Today Lily had a great idea to get up early to beat the heat and crowds. We ate 7-Eleven that we got the night before and were out the door at 6am going to Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto shrine. It is the shrine with well over 1000 tori gates on Mount Inari. It also has hundreds of shrines with fox statues, called Kitsune, which is the god of rice, agriculture, and business success. And an amazing place for Instagram pictures. We went up half the mountain and decided to move on to our next stop. This was the Himeji castle for everyone but Matt. Who was not interested in spending 3hr of travel to and from the castle, and he forgot his SUICA card, so he decided to spend the day in Kyoto and do the walking tour recommendation from Don the bike guide.
Belinda, Lily, Melanie, Charles, Moody and Jo’s Morning Adventure:
Team Himeji took off on a Shinkansen from Kyoto Station for a quick 40 min bullet train to the town of Himeji. The city boasts an impressive castle complex that had never been breached in its time. Once out of the train station we could immediately see the castle down an impressive boulevard, it looked close but in the already 95 degree heat and the advisement of other blogs we hopped on a bus to the walls and gates of the castle entrance
Belinda found tickets ahead of time with an added bonus of a 1000 yen coupon to use in the castle or local shops. Once we arrive we headed to the tallest and most beautiful and impressive building in the complex. The tour route was nicely laid out in which we started in the basement and wound our way up 6 levels on very steep stairs. Over the course of the tour we found out that this building was part of the armory and if the castle did ever need defending the height advantage for sniping and things like trap doors for dropping heavy stones on the besiegers was built into the design. We also found out that the Japanese had draped the entire castle in black sheeting during WWII which was one of the reasons that white castle had not been bombed and remained one of the few castles in Japan that was unscathed.
The next goal of the day was to find an excellent ramen lunch spot. There were several options on the way back to the train station, but we decided our first stop was Koba Ramen which google reviews gave 4.9 stars and described it as 6 seat counter top ramen experience. Without Matt we were down to 6, so we saw it as a sign. We zig-zagged through streets and shopping arcades of Himeji and found our place. It was right at noon, and we were lucky enough to walk in as the 1 person inside was just leaving. The 6 seats were ours. 4 of the 6 of us chose the 2 house specials; milk ramen and chop suey ramen. We also got the recommended gyoza. Everything tasted amazing, everyone agreed it was the best meal we had in Japan. It also helped that the owner had been operating his place for over 20 years and was extremely welcoming and entertaining with his stories and smooth jazz music playing in the background. After exiting the shop very full, we noticed at some point he had run out to the street and closed the restaurant as a private party since we had taken up all the seats. We had wondered at some point how no one else had come in during our meal, it made the experience that much more magical.
After lunch we moved pretty quickly to the train station. This was the one location for the entire trip that the trains were more than 10 min apart from each other. After a little stressful and slower than we wanted train ticket window we made it on the train back to Kyoto.
Matt’s Adventure:
Here are the highlights from Matt’s roughly 5 mile sight seeing tour.
a) Kenninji Temple – Founded in 1202, Kennin-ji is Kyoto’s oldest Zen temple. It had beautiful grounds and traditional Japanese architecture.
b) Yasaka Shrine – A historic Shinto Shrine and entrance to the Maruyama Park.
c) Chion-in Temple Complex – Between the park and the temple was a cool gold circle statue and a grand staircase. At the top of the stairs there were giant temples and structures. Including the Sanmon Gate (85ft tall and 150ft wide) and is the largest wooden temple gate in Japan. Mieido Hall, which is a massive main area where there was a monk chanting prayers and I listened for 10min.
d)Nene no Michi Path – From Maruyama Park, I took this path that strictly adheres to codes to preserve Kyotos streets natural beauty.
e) Kodaiji Temple – this is a Zen temple with exquisite landscape gardens, including a bamboo grove.
f) Ninenzaka Path – a famous 150-meter, stone-paved path with traditional shops, and cafes.
g) Yasaka Pagoda – very old five-story pagoda. They let you climb to the 2nd level, in the very rickety construction from the 1600s.
h) Sannenzaka Path – another famous path with shops.
i) Kiyomizu Temple – this was a very impressive building with beautiful views. It also had two cool attractions just outside the temple. The Benkei’s Spear is a strength challenge that was all over my feed before l went to Japan. I had no idea where it was, but very excited to see it and fail at it as well. Also the Tainai-meguri (glowing wish stone), which i had no idea what it was, but I went through a completely dark labyrinth until I got to a dimly lit stone that you wish upon. The a temple had amazing views, a spring that people were drinking from (I did not) and other cool statues.
After that I walked home and stumbled across a couple smaller shrines completely on accident. I showered and heard that the castle crew had ramen. So I decided to go to a local ramen shop for lunch as well.
The castle crew returned and MoJo and the girls went shopping while Charles and Belinda came back to cool off.
Then we did some packing, got take-out sushi and watched the Sumo Tournament on YouTube.
Finally, Moody, Matt, Belinda, Lily and Melanie took a walk to see the Yasaka Shrine and Yasaka Pagoda at night.
