Day 7, Kioto, Nijo castle
Written in Dublin on 27th
It was nice, sunny morning when the bus arrived to Kioto station and dropped us off. I would have liked to sleep more, but no can do. The station building was huge and shiny and on the other side was the Kyoto Tower.
We dropped our luggages to the hotel - it was situated right next the station too, and belonged to same group as the one with the tower. Also, we get a free tickets to enter the tower, which was a nice surprise - not that the entrance was that expensive, but anyway.
We got some maps and bought 2-day travelling pass. Very handy, because it's good for metro and most buses, and there is lots of stuff to see, located all around the town. With our brand new passes we got to metro and headed to Nijo Castle. It's famous apart other things, being one of the few buildings with Nightingale floor still in existence. (It's a floor that squeaks when it's walked on, really fancy! (And try to sneak in a castle when all the rooms are surrounded with one.)) The day was sunny, so just once we got to enjoy not only the warmth (which wasn't that pleasant because it was really humid all the time...), but also sunshine!
Back to the castle. I rented fancy apparatus that had an English explanations about rooms and places within the tour inside the castle. It was interesting, but lacked information about daily life those days. Still, it was great to actually see a building like that, all the paintings on the walls and also few scenes that might have happened in those rooms made up by dolls. The garden wasn't among the greatest I saw, but still quite nice. And the floor, like I already mentioned, was really interesting~ And after I had toured the castle and sat to check my camera, I noted that there wasn't much space on the memory card and as a clever IT person managed to format the whole card. No, don't ask how... perhaps I can blame being tired after the night spend in the bus!? (I'll try to resurrect the card when I have some time to concentrate on it...)
Then we went to check in the hotel and ate some sushi and continued by bus to Inari Fushimiya. The temple is known specially of the hundreds of red torii that lead up the mountain it's located next to. Again an alley of shops led to the temple and I bough nice bowls from one of them. And kitsune mask phone accessory! The temple looked much like others, and after a while we started to climb the path leading up. It was quite a sight, practically a tunnel of red gates led the way! Sometimes there was space between them and we saw few very nice views. Unfortunately the heat and all the walking we had done started to really take toll from my feet and they ached and my ankles were swollen, so I didn't walk as far as others. Still saw I nice view of Kioto.
We returned in time to make a brief visit to the Tower, it was dark already and we figured Kioto would look nice. It did. Several pavilions and temples were visible from binoculars and I think it was hiljainen who spotted the street that had turned into a market place due it being a festival. It looked awesome, amazing amount of people! (The festival made it hard for us to get the accommodation and also let us see lots and lots people wearing yukata <3 )
Even tho my legs were aching, I still decided to accompany hiljainen, J and emitchi to the market, while others went back to the hotel. It was great, the crowd wasn't that thick anymore and we managed to walk past the booths selling all kind of food and also some toys and stuff. Again I was able to taste all kinds of new things. Apples coated on liquid sugar and then cooled were tasty!
It was nice, sunny morning when the bus arrived to Kioto station and dropped us off. I would have liked to sleep more, but no can do. The station building was huge and shiny and on the other side was the Kyoto Tower.
We dropped our luggages to the hotel - it was situated right next the station too, and belonged to same group as the one with the tower. Also, we get a free tickets to enter the tower, which was a nice surprise - not that the entrance was that expensive, but anyway.
We got some maps and bought 2-day travelling pass. Very handy, because it's good for metro and most buses, and there is lots of stuff to see, located all around the town. With our brand new passes we got to metro and headed to Nijo Castle. It's famous apart other things, being one of the few buildings with Nightingale floor still in existence. (It's a floor that squeaks when it's walked on, really fancy! (And try to sneak in a castle when all the rooms are surrounded with one.)) The day was sunny, so just once we got to enjoy not only the warmth (which wasn't that pleasant because it was really humid all the time...), but also sunshine!
Back to the castle. I rented fancy apparatus that had an English explanations about rooms and places within the tour inside the castle. It was interesting, but lacked information about daily life those days. Still, it was great to actually see a building like that, all the paintings on the walls and also few scenes that might have happened in those rooms made up by dolls. The garden wasn't among the greatest I saw, but still quite nice. And the floor, like I already mentioned, was really interesting~ And after I had toured the castle and sat to check my camera, I noted that there wasn't much space on the memory card and as a clever IT person managed to format the whole card. No, don't ask how... perhaps I can blame being tired after the night spend in the bus!? (I'll try to resurrect the card when I have some time to concentrate on it...)
Then we went to check in the hotel and ate some sushi and continued by bus to Inari Fushimiya. The temple is known specially of the hundreds of red torii that lead up the mountain it's located next to. Again an alley of shops led to the temple and I bough nice bowls from one of them. And kitsune mask phone accessory! The temple looked much like others, and after a while we started to climb the path leading up. It was quite a sight, practically a tunnel of red gates led the way! Sometimes there was space between them and we saw few very nice views. Unfortunately the heat and all the walking we had done started to really take toll from my feet and they ached and my ankles were swollen, so I didn't walk as far as others. Still saw I nice view of Kioto.
We returned in time to make a brief visit to the Tower, it was dark already and we figured Kioto would look nice. It did. Several pavilions and temples were visible from binoculars and I think it was hiljainen who spotted the street that had turned into a market place due it being a festival. It looked awesome, amazing amount of people! (The festival made it hard for us to get the accommodation and also let us see lots and lots people wearing yukata <3 )
Even tho my legs were aching, I still decided to accompany hiljainen, J and emitchi to the market, while others went back to the hotel. It was great, the crowd wasn't that thick anymore and we managed to walk past the booths selling all kind of food and also some toys and stuff. Again I was able to taste all kinds of new things. Apples coated on liquid sugar and then cooled were tasty!