We spent a week in Kyoto and somehow did so many things, from hiking in the mountains to the north, to biking to the old geisha districts in the west, to visiting our old house and discovering new viewpoints in the hills to the east… This first post will focus on the green side of Kyoto: mountains, forests and gardens!
The first day we arrived in Kyoto we decided to visit our old university where we studied manga and digital art: Kyoto Seika University, in the north of Kyoto. The things we learned there still have an impact on our art and way of working today. A little further up north from the school is a beautiful hike, that we decided to do again, this many years later: the Kurama hike. It is said that on Mount Kurama the Tengu resides, a sort of red-faced long-nosed Japanese demon.
When hiking Kurama, you climb a trail that is lined by around 30 shrines and temples.
The weather was very nice, golden and warm (and so was my sweater :D)
When you cross the mysterious forest on top, you descend into the next valley where you find the village of Kibune, famous for its platforms on the river where you can dine. We decided to visit the shrine dedicated to horses there.
There we bought a small paper with a personal prediction, that you have to first dip in the water from the temple before the letters appear!
The next day we decided to visit our old house near Ginkakuji, where we lived for a year in 2011-2012.
I found this photo from exactly 13 years ago, March 2011:
I love it there because it has a lot of mystery to it, tucked away in the eastern hills and forests of Kyoto.
Around Ginkakuji you can find a lot of these mysterious looking shrines that are overlooked by the crowds.
Right next to Ginkakuji you can find this beautiful shrine.
When we walked back to the city, we noticed a temple-like building on top of a hill right behind Maruyama park. We decided to try and find a way to it. We found a road going up the mountain:
That slowly transformed into a small mountain trail lined with small statues and shrines!
We offered some coins as well
And then, on top!
The building has a big arena inside, and being on top of the mountain, offers amazing views of Kyoto.
You can even see the skyscrapers of Osaka!
It’s so amazing to be able to discover these kind of places still in a city you think you know so well!
I want to show one more place we visited in this post, a place we do know well, but is just always on our list to go to, and that’s the garden for the big Heian Shrine.
It doesn’t matter which season you visit this temple garden, it always is a pleasure to walk around.
I think I have this photo maybe 4 times already :D :
Actually I found one from 13 years ago!!
Like I said, the garden is beautiful throughout the entire year, there were already some sakura blossoms!
There was actually a wedding going on there, with the bride and groom in traditional Japanese kimono and about 8 photographers running around them making photos, it was really funny :P
We had a small break in the little teahouse in the middle of the garden as well:
I’ll leave it here, next post will be aaaaall about the “geisha side” of Kyoto, including a look into traditional Japanese culture like our ryokan experience!
