Hirano Shrine, Kyoto

I meant to save the best for the last  write this long time ago and guess what, it's already 8 months since the date I was in Japan for sakura. Very outdated, yes and considered the fact that I went to Japan the second time in October, this seemed very irrelevant anymore. But I wanted to share the photos, more importantly those sakura flakes photos, as well as, the Oukasai Cherry Blossom festival that we coincidentally went to in April.

Oukasai festival is held on April 10th every year (at least it was on the 10th when we were there), is a festival where you can see many Japanese dressing up as Samurai, geisha and many other more parading along the shrine into the roads. And like many other sakura viewing parks and gardens, there are plenty of foodstalls cater for those who had hanami here. We opted to have our lunch at one of the stalls under the pinkish sakura 'snow'.

And of course, not forgetting to snap some photos under the romantic sakura trees. Seriously, my words can't even describe the feeling and the atmosphere there. You just have to be there to experience it yourself. Pink sakura petals falling off the tree and forming a pink blanket below. Surreal! The sound of camera clicking non stop whenever the wind blows (I contribute to some of the clicking, haha), ok that was not so romantic. But you get the picture la.

To make my statement, here's some of the clicking done.

Hanami

the crowd waiting for the parade to start

I quite like this picture as it feels like Inception;
 I am taking photo of a man taking photo of a lady taking photo of the parade

some of the 'geisha'

with the two samurais, the main character for the festival

my favourite photo 

Heian Shrine @ Kyoto

We saw from the white board in our hostels saying that the sakura flowers will be full bloom in Heian Shrine and this is the best time to view the flowers in their glory state. As we spend almost half a day in Philosopher's Path and Ginkakuji Temple and admiring all the pretty sakura flowers along the path, we barely had an hour in the shrine. It is free to walk around the shrine but we need to pay around 500 yen to enter the garden which was full of tourists. If you ask me, the garden is nice but nothing to shout about comparatively to Philosopher's Path and Hirano Shrine. Maybe because it was full of tourists and we did not take much nice photos in there and there's a cost to get into the garden. But it's worth going in for the willow cherry trees and the almost mirror lake view. And while we were there, there was some event going on for school children.

It's quite easy to get to the shrine from the Philosopher's Path as we just walk along the path until the end and went through some housing area.

Arashiyama 嵐山, Kyoto

Arashiyama is a place that I quite look forward going to after seeing the gorgeous pictures on the internet. It's not very far from Kyoto but you have to take the correct train to get there, as in take the rapid train instead of the local one. We took the JR Sagono Line and stopped at JR Saga Arashiyama which is around 5 minutes walk into the town. Some of the places that we managed to visit are:

Tenryuji Temple

The entrance fee to the temple is 500 yen for garden and additional 100 yen for the temple. We only went into the garden and it is one of the must see garden here. Beautiful, scenic and serene, just like a Japanese zen garden.

Bamboo Groves

From the temple, it was about 10 minutes walk to the Bamboo Groves and it's easy to get into by just following the signboard. I read from some forum saying that it is difficult to find the entrance, but for us it was quite easy to locate. Although the bamboo groves is something I really look forward to, but I don't really enjoy that much as it was crowded and difficult to get a good photo of just the bamboo groves alone without tourist lurking in my photo. Luckily, I spotted a tiny spot to take some good potrait shots of us which I discovered later to be someone's home.


Nisonin Temple

After the bamboo groves, we continued walking around Arashiyama following the map provided to us. We were trying to locate and find out how far the Saga- Toriimoto Preserved street and asked an elderly Japanese man for directions. Bad move. He is nice and accomodating but lack of English hampered communication between both of us. Finally, we gave up and just walked and walked until we saw a few temples and decided to go into one that looks niced from outside. Nisonin temple required 500 yen to enter but the lack of tourist really brought out my inner photography madness, this time for potrait shooting, haha. We had multiple shots sitting at the stairs and I can already imagine, this temple is perfect during autumn. Even during sakura season, it's really beautiful.


Togetsukyo Bridge

After Nisonin, we decided to turn back and walked towards the bridge, famous for the sakura trees lining along the bridge. We just chill out and relax here, people watching and sunset watching. Time to hit Kyoto after feeling some cold chill.

This the map I used for the planning of my Arashiyama trip

Best Spot For Sakura Viewing (Kyoto Version)

Before my trip to Kyoto last April, I had googled the whole internet in search for the best spots for sakura viewing in Kyoto. I guess we were lucky that although we only arrived 5 days after the full bloom, the chill during the weekend actually 'freeze' the sakura and by the time we arrived on Sunday, many of the spots around Kyoto were still full of sakura. If not for the frozen state, I think most of the flowers would be gone in a week after full bloom.

Some of my favourite spots of sakura viewing are as follows:

                                                                                          Hirano Shrine

1. Hirano Shrine
This has to be my favourite of all spots as we came here for the Oukasai festival and end up taking lots of photos sitting under the sakura trees with pink sakura petals on the floor as carpet. It is romantic, pinkish and dreamy with the wind blowing the petals off the trees making it look like snowing sakura petals. Before coming here, I was determined that Philosopher's Path is my favourite

2. Philosopher's Walk/Path
This is my second favourite as we arrived at the right time with the sakura flowers still basically full bloom. Imagine the two sides of the river/canal/longkang/whatever with water inside were planted with sakura trees spanning about 3 kilometres long. It was like a scene straight out from Winter Sonata but here more like Sakura Sonata.

Nara Park

3. Nara Park (ok, technically this is not in Kyoto)
I wasn't that looking forward to visit Nara as there is nothing much to see (at least, that's what I assume and how wrong I am). But let me tell us, Nara is a must if you are in Kyoto or Osaka. Todaiji temple itself already makes the trip worth, I will explain that in another entry. The highlight got to be the Nara Park which is besides full with deer roaming around freely, is the entire park is full of sakura trees, every corner. I went crazy here with my tripod taking the photos of us, finally without people peeking and photobombing us from behind. I can imagine taking all the stunning pre-wedding photos here. Sigh, too bad  I am already married.

Garden inside Heian Shrine

 
4. Heian Shrine and the canal along the way
When we were in the bus enroute to Ginkakuji temple, we passed by Heian shrine and even from outside, the view of the cherry blossom trees along the canal was enough to make us go 'wow'. Most of the sakura are planted inside the garden and we had to pay to get into the garden. Otherwise, the shrine itself is free. There are many types of sakura trees inside the garden ranging from normal to weeping tree. Unfortunately, I feel that it was too crowded and we were not allowed to use the tripod inside here, otherwise, it would rank third.

5. Kiyomizudera temple
It's my favourite temple in Kyoto and although there were not much sakura trees left blooming here when we came, but I can't get the sight of the temple against the backdrop of the sakura flowers out from my head. I heard/read/saw from internet that the view is even more amazing during autumn. One day, I will come back to Kyoto for the autumn scenary.

Yozakura at Yasaka Shrine

6. Yasaka Shrine and Maruyama Park
We were here when it's dark so I can't judge how is the scenary of the cherry blossoms during day time but night time was superb. The pink flowers illuminated at night actually brought out the pink colour of the flowers even more as compare to day time. Coupled with such a happening place for yozakura (night viewing sakura) with lots of food stalls and locals having hanami under the pink trees, this place got to be in the list. The hightlight of the park is the weeping cherry tree in the middle. So beautiful yet at the same time looks a bit eery. Haha.

I planned most of the sights using this website

Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社 , Kyoto

I should run along the torii gates and reenact the scene from Memoirs of Geisha

Memoirs of Geisha.

That is the movie that  introduced me to this place, where Chiro run along the red torii and I vowed one day I must go there. Fast forward, almost 10 year later my wish is granted :)

Along the way, we noticed that the torii is getting smaller and smaller and each torii is inscribed with donator's name and date at the back of the torii. I found out that it costs aroud 400,000 yen for the small sized torii and up to a few million for the big one.

As it was too many people walking along the gates, I have to set up the tripod outside of the pathway to get a good view and good photo. And after 10 minutes I did that, some tourists began to crowd around and wanted to take the same view where I set my tripod...sigh.

Chiro running along the path. Source from internet

Source from internet

Entrance to the shrine

Check out all the torii gates all the way up to the mountain

Inside the shrine

Should have bought one of these for souviner

Two gates combined into one

The calmness before the tourist attack

By accident I got this very 'feel' shot

View from the shrine

To get to Fushimi Inari, take the JR Nara Line, which is the same line to Nara. Stopped at Inari station which is 5 minutes from Kyoto station. You have to take the local train as rapid train does not stopped here. If you ask me which place to see if you can only visit one place in Kyoto, this is definitely the place. And the fact that it is ranked no.1 spot in TripAdvisor for Kyoto must see attractions.

Kinkakuji Temple 金閣寺, Kyoto

Seriously I keep mixing this temple with Ginkakuji temple. See, even the sound of the temple is almost the same. This temple is known as Golden Pavillion and well, at least there is really a gold pavillion in the temple ground. But we choose the wrong time to come as we reached around 11am after the long and tiring bus ride from Kyoto station which took us around 45 minutes standing in a crowded bus.

As we enter the temple, there were a lot of tourists taking/monopolizing the space to take the best shot of the pavillion and probably the only best spot to take of the entire temple. I gave up after trying to fight for spot and looking for people to take photos of me and hubs. Too bad, tripod is not allowed in the temple. But I doubt I will be able to open, set up and click on the camera on tripod before others knocked down the camera.

One thing I enjoyed visiting temples is the charms or Omamori sold by the temples and shrines here. I will write a more detail posts on charms and Omamori next but let's just say, if I had the liberty of spending unlimited cash, these charms will be definately occupied most of the souviners that I would love to buy for friends.

Ok, I was taken too away from the temple. Focus needed here.

To get to Kinkakuji temple, take the bus no.101 from Kyoto station (again this is a tourist bus) or bus no.205 and stopped at Kinkakuji michi
Opening hours from 9am to 5pm with entrance fee of 400yen.

Ginkakuji Temple (Silver Pavillion) 銀閣寺, Kyoto

Ginkakuji temple is located pretty near to the Philosopher's Path and after we were done with half of the path, we went to the temple. I was curious to see why the temple was named Silver and I was getting confused with another temple with similiar name, Kinkakuji temple which also called Golden Pavillion.

Truth is, there's nothing to shout about the temple but it is the garden that is mesmerising. During the sakura season, there are quite some sakura blooming in the garden but as to whether the pavilion is really silver, then the answer is no. It was supposed to be painted silver but the idea was abandoned but the name stuck since.

Worth a visit especially for the gardens and the flowers and the UNESCO World Heritage status.

Entrance fee is 500 yen per person.

Opening time from 8.30 am to 5pm.

Kiyomizudera Temple 清水寺, Kyoto

Kiyomizudera temple against the backdrop of sakura flowers

Kiyomizudera temple is one of my favourite temples, from all the temples I have visited while in Kyoto. Although there are some slight construction going on, the view from the top is stunning. And not forgetting seeing my husband had to drag his feet up the multiple stairs after being tortured by me from walking too much on the first day in Kyoto.

My original plan is actually to walk from Heian shrine to Yasaka shrine and Maruyama Park and then along the streets of Higashiyama before reaching Kiyomizudera temple. However, as I took pity on my husband who can't seemed to walk anymore from carrying my big ass camera and tripod, we decided to take a bus from Heian shrine to the temple and then walk to Yasaka Shrine from the temple.

Entrance to the temple

 It is in this temple, the famous love stones are located. I read about the love stones on internet before coming here but forgot to take note on which temple that the stones are located. The stones are placed 6 meters apart and according to legend, if you able to walk from one stone to another with your eyes closed, you will meet your other half. Since I already found mine, I decided not to try, hah. There was no one trying to do that while I was there but there was a big crowd at the shrine.

That's where the love stone is located 

The temple is famous for the wooden stage that juts out from the main hall

Beneath the temple, there is this place Otowa waterfall where three channel of waters falling from the top and I saw people queing up for a drink and wishing. Being a kiasu Malaysia, we took turn to line up and I went first while my hubby had to take photos of me drinking and washing my hand with the water. Frankly speaking, I have no idea what to do, but just watch and see what the others did before following them. Apparently, the water can grant wishes. Hmm.. now I have to recall what I had wished at that moment.....

View of Higashiyama street from the temple

To get to Kiyomizudera temple, we took the bus no. 100 from one of the stops in front of Heian shrine. If you are coming from Kyoto station, it's the same bus as well. There are 2 stops for the temple, Kiyomizu-michi or Gojozaka. Besides bus no. 100, you can take bus no. 206 to get here from Kyoto station. 

Entrance fee is 300 yen per person and opening time from 6am to 6pm.