Well, who am I to argue?Based on the signs advice, our day started at the bamboo forest. You can see a number of knocked down trees, which was caused the by the typhoon we had just rode out.
Traveling through the Bamboo forest led us to the Tenryuji temple which is surrounded by some spectacular gardens.Sian and B-ri try to work out what the Japanese warning sign says…. Unsuccessfully.Tenryuji Temple was built by Zen Buddhists in 1339.The temple gardens have numerous pathways that explore the gardens. The logs in this picture are made of concrete.The temple and gardens are now a protected World Heritage site, B-ri is happy about that.From the temple garden Sian uses her phone to navigate us to the Okochi Sanso Garden.The Okochi Sanso Gardens are very picturesque.The gardens were the former home of Denjiro.Denjiro Okochi was a famous Japanese actor famous for his sword fighting and Samurai films.Denjiro spent over 30 years building up these gardens around his property.Warning sign; file that under hilarious foreshadowing.I suspect that Denjiro may have been a touch shorter than B-ri.The properly has a number of temples and shrines throughout.
When Denjiro passed away in 1962 his private garden was opened to the public.
The garden overlooks the hills behind Kyoto. On the hillside you can see a remote Buddhist temple.
From the garden, we used this handy map to find our way to a mountain called Fushimi Inari-Taisha.
Just your typical Kyoto street as we traveled to the next stop.More Streets of Kyoto.At the base of Inari mountain is a huge temple. Inari is the god of rice but over the years it has come to mean the patron of business. Local businesses donate Torii gates for good luck.There must be some very lucky businesses in Kyoto as there are about 10,000 Torii gates that lead you up the mountain. I’m told the writing on each gate has information about the business that donated the gate.There are so many Torii gates that they form a hallway leading you to the mountain summit.
spiders. Very big, very yellow spiders. I tried googling it but still don’t know if they are poisonous or not? Sian was taking no chances and insisted B-ri go first to knock down all the webs.
As you climb up the mountain you get a nice view of the city of Kyoto. Kyoto is Japanese for Capital; which makes sense, as it formally was the capital of Japan until 1868 when Tokyo then became the capital.Upon reaching the summit of the mountain at 764 feet in elevation there is a shrine, and more Torii gates. For comparison, our earlier ascent of mount fuji would take us to 12,380 feet.It’s almost like they are running out of places to put all the Torii gates. The first recorded structures to appear on Inari mountain date back to 711 (the date, not the convenience store).As we head back down the other side of the mountain, there are…. You guessed it! More Torii gates. From here we would carry on down the mountain (avoiding spiders) and jump on a train, next stop, Osaka.
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