blast now that we knew how to play. We braced our eardrums for the deafening Pachinko halls and got stuck in. I remember Dan doing rather well and me failing spectacularly. I could see how Japanese people get hooked though. The lights, video animations of the screen, anime stories and music were mesmerising. After an hour or so and after losing enough money we decided to head back home and head to bed. I stayed up online for a bit in the reception area before heading back to our wardrobe like bedroom for some sleep.