Day 10: Lots of Torri Gates, Lots of Gold

Another day, another round of visits to ancient religious sites!

Temperatures rose to the lower nineties today, so the heat made for a long day of walking while taking in the beauty of several shrines and temples.

First up was a trip to the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. We took the subway to get there, and the entrance was steps from the train station.

The shrine is famous for having over 1,000 torri gates that lead visitors up a mountain to various sub-shrines that are owned by families who pay to buy their own space to worship.

The entrance was extremely crowded, but as we made our way through the torri gates and up the mountain, the hordes of tourists began to thin. This made for a beautiful walk through dense woods until we reached the top.

We walked back down to the entrance and hopped back on the train to get to our next destination: the Kinkaku Ji temple.

The temple located near the entrance

The climb begins

The torri gates never seemed to end

The longer the walk, the thinner the crowd

One of the family-owned miniature shrines

The view from (close to) the top

The trip to Kinkaku Ji involved taking the subway back to Kyoto station, then getting on a regional train to travel to the closest station to the temple, then riding a public bus closer to the temple, then taking a short walk to reach the temple grounds.

En route to our next stop

The long trip was worth it. Kinkaku Ji's crowning jewel is its Golden Temple, which houses relics of the Buddha, and is painted with over 20 kilograms (about 45 pounds) of gold.

The building was burned down twice; first during the Onin War in the 15th century, and again in the 1950s when a mentally-ill monk set fire to it.

The shine of the building's gold coating was almost blinding in the blazing sun. The pond and bonsai trees surrounding it set a majestic tone, even as hundreds of tourists crowded in to get a peak in the stifling heat and humidity.

Approaching the temple

That's a lot of gold!

Then we took a public bus to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and I had grilled eel with udon noodles.

Side note: almost all restaraunts in Japan have a display like this one with

plastic models of every dish on their menu. It really helps when you're trying

to decide where to eat and everything is written in Japanese. 

For those who don't know, eel is a very fatty fish, but is

served in a sweet glaze and goes very well with rice.

We took another bus to the Kyoto Art Center, where we got to make our own t-shirts with locally themed stencils.

I used a stencil of a float celebrating the Gion Festival (an annual tradition in Kyoto), and one of fireworks during the Star Festival, which was celebrated yesterday throughout the country.

I think my shirt turned out surprisingly well:

Apologies for the sideways picture!

The back (the picture is upside down due to an uploading glitch)

We boarded the bus one more time to head to a large outdoor mall and shopping area near the hotel. We had some free time to shop and check out the stores and restaurants. We had an early dinner and returned to the hotel, ready to rest up after a long day in the sun.

The mall

Tomorrow we head back to Tokyo and our host families. The last week has been a whirlwind of activity - three cities in seven days; a hostel and hotel, temples and shrines, some highly unusual food; and nights spent staying up late having fun and writing the blog.

I will be happy to sleep in the same bed for the next two weeks, but it has been an amazing experience traveling to different parts of the country and learning about Japan and its culture.

The Kyoto Tower lit up on our last night in the city