Temple 2: Kiyomizu-Dera

Day 3 was temple day in Kyoto. It started off early in the morning with breakfast at 7am and a bus to catch at 9:30. Stop number one was the Kinkaku-Ji Shrine, which was built by a shogun in 1397 by a shogun, as explained by our wonderful tour guide, Yuko. This is a very popular tourist attraction due to the uniqueness of the shrine. The architecture of the building was meant to flex the wealth of the shogun at the time, and each floor was built in a very specific way. The first floor was build in the style of the rich during this period, and represented the emperor. It is the only floor not to be covered in gold leaf. The second floor is in the style associated with samurai and represents the shogun. The top floor is in the style of Zen temples, and represents Buddha. The temple represents how the shogun views the hierarchal structure of Japan, since at the time the shogun was more important than the emperor.

Kinkaku-ji Shrine

After visiting Kinkaku-ji we went to Arashiyama Area for lunch. Before lunch we visited the bamboo grove, which was so cool to see. This grove was right near a river and connected directly to the Arashiyama Area, so it was a really pretty walk between the two.

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

After visiting the grove we had about an hour to get lunch, which was, as always, really good. I got soba noodles at a ramen shop. After lunch we grabbed some ice cream across the street from the station where we were meeting to head to the second temple, and it was also delicious.

The second temple was the Buddhist temple Kiyomizu-dera. Of the three this was probably my favorite since it was absolutely gorgeous and overlooked all of Kyoto! The architecture was also really interesting and the history of the temple was fascinating. The government had to ban people from jumping off of the stage over the mountain because people would do it so much because they thought that surviving meant their wish would come true. The actual stage was supported by interlocking beams and used no nails throughout the entire thing. After making a loop through the temple we headed back to our meeting spot and then had around 30 minutes of free time to see the shops that lined the road leading up to the temple.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple overlooking Kyoto

The last temple of the day was the Fushimi-Inari Shinto Temple. I really liked the architecture here, especially the Inari fox statues scattered throughout. We didn’t get a chance to go through the entire shrine walk since it would have taken almost 2 hours, but the 1000 shrines we walked through were so cool. There was a portion of the shrine in which we lifted rocks while imagining something we wanted to do or accomplish. If the rock was heavier than you thought it was going to be, then the thing you wanted to accomplish would be require more work than anticipated. If it was lighter than you thought then the task would be easier than you anticipated. This trend continues for if the rock was the same weight as you thought it would be.

Overall really fun day with lots of things to see. Though it was very stressful because we were constantly rushing places.