Kyoto’s Tofukuji Temple in autumn

22 November 2016

Kyoto’s Tofukuji Temple is large Zen temple that displays some of Kyoto's most spectacular autumn foliage and the colours are usually best in the second half of November. Tofukuji Temple is located south of Kyoto and near to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It made sense to visit this temple when we were travelling from Nara to the APA Hotel Kyoto Gion Excellent, our next hotel in Kyoto. As usual ,we did luggage forwarding one day earlier using the Takuhaibin delivery services so have our hands free for sightseeing.

The temple opened at 8.30 AM and we planned to arrive immediately after the opening time, hoping that the crowd would be lesser earlier in the day. From Nara, we took the JR Rapid train to JR Tofukuji Station. It took 45 mins of travel time. Tofukuji is a ten minute walk from Tofukuji Station. There were already streams of visitors making their way from the train station to the temple, including many Japanese visitors. There were traffic wardens stationed at key road junctions to ensure safety, direct traffic and also to usher the stream of people walking to the temple.

We paid the entrance fee and entered the temple. The view of and from the bridge is spectacular in autumn.

View of the Tsutenkyo Bridge during autumn.

We had to follow a roped pathway that was quite wide and there was already hordes of photographers taking pictures.

 

Special effect shots of “falling” leaves.

Kaisando Hall serves as the mausoleum of the temple's first head priest.

Moss and pond garden.

The Kaisando and its gardens were last reconstructed during the Edo Period (1603-1867).

We got to see more of the impressive autumn foliage after exiting the Kaisando.

Looking at the autumn leaves at Tofukuji Temple, we can understand why this place was so crowded. Even the locals have travelled from all over Japan to Kyoto and to this temple to appreciate the beauty of nature. Crowd control was good and visitors are confined to the roped pathways so all can take good photos of the autumn foliage and not get in each other’s way.

Fallen leaves a plenty.

I think we visited at the right time. There were still plenty of colours – red, orange, yellow and green on the trees.

We met up with some friends who were also touring Japan.  We had planned to spend this day exploring Kyoto together.

A nice tea break of Japanese dessert and coffee after enjoying the autumn leaves.

A picture in front of a tree with a beautiful mixture of colours.

We spent about 2.5 hours in Tofukuji Temple. Although it was not in my original plan, we decided to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine next since it was near to Tofukuji Temple and we had some unfinished business there. In our last visit to Fushimi Inari Shrine in June earlier in the year, we did not managed to hike all the way to the summit of Mount Inari. We aimed to complete the journey this time.

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Visit to the Fushimi Inari Shrine and hike all the way to the summit of Mount Inari

22 November 2016

The Fushimi Inari Shrine is one of Kyoto’s popular attraction and is located within the vicinity of the Tofuku-ji Temple. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates that lined the hiking trail behind the main buildings leading up to the summit of Mount Inari. We had previously visited Fushimi Inari Shrine in June 2016 (see post)  but did not hike all the way to the top. This time we aimed to hike to the top of Mount Inari.

After admiring the autumn leaves and gardens of the Tofuku-ji Temple, we took a walk southwards to Fushimi Inari Shrine.  As we approached the shrine, the area became more touristy with more souvenir, craft and food stores lining the streets.

Beautiful handkerchief on sale in a store near Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Just outside the shrine, there a street with many food vendors hawking local delights. The walk from Tofuku-ji to Fushimi Inari Shrine had taken us about 20 minutes. After sampling some beef skewers and sweets, we went into the shrine.

Rows of street food vendors near Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Although it is autumn, the leaves of the trees at the shrine was still mostly green. Anyway, this shrine is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates that lined the hiking trail behind the main buildings leading up to the summit of Mount Inari and not for the autumn leaves.

A pair of fierce looking foxes or kitsune guarding a torii gate. 

 

Inari is the Shinto god of rice or grain. In Japanese culture, rice or grain translates to wealth and hence Inari can be considered as a Shinto god of wealth. The foxes were supposed to be Inari’s messengers. Hence there were many fox statues across the shrine grounds.

I managed to get a better picture of the kitsune holding a scroll in its mouth compared to my previous visit.

As this was our second visit to this place, we headed straight for the trail leading up Mount Inari, about 233 m high.

We reached the place where we had turned back on our previous visit. The place looked different in the light of the mid day sun.  This was not even the mid-point of the trail.

Along the way to the summit of Mount Inari.

There was a rest area at the Yotsutsuji intersection, roughly half way up the mountain. There were a few paths leading out from here. We took a flight of steps up a path but it led to an area with many tomb stones and we had to U-turn and made our way back down.

View of Kyoto city at the Yotsutsuji intersection.

 

This path led to a dead end. 

Quiet area with tombstones, mini torii gates and foxes. Some nice autumn leaves here.

Two other paths at the Yotsutsuji intersection are the starting point of a circular route to the summit.

The trail snaking its way up Mount Inari.

Up and up till we reached the summit.

After some sweat, we made it to the summit. The hike was not strenuous and took us about one hour to walk up. My only regret was that I was not in the right attire for hiking since the decision to hike up Mount Inari was an impromptu one. There was no views from the summit.

Sign confirming that we had made it to the summit at 233 m above sea level.

A prayer area on a circular mound on the summit.

Walking around the prayer area, we saw many little torii gates.

Row of torii gates without the crowd, on our way down.The individual torii were donated by individuals and companies hoping to remain wealthy and get ahead in business. The gates were painted bright vermilion colour with black kanji lettering on each torii indicating the name of the donating individual or company.

 

We took a different path down Mount Inari and arrived back at the main hall of the Fushimi Inari Shrine at about 2 PM. Overall the hike up to the summit and back down took about 2 hours.

We took a train from the Fushimi Inari Station to the Gion Shijo Station using the private rail operated by Keihan Electric Railway. Our hotel in Kyoto for the next 3 days was the APA Hotel Kyoto Gion Excellent. This hotel is located in the heart of Gion, within walking distance to Gion Shijo Station, and many recommended autumn foliage viewing sites in the Higashiyama District.

 

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Okonomiyaki at Issen Yosyoku

22 November 2016

Issen Yosyoku is a restaurant at Gion that specialises in okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki  (literally means ‘grilled as you like it’) is a savory version of "Japanese pizza" or "Japanese pancake" and the ingredients and taste varies from region to region within Japan. The first okonomiyaki I tried in Japan was in Hiroshima and the ingredients included seafood like oysters and squid. It was delicious! Hence I was looking forward to having this dish again and what better place to try this than a restaurant that specialises in this dish.

Issen Yosyoku is located just a few minutes walk from the Exit No 7 of the Gion Shijo Station. After coming out of the station, we headed eastwards towards the Yasaka Shrine and the restaurant can be seen on the left side of the Shijo Dori.

View of the Issen Yosyoku restaurant from Shijo Dori (heading eastwards towards the Yasaka Shrine).

The outside of the restaurant has an iconic feature, that of a white dog biting the pants off a man. There are also a bench with a seated mannequin of a beautiful smiling Japanese lady in kimono. Guests can pose for photo with her while waiting to be seated. There are a few more mannequins inside.

As we came during off peak hours, we were able to get a table for 5 persons immediately.  Ordering was easy. There was only one item in the menu – Issen Yosyoku’s signature okonomiyaki. There were more options for drinks.

While waiting for the food to be served, have a look around and you may find something interesting and funny hanging on the walls. This restaurant has many interesting items on display all over.

Some restaurants are quite secretive about the recipe for their main dish. Not for this restaurant. The ingredients are openly displayed and includes spring onion, egg, dried shrimp, grilled fish paste, dried bonito flakes, beef, ginger, tempura batter, konjak jelly and flour.

We could even observed how the chef prepared the okonomiyaki outside the restaurant.

Chef preparing a few okonomiyaki at a time.

 

How was the food?

The okonomiyaki was delicious and it made a nice late lunch for us. For me, I still prefer the more expensive okonomiyaki I had in Hiroshima, with more ingredients like oysters and squid.

Heed the warning posted at the restaurant. “This food is habit forming. Once you eat it, you want to eat it again!”.

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Kodai-ji Temple– special autumn evening light up

22 November 2016

Kyoto has many famous autumn-leaf viewing spots and one “must-do” activity when visiting Kyoto in autumn is to visit at least one of these places that featured special night time illumination.  Some of the best places to visit in the Higashiyama District includes the Kodai-ji Temple, known for its particularly breath-taking lit up maple leaves, reflecting on the surface of the temple's pond. Near to the Kodai-ji Temple is the Shoren-in temple, known for its evening illuminations which include a dry garden decorated with hundreds of blue LED lights. 

As this was our first day in Kyoto, we decided to go see the special autumn light up in the Kodai-ji Temple first. During November, the sky turned dark at about 5 PM and the temple would be opened for the night visitors from sun set till about 9.30 PM.

We had earlier checked into the APA Hotel Kyoto Gion Excellent, our hotel for our 3 days stay in Kyoto. This hotel is conveniently located in Gion and ideal for visits to the best autumn leaves viewing places in the Higashiyama District. To get to the Kodai-ji Temple, it took us only about 15 minutes of leisurely walking from our hotel.

We arrived at about 6.30 PM. There was already a long queue formed and ushers were present to guide visitors to join the queue.  While waiting to buy our entrance tickets, we had a sneak preview of the beautiful light up from the outside.

Kodai-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple and has a large bell outside the temple grounds.

Queue waiting to buy the entrance tickets outside the temple.

Although the queue was long, it moved pretty fast and we were soon entering the temple grounds. Like our visit to the Tofuku-ji Temple in the morning, visitors to Kodai-ji followed a roped pathway that led visitors along a course through the temple grounds in an orderly manner.

The autumn leaves at the temple would be impressive by day and even more impressive when lighted up at night.

One of the tea houses within the temple ground. It was not open at night.

The path guided visitors around the temple’s ground, passing by tea houses and a rock garden with artistically raked gravel. There was a light show at the temple’s rock garden but that was not the highlight.

 

The reflection of the lighted autumn leaves from the temple’s pond was some of the best and most magical views. The photographs cannot do justice to the actual sights and feelings you get when seeing something so awesome and unique. Visitors, including us, were going oohs and aahs, snapping photos every few seconds as they  made their way round the pond.

Seeing the lighted leaves reflecting off the temple’s pond was the highlight of the visit to Kodai-ji Temple.

Hard to tell which was the real thing and which was the reflection.

After seeing the pond, the path led us through a bamboo grove, very much like the one at Arashiyama but smaller in size. The light up of the Arashiyama’s bamboo grove only happens from December 9 onwards in 2016 as part of Kyoto’s Hanatoro event and we would be missing it. Kodai-ji Temple’s bamboo grove was lighted up and they were quite impressive and beautiful.

Visitors to the Kodai-ji Temple enjoying a walk through the bamboo grove at night.

A row of lanterns along the path as we leave the temple.

Our visit to the Kodai-ji Temple took slightly over an hour and we came out of the temple at about 8 PM. We could still slot in a visit to the nearby Shoren-in Temple but we decided to go have dinner around Gion district instead.

Kyoto’s Higashiyama District at night as seen from outside the Kodai-ji Temple.

Ishibei-Koji at night.

We walked through a narrow alley called the Ishibei-koji. The entire scenery of this lane and the houses are preserved as important historical buildings. This lane has residential houses, traditional restaurants and ryokans. Most were well preserved with exquisite stone, wooden and bamboo facades making the alley seemed like something out from the ancient samurai era.

There were many high end restaurants in and around Gion district but we were looking for something simple, hot and soupy. We found a nice restaurant along Shijo Dori, just a few hundred meters away from our hotel called the Mimiu Kyoto Gion Restaurant that served noodles. We ordered the noodle dinner sets that included rice mixed with various vegetables, pickles and dessert.

Kamo-Nan Gohen Set. Udon noodles and wild duck in savoury broth with thinly sliced Japanese leeks.

Momiji Set of noodles with prawn tempura.

A perfect way to end a long day of autumn leaves viewing – a nice bowl of hot delicious noodles!

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Exploring Kyoto’s Northern Higashiyama district in autumn– Ginkaku-ji, Honen-in, Eikando and Nanzenji

23 November 2016

Kyoto’s Northern Higashiyama District is filled with temples and shrines, some of which are highly recommended sites for autumn leaves viewing. Our plan was to spend the morning visiting this area, starting from the Ginkaku-ji Temple and making our down the 2 km Philosopher Path southwards and visiting a few temples like Honen-in, Eikando and Nanjen-ji Temple along the way. This should bring us to close to the Keage Station along the Tozai subway line. From there, we would take the subway to the Kyoto Shiyakushomae Station where we could spend the afternoon exploring and shopping in the area around Teramachi-dori, Nishiki market and Shijo-dori.

As we were staying at the APA Hotel Kyoto Gion Excellent Hotel, we took the Raku 100 direct bus from the bus stop outside the Yasaka Shrine to the Ginkakujimae bus stop. The ride was about 20 minutes and the Ginkaku-ji is about 450 metres from the bus stop.

Note: The Raku Buses in Kyoto city are loop buses operated specifically for tourists. These are the Raku 100, Raku 101 and Raku 102. Raku Buses are brightly painted in seasonal colours, have on-board announcements in English and other languages, and stop only at the major sightseeing places in Kyoto. So it was convenient and easy to use these buses to get around the places of interest within Kyoto. The Raku Bus fare is a flat 230 yen per ride for adults (120 yen for children). More information on the Raku Buses can be found here.

Ginkaku-ji is a Zen temple that was built in 1482 as a retirement villa for a shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. It is also known as Jisho-ji Temple and that was the name as shown in Google Map. However, Ginkaku-ji Temple is translated to mean “The Silver Pavilion”, in contrast to another temple known as the Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). See a post on our visit to the Kinkaku-ji here.

Ginkaku-ji Temple‘s opening hours is from 8:30 AM to 17:00 PM and we went early in the morning to avoid crowds. Entrance fee was 500 yen per person. We followed a marked course around the temple ground. Immediately upon entry, we saw the Silver Pavilion. Unlike Kinkaku-ji Temple whose pavilion is golden in colour, the Silver Pavilion was never plated with silver, and the building remains an unpainted brown. The two stories of the Silver Pavilion were constructed in two different architectural styles, just like the Kinkaku-ji.

We next saw an impressive sand garden, known as the “Sea of Silver Sand”.

The “Sea of Silver Sand” with the Silver Pavilion in the back.

The sand garden blends nicely into a moss garden with ponds, maple trees and pins tress. This is one of Kyoto’s most beautiful gardens.

The path then led us up a hill, where we could get a nice view of temple grounds and Kyoto city.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to the Ginkaku-ji more than the Kinkaku-ji. Silver beats the gold! 

Leaving Ginkaku-ji, we walked down the Philosopher’s Path or Philosopher’s Walk (Tetsugaku no michi) heading south. The 2 km path follows a canal which was lined wth hundreds of cherry trees. This would be really impressive during spring’s cherry blossom season but in autumn, these trees were bare.

Philosopher’s Path or Philosopher’s Walk (Tetsugaku no michi).

In addition to temples, the Philosopher’s Path also had restaurants, cafes, and boutiques along the way.

Honen-in Temple was worthy of a brief stopover along the Philosopher’s Path although it was not highly rated. There is no entrance fee.

Entrance at Honen-in Temple.

Colourful autumn leaves of green, yellow, orange and red formed a nice curtain above the thatched roof of the main gate to the Honen-in Temple.

The entrance path is flanked on two sides by mounds of white sand that are called Byakusadan. These symbolize water that cleans your body and mind. A small hall to the right of the main gate was showcasing some local potteries. The garden is small in comparison to the other gardens we had seen in Japan but it was magical. More so in autumn. It gave me a sense of calm and peace as I strolled through it.

The small garden featured a stone bridge over a pond. The surface of the pond was covered with fallen leaves.

A stone bridge over a pond in the Honen-in Temple. 

 

Continuing down the Philosopher’s Path, we arrived at the Eikando Temple and also formerly known as Zenrinji Temple. Eikando Temple is very famous for its autumn foliage and the night illuminations that take place during autumn.  By the time we arrived at Eikando Temple, it was past noon and there was a crowd queuing to pay the entrance fee to enter.

Outside the Eikando Temple.

 

Preview of the colours we would be seeing once we were inside the Eikando. These leaves were seen over the boundary wall of the temple while we were queuing to enter.

While queuing for our tickets, we could see the magnificent colours of the leaves inside the temple. The entrance fee was 1000 Yen per person! Quite expensive compared to the other temples we had been to but this temple was reputed to be one of the best place for autumn leaves viewing. We shall see.

Entrance of the Eikando Temple.

The autumn leaves were at its peak and did not disappoint.  All over the temple ground, maple trees in peak autumn colours were seen.

The reddest tree I saw so far.

The crowd inside the Eikando temple.

Eikando Temple’s Hojo Pond with fiery red autumn colours.

Japanese Carp (Koi) in the pond.

Eikando's main buildings are built alongside the base of the hillside and are connected by wooden corridors. We took time to walk along the corridors and see the insides of the various buildings. We had to remove our shoes while walking on the wooden corridors. I was glad I had socks on as the wooden floor was cold!

Rock Garden at the Eikando Temple.

We found time to sit down and rest our feet while admiring the sand and rock garden while touring the buildings.

Sand Garden at the Eikando Temple.

After completing the tour of the buildings, we put on our shoes again and continue down this flight of steps to explore the grounds once more.

The Tahoto Pagoda on the hillside of Eikando.

Taking a break from shooting the autumn leaves to shoot some pictures of flowers and other subjects instead.

Green maple leaves are attractive too.

We spent about one and a half hour in Eikando. By then we had enough of autumn foliage and was looking for a place to have lunch. There were not many eating places outside the Eikando Temple and the narrow streets were chock full of people, tour buses and cars.

We continued down south a short distance to the Nanzen-ji temple. Nanzenji's central temple grounds are open to the public free of charge while entrance to the Hojo building and Sanmon Gate is chargeable.

Nanzen-ji temple’s Sanmon Gate.

After a quick tour of the free area of the Nanzenji Temple, we found a restaurant still serving lunch at 2.30 PM. Yatsuhashi-an Syanari is a small store selling sweets, ice cream and dessert on the ground floor and hot meals on the second storey. There was not many options in the menu, so we ordered the curry rice sets.

 

Curry rice set at the Yatsuhashi-an Syanari.

Once lunch is done, we took the subway from the nearby Keage Station to the Kyoto Shiyakushomae Station.  We would spend the rest of the day exploring and shopping in the area around Teramachi-dori, Nishiki market and Shijo-dori.

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