Japan Day 5: KYOTO part 1 (Kinkakuji, Ninnaji, Fushimi Inari Taisha)

Itinerary: Kinkakuji and Ninnaji Temple
               Fushimi Inari Taisha
               Dinner at Gion

It was officially our first day in Kyoto (since we spent the previous afternoon and night only to rest). In the morning we hurried to take a bath (soooo cold!) and went to Kinkakuji Temple. Just 15 minutes walk from our rented room! Oops, before we went out, we used our rented room's wifi to request for free Kyoto wifi by sending a blank e-mail to guest@inf-kyoto-city.info, then they sent us Guest Code to be used. Here you can find several ways to get free wifi in Kyoto. Funny that we couldn't connect without Guest Code and we need access to internet (to send and receive it by e-mail). Guest Code is also only valid for 3 hours so we used every e-mail address we had! The signal was only good in several spot too so we had to turn off the connection when not used (to safe batteries)

Entrance fee to Kinkakuji was JPY 400. Here is the link to Japan Guide info about the temple. We got there at around 9 AM and there were already many tourists queuing! We had to try hard to get photos of Kinkakuji without obstruction from other pic-taking tourists hehehe.

Kyoto's esteemed Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) and our esteemed clear pic of it *smug*

Following the path, we were taken behind Kinkakuji to its garden. I could imagine the retired Ashikaga shogun who built this building and garden sitting there, drinking tea, and enjoying his retirement. After his passing away, the building was used as a temple. Kita juga mau deh pensiun tinggal di rumah emas hihihi!

Kinkakuji's golden butt, sexy eh?

Garden and pond behind Kinkakuji

I LOOOVE seeing ema (wooden wishing plates)  PS: I know, my hair was a mess but I deliberately make it grow long during pregnancy!

Omikuji vending machine!

I considered Kinkakuji small, it only took us 30-40 minutes to get around. Uhh balikin duit gue! My hubby and I decided to see another temple nearby. There were many other temples near Kinkakuji (Ninnaji, Ryoanji, Daitokuji, and many smaller temples) but we decided just to see Ninnaji. Why? Because we don't want to spend too much time and money hehe... Ninnaji is interesting since it's said to have beautiful sakura trees. Ryoanji is also very famous for its zen garden but we were more interested in sakura. Both are UNESCO world heritage sites and reachable by walking for about 30 minutes from Kinkakuji.

The road to Ninnaji from Kinkakuji, very peaceful

It turned out that Ninnaji is HUUUGE! 

 

Entrance fee to Ninnaji was free (except during sakura blooming season; visitors had to pay JPY 500) but visitors had to pay JPY 500 to go into Goten area all year long. We already paid for entrance fee to Ninnaji so we decided that we didn't have to go inside Goten (which I read somewhere is more beautiful in autumn and has no sakura trees).

We entered from its parking lot (Higashimon Gate) at east side (thank goodness there was a restroom there!) then walked around the southeastern area and got out from Niomon Gate at south side.

Sakura blooms near Ninnaji's Higashimon Gate

Cantik kaann (sakuranya)?

Buddha Statue

Kondo (or Miedo? duhh maap lupaa)

Bell fry (designed as such the bell couldn't be seen from outside)

36-meters-high five-storied pagoda

Ninnaji has a famous garden of Omuro Sakura, a type of sakura that blooms later than general sakura (in mid April to beginning of May). If you visit Kyoto during that period, you can still seek for sakura blossoms at Ninnaji! There were about 200 trees in Ninnaji precinct. They had distinct features of short stature and low branches that seemed like they sprout from the ground. Despite of its being small and short, they were already there since early of Edo period!

Omuro sakura trees, the late bloomer
They were still bare when we came at the beginning of April

I really love the history of Ninnaji. Its construction was started on the second year of Ninna (886) to fulfill an emperor's wish and finished 2 years later (after the emperor passed away). The next emperor became Ninnaji's head priest after he abdicated and he built a residence in the precinct that was called Omuro (that's why its sakura trees were called in the same manner). Many of his successors also became head priests there for generation; that makes Ninnaji the highest ranked monzeki temple in Japan. Monzeki is Japanese Buddhist priests from aristocratic or even imperial backgrounds.

Both Ninnaji and Candi Borobudur in Indonesia were Buddhist but very different in architectural styles, which were very much influenced by their respective cultures. Ninnaji was about 60 years younger than Candi Borobudur (which was built in about half a century) but it's a shame that none of its original buildings from the 9th century survived. 

Ninnaji had been burnt down several times during many feodal wars. Its reconstruction was funded by many famous samurai, including famed fiery daimyo Oda Nobunaga and the Tokugawa third shogun Iemitsu. Many of its building also built from materials of other imperial buildings, such as Kondo (main hall) was an alteration of Shishinden (coronation hall of the Imperial palace) and Miedo (founder's hall, used to keep the bodies of its former priests) was built using materials of Seiryoden (Imperial Palace pavillion). In 1887, the buildings of goten were burnt down and rebuilt about two decades later, which could be seen as they were now.

Okay. I need to stop ranting about history here. (^^)

Niomon Gate seen from outside of Ninnaji complex

By the time we got out of Ninnaji, I was already in terrible mood due to (pregnancy) hunger. I could eat my hubby right there! Perhaps he was afraid to be bitten too so he hurriedly took me to find lunch (or rather, late breakfast). I was already pretty devastated (seriously) when we didn't find any interesting food stalls or resto on our way to big road (we planned to meet our friends at Kyoto Station). But an angel came out of nowhere! A lady stopped us at the pedestrian and asked us to stop by at her curry shop. The menu was hand-made! We followed her to her nearby shop; it was very small but empty. We guessed that the cook was her husband and she acted as waitress. There was a pretty little girl sat nicely at the bar table (perhaps their daughter). I couldn't find their shop's name in the menu but when I checked 4sq, it was Family Kitchen! Very suitable!

Hand-written menu

My Indian chicken curry (front) and hubby's hot keemd curry (back)

And we experienced the most delicious curry in our lives! They were served with fresh rocket salad. I wanted to steal their vinaigrette recipe! We left happily with full tummy and praised the cook a lot.

We took bus from Kinkakuji Mae (Kinkakuji Road) to Kyoto Station and met our friends there. In Kyoto, most prominent city transportation mode is bus, with flat rate JPY 230. You can learn more about it here. But we must be ready when buses are slow due to traffic or packed (e.g. at Gion). We can use trains and subways too but their routes are more limited.

We took the chance to buy Starbucks Kyoto tumbler, which was widely known as one of the prettiest Starbucks city tumblers. As usual, we'd get a free beverage for purchasing a tumbler so we chose lemon vanilla frappuccino which was only available in Japan; it was very sweet. Hmmm, exactly what we needed, a full-calorie drink when we climbed Fushimi Inari's lairs that afternon.

Pretty, eh?

We also bought Kyoto One-Day Bus Cards (JPY 500 each) at Kyoto Bus Information Center in front of Kyoto Station. 

- The ticket was empty and could be used that day, or the next day, or even the next week. 

- However, the ticket only valid in the same calendar day since its first usage.

- Unlimited use in central Kyoto and Arashiyama.

- It can be bought from bus drivers but there is a risk that they run out of cards so we chose to buy it from Info Center.

- It's most useful if the user uses buses 3 times a day or more.

We bought 2 tickets for each person to be used on our next days in Kyoto.

There are also other one-day passes available, you can learn about them here.

We took JR Nara line train (5 minutes, JPY 140 one way) and walked for 5 minutes to Fushimi Inari Taisha. Entrance fee is free (yipeee, biasalah maniak gratisan). I read about this place a lot in mangas so I was very excited!

A not-so-talented photographer took our pic, gemez ahh itu torii-nya kepotoong!
*lirik tajam Rudy*

As mentioned so many times in mangas, this is the biggest Shinto shrine dedicated to Inari, the god of rice. Inari's messenger is fox (kitsune) so there were many fox statues around the shrine. I imagine them suddenly came alive and talked to us (which we won't understand at all coz they spoke in Japanese). The entrance gate was called Romon and donated by 'the monkey' shogun, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Waiting for Kitsune-san to move, LOL

Inside the shrine compound

Torii ema, very vibrant and beautiful! Must be hard to write on them.

Kitsune ema. It came blank so the wishers can use their creativity to draw faces on them. Creepy and funny!

Behind the shrine compound, there was a hiking trail to the top of the hill which became so famous for its Senbon Torii (thousands of gates). They were donated by individuals, families, and corporations; we could see their names and date of donations behind each torii. The smallest torii costs about JPY 175,000 and a large one can cost more than JPY 1 million!

 

The inscriptions behind those torii were beautiful!

There were many tourists trying to get good spot to take pics. Better use your time to walk ahead of them (there are usually smaller pic-taking crowds ahead) rather than to wait for them to leave. It took 2-3 hours to reach the summit and I had no stamina to do that. It was getting dark too so my hubby and I got back to the shrine while our friends continued their hike. We tried some snacks while we waited them to come back.

Didn't buy the ice cream, though, due to the cold weather. But people still queue for it!

Oishii! The tako inside it was big!

Yakitori. Quite expensive but smelled so good! A bit tough too.

Our friends took a very long time to come back (and had no internet access so we couldn't contact them). We worried and almost asked an officer before they finally appeared, exhausted and hungry. Yep, they were lost. They also bought some snacks before we headed back to the city to have dinner.

I forgot to mention, the restrooms at the shrine was A MESS! Very disgusting, smelly, full of trashes. Some tourists didn't even flush! Urrgghhh! It was not possible for me to use it. I blame the Chinese tourists. There were many of them that day. Yes, I generalize, but many Chinese people still do that and be very unhygienic in this modern day. You make me ashamed, people with same ancestors! I had to wait until we reached the station to do my business. 

We got back to Kyoto Station and continued our journey by bus to Gion. It was 7 PM and Gion was very crowded, but the sakura trees were beautiful. I didn't take many pics because I was already very hungry (again).

We entered a ramen shop and ate there. It was so-so, not suitable to our taste. We said goodbye to our friends and got back to our rented room to get some rest.