This will be the last post from Japan, though it will likely end up on the 'net when we get to Hawaii, sometime last week. EDIT: we have free wireless at the airport. yay.
Yesterday we had a really great day. We took a short train on a short train ride to Kurama, a very small village in the mountains outside of Kyoto, where there are some very beautiful, you guessed it, shrines and temples. I'm almost craving Disney World, in a Taco Bell kind of way.
Small town:
We got off the train, with little idea of where exactly to go, and not a bit of english in sight. We had the Lonely Planet guide, which had a vague map, and that helped somewhat. We made our way to the gate of the shrine, which is also near the bottom of the mountain. Upon paying, we got an even more vague cartoonish map. To my not-very-surprise, it was better than the Lonely Planet guides map.
Shriners palace:
We hiked up the top the mountain, seeing various small shrines along the way. It was extremely hot and sweaty, and we drank a lot of water to counter the heat. Good on us. Close to the top of the mountain, after about 45 minutes or so, we got to the main temple building, or honden. The view was incredible.
The view, being incredible:
Getting back to roots:
Rain was coming down periodically, and it was very cool. You know how in Japanese art, the rain is depicted as lines, as opposed to drops? It's because that's how it really looks. You can actually see the lines of the rain coming down, and it is pretty neat looking.
A common thing to do is to hike over the top of the mountain and go down the other side, and end up in another town call Kibune, so that's what we did. It was a really nice hike. It was weird to see many many people walking the trail wearing short skirts, open-back sandals, tight jeans, warm clothing, etc. Maybe they didn't know it would be insanely hot. Um.
When you come off the trail in Kibune, there is a very narrow road lined with ryokan and restaurants, with a river running alongside. In the summer, a lot of the places build platforms spanning the river (only about 20 feet wide at most) and customers can happily eat nourishing eating food there. We tried to find some places that weren't all just fish, but you know how that goes.
Restaurants:
We ended up walking about 30 minutes back down the road to the train station, and caught a train right away back to Kyoto. A late lunch at some pizza place, and then back to the hotel for naps and laundry-doing, both sorely needed.
When we woke up, we spent some time packing to leave, and then took a final bike ride along what is known as the Path of the Philosopher (soon to be a major motion picture starring the Gowanus Canal, I'm sure.) It is a very beautiful path that winds it's way along a small canal in the southeastern part of Kyoto. The path runs through a very nice neighbourhood full of large houses with high garden walls that are sure to hide immaculate gardens. We scaled one wall and were immediately set upon by attack dogs, clearly put there to keep away intruders like us. We barely managed to escape with only minor bites and scrapes.
That didn't happen.
The ride was very nice, and the path was lovely. It was a great way to round out our solo Kyoto experience. We went back home, finished packing, wrote many postcards and hit the futon.
Me being sweaty:
Sorry Ansel:
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