15th – 17th of March – Kyoto

Leaving the hotel in Hiroshima at 0745 we grabbed the shinkansen first to Kobe and further from there to Kyoto. There we wandered the hallways of Kyoto station to get to the subway, and 3 stops later we emerged onto the street only a few minutes from our hotel. Arriving around noon we were not able to check in so we left our luggage behind and left to do some sightseeing.

We started off by having a walk at a nearby market with hundreds of stalls of mostly food – and interesting walk in a massive crowd. The presence of the market made the location much more interesting tourist-wise which was one of the reasons why we got a hotel here instead of closer to the station as we did in the other cities. 

Crowded market. Plenty of food and other interesting things.

After touring the market we went to Kyoto station for lunch before getting on the train to go see the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. I blame no one if they don’t know what that is, but I suspect most have seen photos from there; more than 10.000 tori gates lining walking paths up a 230-ish meter tall hill. The gates are placed less than a meter apart, almost creating a tunnel to walk through. Along the way there are shrines along the way, small kiosks and smaller paths going into the forest seemingly nowhere. The summit was far less impressive than the summit in Miyajima as it was basically a collection of small shrines in the forest with no view – though a view of Kyoto through haze could be had from further down the path. It was quite the experience walking among the thousands of red gates, the there were, as one would expect, lots of people. It was extremely crowded at times but fortunately the higher up you got the less people there were and it thereby got easier to navigate (and you got the opportunity to take photos without other people in them!). 

From there we returned to Kyoto and some of us joined our guide for dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant, Osaka-style. Delicious as expected.

The following day the morning was spent seeing Nijo castle and Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion. The Nijo castle is a castle from the Edo period with most internal construction and decoration still original. Walking through the building and seeing the beautifully decorated walls and doors with trees, landscapes, animals and more was quite something. Unfortunately it was not allowed to photograph inside – probably a good thing as the congestion of people likely would have been much worse. The Golden Pavilion is located on a small island in a lake in a large garden. Usually when you are told something is golden it has a slight hue to it or it needs a certain light for it to look golden-like, but in this case the pavilion was very obviously golden; covered by gold leaf and shining brightly from the sun on an unclouded day. It was quite a beautiful view and walk despite the many people (by now an overarching theme – and this wasn’t even during a common vacation). 

Detailing on the roofs of Nijo castle. 

 

Detailing in the entrance gate.

Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion

After a brief lunch we left for the Kiyomizudera temple area – an old part of Kyoto with plenty of temples and traditions. And specifically Maiko; Geishas in training. Some of us had signed up for a Maiko performance – a one-hour song & dance, Q&A and presentation of a Maiko, her life and training. Clothing, makeup and how the hair is set indicates how far you are in your training.  While it was all above board and very informative it was difficult not to feel a certain degree of objectification of the working of a female entertainer (though it was pointed out it wasn’t that kind of entertainment). As a Maiko they work with an agency and depend on them fully during the 5 years of training. They get no salary but the agency handles housing, meals, insurance and other necessary expenses. Mobile phones are not allowed, they get to go home to visit their families between Christmas and New Year, and they get Sundays off unless a customer requests them which in that case they have to take the job. This means that they get maybe 1 day off every month despite being between 15 and 21 years old during training. If they get married, even after becoming Geisha, they will have to leave that line of work. There is no punishment or fine as such, marriage can just not be combed with this work. 

 

Walking in the Kiyomizudera temple area.

 

View from the Kiyomizudera temple.

 

Maiko performance.

Having navigated the immense crowds we returned to central Kyoto where we were introduced to a food hall with loads of various options and a nice – albeit slightly chaotic – atmosphere. I had a nice bowl of soba noodles and one asked to share a burger. That was an amazing burger – probably among the best I’ve ever had, if not the best. The wagyu beef patty had an intense beef taste and mixed with a bit of greens and dressing it was close to perfect. And fantastically greasy. Following dinner some of us returned to Kyoto station to see/experience the lightshow they have on a large staircase overlooking the main building. It’s hard to explain how large the entire construction is; the main station with tunnels and escalators/elevators to tracks and sublevel shots and eateries, a theater at one end and a huge mall covering 10 floors at the other end, its roof being the staircase with the lightshow. 

 

Kyoto station.

 

Stairs and a lightshow.

The third and last day in Kyoto was a day off, so a few of us went out to see a bamboo forest (as opposed to the one in India there would be no chance to see tigers). The forest was a, well, bamboo forest, and there wasn’t much else to it unless I missed something. There was a garden there that required an entrance fee and entering it was clear that the fee very effectively cut down the amount of people walking around. A very nice quiet walk around with a so-so view of the city. 

 

The bamboo forest. There were bamboos.

 

A small hut in the garden.

On our return to the city it had started raining so after a short coffee break we visited a temple with 1000 Buddhas. And that was not just a name, they genuinely had that many Buddhas lined up, surrounding a larger main figure. And not two of the many Buddhas were alike, they were all different so it was quite the view when walking past them lined up on steps, getting a good view of them all. It ended up being a much more interesting experience than I had expected it to be. 

 

 The garden outside the building with the 1000 Buddhas. 

You were not allowed to photograph inside so you just have to imagine the lineup on the other side of the wall.

Returning once again to the center we had another walk through the crowded market near the hotel where we ended up having another coffee break before returning to the hotel around 1700 where the rain also had subsided.

For dinner I couldn’t not return to the food hall and get my own burger, this time the bigger version; 2 patties and a steak. It was silly, ridiculous, too much, a huge mess and probably why it was so fantastic. I finished off the day by going up to the observation deck, 100m up, to a pretty anticlimactic view of the city. Considering the city’s size there were surprisingly little light; apartment buildings, stations and streets had lights, but I was missing large modern glass and metal buildings that emit a lot of lights and big neon ads. It does make sense in a way as it is a very old city that has stayed relatively culturally traditional and not super modernized. I didn’t stay long before going back down and returning to the hotel.

 

Kyoto station seen from above.

13th – 14th of March –Hiroshima

We met up in the lobby at 0700 and the whimper I whimpered when I put on my shoes told everyone that they had not dried since yesterday, and not only that - they were also cold. We were picked up by the bus and went to the station where we got breakfast before boarding the train to Nagoya (the 7/11s here are much more extensive than any you’d see at home – so it’s not just candy and fast food but you can get decent food). The views along the way were beautiful alpine environments with all the fresh snow. After 2½ hours we had left the alpine area, descended to warmer climate and arrived at Nagoya. Here we had time to get lunch before boarding the shinkansen to Kobe where we did a same-platform change and got onto another shinkansen that took us all the way to Hiroshima, where we arrived around 1400. 

View from the train.

 

I believe all the shinkansens had this small "nano museum" with a small item being exhibited.

There was a few minutes’ walk to the hotel were we left our bags before grabbing a bus downtown and getting off at the Hiroshima Peace Park. Here we saw various memorials; the children’s statue, the eternal flame and a plaque (very unceremoniously placed onto a random building) denoting the epicenter of the detonation of the nuke. 150 meters from there was the Atomic Bomb Dome – the remains of the only building left still standing after the attack. It originally was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall and the reason it remained standing (at least parts of it), was that opposed to the surrounding buildings it was not made from wood and had large windows which let the pressure pass through more easily. This does not negate the large necessity of having it reinforced with numerous rods and poles to keep it safely standing. A permanent reminder of the horrors. 

And if the image of the bombed building wasn’t enough we followed it up by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Museum, describing and showing everything in details about the bombing; before, during and after. The visit was just as fun as you would expect. It is rare to experience such silence in a large busy museum. 

From there we went out to have dinner; the entire group got invited to a place that made Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Everywhere in Japan you mostly eat the Osaka style – a thick pancake with all the toppings mixed into the cabbage-batter, maybe topped with scallions etc. The Hiroshima-style is more of a large thin pancake (like a crepe) with cabbage, bean sprouts and toppings piled on, a pile of noodles fried to the same size and shape of the pancake on top, and then a egg is splattered out on the heat plate to the size of the pancake and the entire concoction flipped over onto the egg. A much different style but absolutely fantastic.

The following day we left the hotel in the morning and boarded the train for a half an hour drive to Miyajimaguchi where we got the ferry to Itsukushima (also known as Miyajima) Island. The island is home to multiple temples, torii-gates, a forest and numerous deer just walking around like they own the place. We had a bit of a walk around being introduced to the area before getting let loose. In the beginning there was focus on getting photos of the Great Torii Gate out in the water (which also makes it the main eye catcher in advertisement and tourism material). A couple of us decided to walk to the tallest point on the island; Misen summit at 531m, where we would be able to get a nice view of the island and surrounding areas. The walk up through the forest was quite nice – the views you got through the foliage were beautiful and it never got crowded enough that it distracted from the experience. The path and steps were quite steep so when we finally made it to the top 1½ hours after starting it felt like we had gotten a pretty decent workout. With both a cable car and two other paths to the top there were more people here than we had seen on the way up, but it never got too crowded here, either, to not being able to enjoy the views and take photos. Despite haze in the distance it was possible to see Hiroshima and the many oyster farms spread out in the surrounding waters. Oysters are a big thing and a specialty for the area, but my experience with the deep fried oysters was a thick crunchy batter with a hot and tasteless center. 

 

Famous torii gate in the water.

 

The local population saying hi.

 

View from the top.

Walking back down we arrived at sea level a bit past 1600 and it had become low tide. To all our surprise it turned out that the low tide exposed the base of the Great Torii Gate so it was now possible to walk out to and around it. Apparently the water isn’t deeper than maybe a meter around it at high tides, which isn’t obvious when you just look at it. From there the others looked for a place for coffee and snacks, whereas I returned to the ferry, not missing the opportunity to get some shots of soaring kites along the way, jumped onto the train back on the main land back to Hiroshima and met up with others from the group at a sushi restaurant with sushi that was absolutely delicious. 

 

Low tide.

On the way back to the hotel from the restaurant some of us went for desserts and the group’s macha-latte addict grabbed her 4^th and 5^th of the day after contemplating if the 3 she had already had during the day were enough. Obviously they weren’t.

Back at the hotel I started packing an getting ready for tomorrow’s relocation. After the cold, wet and snowy weather of Takayama the blue sky and 15-17 degrees of Hiroshima felt like a completely different world. And my feet were even dry!