Japan // Day 4 - Philosopher's Walk + Temple Hopping + Fushimi Inari Shrine

Today was late. Very late. AND SO VERY COLD.

We all woke up at 10AM. So much for improvements huh!

Our first stop today was a short walk away from our apartment, at Philosopher's Walk. It was, without a doubt, beautiful; a scenic view of trees green, reddish-brown and white/baby pink that overspread a small canal. I swear my pictures do no justice to its beauty.

As one that takes pride in wasting spending too much time taking too many photos, we spent quite a fair bit of time there but thankfully, the end of the walk was near the temple we wanted to visit next.

Nanzen-ji Temple

Nanzen-ji Temple was only a 5-minute walk away from Philosopher's Walk. The temple didn’t look too spectacular to me but the park around it did. Just like Philosopher's Walk, the area was decked in trees of green, reddish-brown and white/pink. It costs 500yen to go up the temple and I decided not to because it didn’t seem worth as I never knew what to do in one. Gerald and Darren, on the other hand, went up and came back with some panorama shots of the park from the top. 

We explored the area for a little while more before taking a bus over to Kiyomizu-dera Temple. This second temple that we visited is also known as a love temple because it claims to help some find love.

Before arriving at the temple, we walked through a busy shopping street that sold tons of Kyoto specific souvenirs like matcha flavoured Bai Se Lian Ren (白い恋人) aka Shiroi Koibito. We tried so hard to hold back our spendings but to no avail. Everything was just too enticing!

Sakura flavoured ice cream! SO good

After finally regaining some sanity from wanting to buy everything, we continued walking up and finally saw the temple. I followed my friends and did a few typical shrine rituals and bought a few charms. The view from Kiyomizu-dera is spectacular because it’s up on a mountain and can give you a bird’s eye view of the city.

Sorry for that ugly white blotch aka the sun :(

It started getting super chilly at 10 degrees when we were only prepared to face 15 T_T thanks Google. Nevertheless, we managed to freeze our way to our next destination - Fushimi Inari Shrine!

Fushimi Inari Shrine lies on a mountain surrounded by greenery. The height of the gate increases as you climb higher and there are a total of 10 levels. We got up to the 5^th level and decided to start our descend as it was starting to get dark and we didn’t manage to get many photos on our way up. Despite it being a Monday, there were just too many people. 

Kobe Beef *drools*

A miniature example of the difference in gate sizes the higher the level!

We took a different route down and were led to some place that looked a lot more like a residential area but with gates and other small shrine related places here and there. We were super sceptical of where we were walking but little did we know, it brought us all the way back to the entrance.

After going back up just to take some selfies (thank God my friends would do as much as I just for some photos!), we headed for dinner at a ramen store nearby. 

Mini fox army

Initially, we intended on having the food stalls that were right outside the shrine (shown in the photos above) but all of them were closed by the time we were done. The only thing left was a huge slab of crabmeat for 500yen so we got it! Even though we didn’t get to try the others, there were many other things like takos, kobe beef and black pork.

This dinner was the first ramen we had here in Japan and it was GOD-LIKE. The broth was light but flavourful, the noodles tangy and the pork slices thick! I loved how they added lots of carrots and spring onions on the top making it look good and taste even better.

It’ll be back to Osaka tomorrow and finally, a day when we’re not aiming to wake up at 645AM but 9AM *phew*. This trip has been tiring so far but I’m really enjoying it! The weather in Kyoto today is insane – 7 degrees now – and as much as I love the cold weather, my luggage has nothing prepared for the likes of 7 degrees!

Hoping and praying that the weather wouldn’t be so cold tomorrow xx.