A quick trip to Kyoto

Getting there

First of all, if you can get the train, take it!! This may be an expensive option, but if you're travelling from Tokyo as I was, then it's a much better option. A bus from Tokyo to Kyoto's main station takes around 8 hours. Potentially pleasant if you go by day, if you go by night there's nothing to see, and depending on which company you use, you may end up stopping upwards of 4 or 5 times, which is totally unecessary given the length of the journey. Especially on an overnight bus where the point is that most of those travelling wish to get a bit of shut eye before arriving in "Asia's most beautiful city" (Lonely Planet). Being stopped, having announcements blurted out and the bright lights turned on every hour meant that we arrived at 6am in Kyoto rather tired and pretty sure that we'd seen more service stations than there were temples in Japan's old capital.

Arrival

Remember, Japan is more often than not very rigid about rules, times, and schedules. Our check in time was 4pm and so, arriving on the overnight bus at 6am as we did, we had nowhere to crash or rest until the afternoon. Given the the amount of sleep we'd had (or lack thereof), this meant we spent our first day rather bleary-eyed, relying on a continuous stream of coffee to keep us going. So always make sure your check-in time is compatable with your arrival, otherwise you may find yourself carting your luggage around in the cold!

Day 1
At around 8am, after having breakfast and staving off the cold in a nearby "World of Coffee", we eventually braved the still-chilly morning air and walked the 15 minutes from near our guesthouse to 銀閣寺・ginkakuji - The Silver Temple (500￥). Not surprisingly in a country that's given us a red light district that still retains the name of its original theatrical purpose, Kabukicho (a Kabuki theatre was intended for the area, and even before that, a duck sanctuary), the Silver Temple also follows this tradition: there's nothing silver about it, though due to a now ancient desire to put silver on it, the temple retains its name.

As is often the case with temples in Kyoto, the gardens surrounding the temple were almost a rival to the buildings in the temple compound themselves. There were exquisite rock gardens and lots of trees that would satisfy anyone's "I want to see a Japanese-style tree" wishes. The temple was also very beautiful, though rather plain and reserved in comparison to some of the other temples in Kyoto.

After that we got the bus to the far west part of town and ended up at 天龍寺・tenryuuji (600￥ for temple and garden grounds). This was a much larger complex than ginkakuji, including many apparently residential temple buildings leading up to the main drag. Again, the gardens stole the show, and offered a good view of the temple anyway which, from the inside, was really just a collection of rooms that you couldn't go into. Certainly viewed from a slightly elevated walk, and seen through swaying trees, the temple dons a serenity far better appreciated than when inside.

To bring in Christmas Day, we ended up at around 11pm at a yakitori restaurant (grilled bits and bobs on sticks). It only had a few locals in it and they greeted us so warmly. Quite a different reception from a few days earlier when I had tried to get myself and my brother into a similar local place in Tokyo and was given the "da-me" (NO!) sign by the owner. Strangely enough, we ended up finding out that the yakitori restaurant owner used to live in a flat about two houses down from me in London, and that we'd both been living there at the same time. Such a huge coincidence made the evening, for whatever reason, a little more Christmassy.

Day 2

We finally checked in the day before at around 5pm, and ended up going to bed pretty early. Waking up the next day, it was off to 金閣寺・kinkakuji (The Golden Temple - be careful with the pronunciation!). Unlike ginkakuji, this temple does actually live up to its name and is entirely covered in gold (although cheaper to enter, only 300￥). Arriving on a sunny afternoon, the whole temple was shining to the extent that it hurt to look at it. Sitting by the edge of the lake on stilts, the temple is at once grandiose but also extraordinarily peaceful and humble, which is befitting of the many contradictions you'll come to recognise throughout Japanse culture and daily life the longer you stay over here.

There is a hill nearby which you can climb called 大文字・daimonji (essentially just "large character"), which has a the kanji for "large" coating the surface of one side of the hill. From there you can get a relatively good view of Kyoto. Unfortunately we didn't have much time so we pressed on back into the centre of town.

We got the bus (very convenient and easy to use; a refreshing change from train-dependent Tokyo) and went into a more modern area just south of the Imperial Grounds. The Imperial Grounds are also worth a visit, hidden behind gargantuan walls and almost hidden away in the middle of a vast park. Again, rather hurriedly we sped on southwards and ended up in the International Manga Museum (500￥). This was a rather confusing place as the museum was housed in a very old building that used to be a highly renowned school. As such, half of the Manga Museum was dedicated to exhibitions relating to the school rather than manga, which was a little confusing and almost disappointing, but the whole place was so curiously warming and intriguing that it didn't really matter. I haven't yet been to a manga museum in Tokyo (is there one?... there must be), but I imagine it would be a bit better than the one in Kyoto, just because it didn't know whether to fully embrace its modern theme, or dwell on Kyoto's past. Still, it's well worth a visit if you have some time to kill while you're in the centre of the city as it's a very unique little place.

Eventually we ended up in Nishiki Market, a huge and somewhat labyrinthine indoor network of little streets intersecting each other, cram-packed with good souvenir potential, as well as larger department stores and your old favourites like HMV, and good old purikura parlours. When you emerge from Nishiki market, if you aim for the south side, you'll end up on a long, busy shopping street (Shijo-dori) with far more pricier fare - think "Kyoto's Oxford Street". It was quite a nice place to stroll along, and to see some of the richer Kyoto-ites doing their thing. Perhaps at Christmas time it was a little over-crowded, but it all added to the bustle without descending into Tokyo levels of sardine-like suffering.

If you follow the shopping street eastwards, eventually they will lead you over a river and into an area called Gion. While the west side of the river is very reminiscent of some of the more modern, trendy parts of Tokyo, Gion's architecture is straight out of any tourist's fantasy. One look at the buildings once you've snaked down a couple of back streets, and it's instantly recognisable as Japan. Wooden sliding doors, creaky beams, stone sculptures running alongside rivers lined with Japanese trees; this is the little area you secretly hoped all of Japan would be like before you stepped off the plane. Get there just after midday and you might just see a geisha or two stepping in and out of the (very expensive) restaurants, looking for a potential customer who might want to burn some money on traditional Japanese entertainment.

As nice as it was to walk around here (I could have done for hours) it was very pricey, and so we headed back to the west side of the river again, and back towards Nishiki market on Shijo-dori. Here we ate our Christmas dinner at an izakaya. It wasn't at all traditional (in the English sense), but then if you waste time looking for a "Traditional English Christmas dinner" when you're in Kyoto, you may as well not have come in the first place! So we ended up eating a seafood nabe (simmering soupy hot pot type dish) and some raw horse meat. Not a brussel sprout in sight!

Day 3

A bit tired from lots of walking and a bit of drinking, we woke up a bit late, made our way to the train station to go to Nara Deer Park. But with time pressing and money a little low, we changed our mind at the last minute and ended up back in central Kyoto. This was quite lucky as we then had more time to spend at 清水寺・kiyomizudera which was a great place to end the trip on.

Again, easy to get to and easy to find as long as you're armed with a bus map and a semi-decent sense of direction, Kiyomizudera is a beautiful and surprsingly large temple complex. Walking up a very gradual incline, you pass up and through a small village entirely comprised of tourist-oriented shops. These sell everything from the exquisitely beautiful to the outrageously tacky. There are often geisha walking around here too, although be careful; many of them aren't the real deal and are just there for show. Nevertheless, surrounded by the ornate temple buildings, one is almost tempted to ignore the fact that these "geisha" may be just a con for the tourists, as they are still an absolute wonder to look at.

To try and describe kiyomizudera is somewhat futile. If you're the kind of person that makes their mind up based on other people's blogs, then you'd probably rather vegetate in front of your computer a while longer instead of going to the temple to see it. And if you're someone who likes to make up their mind for themselves, well... you'll probably end up going anyway. So all I'll say is that it was calming, tranquil (even with the tourist buzz) and offered a great view of Kyoto from the wooden platform jutting out from the hillside, supported by old and sturdy wooden beams. If you go to one temple in Kyoto, I'd be tempted to say that that one is the one to go to; but who knows what other hidden treasures I may have missed? It certainly managed to generate an atmosphere, in spite of the crowds, that seemed befitting of its description as "Japan's most revered temple."

After that, we slowly wandered down the hillside past all the tourist shops (there's even a Studio Ghibli store on the way, where you can buy figurines from one of Japan's most famous anime creators, Miyazaki Hayao), we eventually ended up back in the centre of town. Kyoto is small enough for that to be a walkable distance (about 25 minutes), but it was extremely cold so we got the bus and ended up a few minutes later at a TGI Fridays. Not terribly Japanese, but with an overnight, sleepless journey ahead of us we figured it was best to stock up on fatty stodge for the next 9 hours. Once again, sprung by an odd coincidence, our waitress at TGIs had been in the yakitori restaurant two nights earlier and had overheard my conversation with the owner who had lived in London. We hadn't noticed her, but she remembered us. I hope it won't take a strange coincidence for me to find those places again.

Bus Back

And so we ended up at the bus station just outside the main train station, got on, and 8 hours later arrived sleep-deprived and stiff in Tokyo, again, having stopped 5 or 6 times. With some more money saved, it'll definitely be the train next time.