In my last post about the kaiseki meal, I described the geisha district as looking like a film set. Truth be told, much of Kyoto could be spoken about this way. There are so many beautiful temples and shrines, with such cultural and spiritual significance, and each structure and garden is more beautiful than the last. Kyoto is a much bigger city than I was expecting, and there is a downtown that looks just as much a big city as the next, but when you’re at the major attractions around town, even with the crazy holiday-weekend-tourist crowds, you can’t help but be in awe…and find some zen.

There are literally temples, shrines and gardens around every corner, and you can easily get overwhelmed by it all…or at least I did. I probably could have stayed a full week and continued to find new places to visit, but 3.5 days was the perfect amount of time to see everything I came to see and get a good feel for the city.Some of my favorite places visited were in Arashiyama, a scenic area in Western Kyoto, where it feels like you could be stuck in old-world Japan. This area houses the Bamboo Forest and is home to the Iwatayama Monkey Park (I also stayed in a traditional Ryokan there for my last night, but that’s for a different post later this week).

The bamboo forest was something I was really excited about and while it was pretty much what you would expect, it is crazy to look back at these pictures – all from the same place on the same day, none of the photos have been enhanced or filtered. It’s really just remarkable to me that the bright green of the first photo is a color that exists in nature in real life!

At the end of the bamboo forest there is a shrine, not at all a rarity here. You can pray, pick fortunes, and make, and write down, wishes that you are praying for and leave them at the shrine. I gave 100 yen (less than $1) so that I could take a fortune, and thankfully the one I got said, among other things, that my fortune was, and I quote, “excellent”…thank you, Nonomiya-Jinja Shrine. It could have been a rough few days if my first fortune was less than stellar.

From the bamboo forest we started to make our way towards the Monkey Park, but got sidetracked on our way because there is something to look at no matter what direction you are facing. On the way into a zen garden we found this amazing, overflowing pond of water lilies. They are overgrown but in the most beautiful way. It’s Monet x Japan, a collaboration that transcends time…truly one of my favorite parts of the day!!

This garden took us down towards the river and the Togetsukyo Bridge. Along the riverside path, I witnessed 2 tourists (I assumed American) ask a few Japanese 20somethings, dressed in kimonos, to take a selfie with them…need I say more?! I would’ve loved the same thing, but I would never ask!! The bridge took us over to the Monkey Park to start our hike up to the top of the mountain. Having no idea what to really expect up there, I was more than pleasantly surprised! I’ve loved monkeys since before I can even remember, so needless to say I was excited for a chance to see some up close here. At this park you can walk around amongst these Macaque monkeys, as well as feed them out of your hand from inside a caged room. Within these tribes there were a few babies , who were cuter than I could handle. These apes were so humanlike in the way they interacted with each other, as well as with all of us feeding them, that I felt like I was living inside Planet of the Apes!!

The other major sites we went to in Kyoto were outside of Arashiyama. The Gold Temple, The Silver Temple, Kiyomizu-dera, and Fushimi-Inari Shrine were the biggies. This weekend was the start of the summer holiday in Japan, so it was pretty crazy everywhere we went…not to mention the extreme heat!! I had heard so much about the Kinkakuji, the Gold Pavillion, but actually it was the grounds at Ginkakuji, the Silver one, that I thought were most special. Kinkakuji was the retirement villa of a shogun – not a bad retirement, beautiful villa on a pond – and was converted into a zen temple after his death; Ginkakuji was the villa of his grandson, and was similarly turned into a temple after his death. It is far less opulent than the gold leaf of Kinkakuji (this temple has a silver-colored roof, that is all), but even with maintenance being done, the zen sand and rock garden won me over at Ginkakuji!

Kiyomizu-dera is a temple made all of wood, and constructed with no nails, which is incredible. It is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Kyoto and the tri-level pagoda out front is definitely a symbol often seen in reference to the city. Bright orange gates and pagodas greet you as you walk up the hill towards this more humble, yet quite amazing, structure. Behind the wooden temple is the Jishu shrine, dedicated to the deity of love and matchmaking, so of course I had to pay that one a visit :).  These grounds also feature water from a waterfall that is said to have wish-granting powers so you’ll see lines of people waiting their turn to gather some water to drink. It was pretty hilarious to watch as adults looked almost childlike, playing amongst a fountain spouting 3 streams of water.

The last big site we took in was Fushimi Inari and its bright orange (vermillion, technically) torii gates, which are probably the most iconic place here. I had seen them in pictures but never knew exactly what it all was. Inari is the god of rice and patron of business, so this is the main shrine paying respect to him, and the gates are the pathway to the main shrine…but there are many other small Shinto shrines along the way. It’s a two-hour walk through all of the gates, but the smaller shrines almost make for little rest stops here and there, some even with shops and restaurants. The fox plays a prominent role in this place, as foxes are viewed as messengers. As such, the wishes and prayers that you could tie on to the shrines here were on fox-head shaped paper. I thought it fitting to use this opportunity to write a wish for what’s to come next for me professionally, seeing as I was writing on a fox and all… This is a larger than life place and I’m so glad we did the hike and got to see it all.

The rich culture and history in Kyoto is so easily felt. I really loved getting to see it all, despite feeling overwhelmed by it at times. I was supposed to spend less time in Kyoto and visit other nearby places as well, but I’m so glad that I decided to extend my time here so that I could really immerse myself and see and do everything that I wanted to. As you might have noticed, this post talked nothing of food, a shock to many I’m sure. I spent lots of time sampling things at the Nishiki market, and ate some other terrific meals in Kyoto, so don’t miss it later this week. Arigato!