Golden Week Adventure - Part 5

If you ever come to Japan, there are two cities you need to visit: Tokyo, which is the current capital and perfectly represents the ideal of futuristic Japan; and Kyoto, which was the capital before Tokyo and is like walking through a giant museum of ancient Japan. The amount of shrines, temples, gardens and other historic structures in Kyoto could keep you sightseeing non-stop for weeks. Since we were only there for two days, I will definitely be back.

I had a large list of places that I wanted to visit, and on the top of that list was The Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji), Fushimi Inari Shrine, Gion District and Toei Movie Village. Luckily, we were able to do it all.

But first, since we did spend the night on an overnight bus, we were in need of a stop at our hostel and a shower. I need to spend a few moments gushing over how awesome our hostel was. We stayed at K’s House Kyoto and it was the most beautiful place I have ever spent a night in. The lounge areas were beautifully decorated, comfortable and offered games, travel books and a TV with movies. The shower and bathing areas were so amazing I think a few of us snapped some photos of them. Adjacent to the hostel was a small bar/café that offered a decent breakfast buffet for \600 and cheap drinks and food for night caps. The staff was also super friendly and helpful. They helped us with our luggage, called us a cab when we left, helped us with maps and gave us travelling tips, and they never lost their patience when dealing with less than polite customers. The hostel is also a short walk from Kyoto Station, close to a few gardens and temples, and offers bike rentals. If you’re going to stay in Kyoto I highly, and I mean HIGHLY, recommend this hostel. Just don’t go when I am, I don’t want to have to fight to get a reservation.

Showered and refreshed, we made our way to The Golden Pavilion. It’s called The Golden Pavilion because the two top floors are completely covered in gold leaf and topped with a golden phoenix. The Golden Pavilion is a zen temple that was built in the early 1400’s, but has been burned down and rebuilt numerous times over the years. This current building was built in 1955. It was built overlooking a “reflective pond” that is supposed to help people enjoy the beauty of the temple. In the gardens, you can enjoy other temples, a coin toss, and a food hall where you can try Japanese sweets and matcha which is very bitter green tea.

On our way to The Golden Pavilion from the subway, we passed by Daitokuji Temple, and decided to make a small detour to check out this expansive temple complex. There are so many temples, gardens and well groomed paths that it’s kinda like being in a temple village. Being inside this area, it’s really hard not to feel peaceful and at one with nature. Wow, these old monks knew what they were doing.

After lunch, we headed to Fushimi Inari Shrine. I really wanted to see this shrine because it just looked so beautiful on the travel websites I visited while planning the vacation. Fushimi Inari Shrine is made up of miles of paths that go through a wooded mountain behind the main shrine. Along the paths you walk under thousands of torii gates (the red gates). It’s simply breathtaking. When we got there, it was later in the day so the sun was a little lower and was just barely streaming in through the spaces between the gates. Really, I don’t have the talent necessary to express just how beautiful it all was. I don’t think even Shakespeare had the talent for that. It can take up to two hours to walk through all the trails. Since we were now on day four of our walking-around-tour of Japan, we were pretty beat and didn’t have the energy to complete it. According to a small girl that was walking behind us and counting stairs, we walked well over 1000 stairs, so I’m pretty proud of that.

Besides the thousands of torii gates, Inari Shrine is famous for being a shrine to Inari, the god of rice. It is believed that foxes are his messengers, so throughout the shrine you can see fox statues. There are also numerous food stands throughout the shrine that offer kitsune udon (a soup with fried tofu and thick noodles) which is thought of as the favorite food of these spirit foxes.

To end the day, we decided to head over to Gion for dinner and to hunt down some Geisha. Gion is the place to go if you want to see Geisha. Since it is Golden Week, which should be called “filled with tourists week” the Geisha were in hiding. Other times, if you walk around Gion, you might catch a glimpse of a Geisha or a geisha apprentice walking through the streets. During Golden Week, anyone you see dressed as a Geisha is probably a tourist that has gone to one of the many businesses that will dress you up and take your picture (this is on my list of things to do while in Japan). You can also find tea houses and restaurants where Geisha entertain. These places are ridiculously expansive though. If you really want to see a Geisha, you can head to Gion Corner which holds a daily show, performed by actual geisha apprentices, and is aimed at foreign tourists. You’ll get a taste of the different geisha performances, like dances and a tea ceremony, and it will only cost you about \3150.

Besides Geisha hunting, Gion is just a really neat district to walk around. There is an area that is very modern and filled with expensive items from the latest designers, and then you turn the corner and you’re walking along a narrow street filled with wooden stores that sell Japanese fans, crafts and pickles. It’s quite the contrast that really represents Kyoto well; the new world living in harmony with the old one.

On our last day, we headed to Toei Eigamura, or Movie Village. It’s a theme park and studio. The area has been built to look like feudal Japan. There’s also a power rangers and cartoon museum. Giselle had been there before and said it would only take us about 2 hours to see the whole park. She forgot to take into account that we love cartoons and would play in everything that we could play in. Part of the park has a play area where you can see “movie magic” at work. You can stand in a jail cell with rubber bars, walk around a slanted house, ride a “falling” elevator, and get your x-ray taken, or become part of a giant’s breakfast. Seriously, we’re very silly adults, how are we not going to try all that out?

Then there’s the actual park. We watched a samurai show, took photos of samurai, saw a royal parade, saw a mountain god appear, got water sprayed at us from a lake monster and just had fun playing in all the different buildings. There was a jail, a mansion, and a regular looking house, just to name a few. If you have the money and the time for it, you can also get dressed up. There are expansive studios that dress you up to the nines, and then there’s simple booths were you can put a costume on over your street clothes. I think both of these places also give you the option of walking around in your new outfit. C’mon, how does that not sound like fun?

It was a fun place that I plan on visiting again and it was a good way to end our trip. We had used up all the golden week days and Giselle and I needed to get back to work. All in all, this was a great trip. Would I do it again? No. At least, not like that. But I learned a lot and I think I can make the next trip even better. And next time, I wanna see some monkeys!