1 November 2017
The temple run
Exploring every Kyoto temple and shrine on foot
Now I am in Osaka, its only 30 minutes from Kyoto on the cheap $5 train.
Therefore, I had time to visit all the temples in Kyoto this morning before grabbing my bags and heading to the station. I have seen every temple anyone could ever want to see, after a while they are all the same.
Apparently they are for different religions and purposes, but I dont believe the average Japanese person even knows or cares, they just have all these cool buildings to look at, get their model toys blessed at, show their flowers at, and store the spirits of immortal beings at.
Most of the temples near the main station of Kyoto are the brown variety, not the red variety, and certainly not the white castle variety of small hamburger.
They all claim to have something special inside you are not allowed to see. Really, thats the thing, theres always an ancient treasure within (allegedly) but its locked up inside a wooden fire hazard tomb to be shown once every 500 years.
My theory is whatever it is, is actually at some guys house, and once every 500 years he drives it back to the temple the night before.
Anyway, since the weather was splendid and the leaves are changing colors, me and everyone else was on the temple run, some people are collecting stamps, even the shut temples have a temporary stamp collection point so you can say you stood at the gate and imagined what was behind the blue plastic sheeting.
Once I arrived in Osaka, I had to change from the train line to the subway line, no issue, I am a seasoned rider of Asian transport systems, so under the city I go stand on the platform and wait. Trains keep coming to the other platform but none to mine.
Eventually I noticed this was the terminal platform and they were all arriving behind me and then reversing direction. Only took me 4 trains coming and going to realise.
Another clear blue day! Tomorrow is cloudy I think, but theres no rain on the forecast at all. Enough weather talk, onto the temples.
Higashi-Hongan-Ji. This is the main one everyone sees walking from the station to Gion.
Made from real gold.
The grounds of temple number 2 have the flowers on show. The emperor sits on a throne made out of these and hurls insults at his daughter.
NishihonganJisensodoriyamaguchibashi. 'Possibly the largest wooden structure in the world'.
Still quiet here this early.
5 storey pagoda lurking in the distance, this sect of buddhists collect money for everything, get ready to run when you visit, they chase you.
Toe-G
A bit more of the Toji pagoda, I snuck around the back but the militant orange/brown robe army was in pursuit.
These are normal residential houses, between 2 train lines. The ultimate trainspotters paradise! I noticed the streets around here were littered with garbage, rent is probably cheap here.
Tofuku-ji. Everything here costs a huge amount of money! To climb up the gate, $10, go inside $10, go in the garden $10, use the bathroom, $5, get your shoes back when you exit $5.
They are also running a market on the grounds selling I heart Kyoto and 'KEEP CALM I'M A BUDDHIST' t-shirts.
I managed to get a view of the $10 garden without paying. A huge number of Japanese grandmas also were not paying, and standing here and making noises interspersed with coughing fits and uttering the word MOMIJI over and over again - clearly suffering from early onset leaf dementia.
Heres some more leaf view, I started to feel a bit dizzy.
And now heres my hotel room in Osaka, its marginally bigger than the one in Kyoto. Fantastic location about 100 metres to Dotonbori.
It is a dormy inn.
The bathroom has some alarming features. I cant work out how to correctly position this lever or why I would even need a lever at all.
Then there is this mystery tank of petrol below the sink. The text at the bottom says FEI CHANG YONG, which is important use, or perhaps, very useful! For what?