For my last Kyoto post I want to share about the most colorful temple we visited Yakasa Koshin-do. It was quite small but surprisingly crowded.
I think it has become popular because of instagram and it is pretty central to other tourist locations in Kyoto. I originally had it crossed off my list because there are just so many things to see but we happened to walk by it on accident. Calista was pretty out of it by this time. It was funny how deeply she was sleeping. Beatrix even got up and stood right on her stomach and she didn't even stir.
We took a few pictures before finishing our day and heading back to our air bnb.
It took over three years but we finally made it to Kyoto. It is funny because both my parents and in-laws, not to mention a few siblings have all been and they don't even live in Japan. I'm so glad we went. It was worth the trip. I would go again but I also don't feel like I need to. We did a lot, and while there is an endless number of temples and shrines to see I feel like we hit the major ones and had a good time doing it.
We went to two pretty famous Pagodas. The first one is on Yasaka street and it has became a really popular photography spot. There were a lot of tourists there. I think people like it because you can get picture of Japan that looks traditional with a great pagoda in the background.
Everyone was there taking pictures. We even saw people setting up really big fancy equipment.
Just up the street form there was Kiyomizu-dera. For this temple we paid the fee to go in and walk around.
There were some beautiful fall colors.
And here is the money shot. We had to walk around quiet a bit to find the right angle but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
With over 30,000 torii gates Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine is on of Japan's top attractions. It was amazing!
We completed the entire 4km hike through the torii gates. I'm pretty sure most people just do the start of it for a few hundred meters and then loop back. The beginning was crowded but once you get about ten minutes in there were barely any people.
It was inspiring how many tori gates there were and we saw several people working on them. Every once in a while there was a man painting them. Up near the top we saw them building new ones. The torii gates were a little more spread out closer to the top so there is definitely room for more.
Some of the gates were bran new and shiny and others were very old and had so much character.
I think is is one of the coolest human made sights there is.
Several places along the way you can purchase mini torii gates and offer them up to the gods. On one pillar you write your name and the other your wishes. They will then be placed somewhere at the shrine. They are not cheap. The one I'm touching in the picture costs about $130. Businesses or people who want to donate can purchase a whole large torii gate to be put up. Those are about 4-13 thousand dollars. We bought small ones to hang on our Christmas tree as a momento of our time in Japan.
We had some time after the bamboo grove and monkeys so we just explored the area a bit.
There was the cutest bunny bakery that had bunny shaped... everything.
Tucker thought it was funny that the snoopy store spells chocolate differently.
It was a pretty busy little tourist street with lots of shops. For dinner we at a a yummy pizza place. The owners daughter kept running out and giving us animal and sword shaped balloons she was making with her mom in the back. We ended up leaving before all the kids received a balloon and they ran outside even to catch us to give us another one.
Then we rode the train back to the Kyoto station, which was the closest station to our air bnb. The station itself was huge and had tons to do. There were many shops and restaurants.
The rooftop terrace was big and had an amazing view. I thought the sign right at the top was funny.
To me is says, "Happy Terrace, but watch our for big scary birds that will attack you." I have no idea why it actually says, "Please be careful of black kites."
They had Christmas lights inside the mall that were going to get turned on in just a few more minutes so we hung out some more and found a lego display and a grand piano sitting there for the playing.
We were nervous to give it a try. There were several teenage boys who came to play and they were very good. They were nice though and let us take a turn. I cropped my video short. Just know that I made plenty of mistakes. It was pretty fun. My piano teacher wants me to show her the video but I don't want to. I think I messed up too many times.
We ate at the donut/pie place for dinner. It had several savory pies that were delicious.
Time for the illumination.
Nice view of the Kyoto Tower.
These stairs were so cool. Probably the coolest stairs I've ever seen.
They light up and it was kind of like watching a Christmas movie. They even got in a sign for social distancing.
It looked even cooler after it got darker than it did in this video, but it got more crowded and I didn't want to take another. The video is just a portion of what the stairs could do. I think it was about ten minutes of different scenes.
