Kansai Japan 日本關西

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After the visit, we found out that we still have time to go for one more spot. Then we decided to go to 下鴨神社. This temple has even longer history. It was built before Kyoto was named capital. It is also the temple for the god of water. Kyoto is proud of its pure water and they hold ritual in here to seek god's protection for their water. The temple is very large and you need to walk quite a long way to the main temple.

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The forth day was our hiking day. This time we planned to walk Hieizan Enruakuji (比睿山延曆寺). It is located at the northeast of Kyoto. West side of the hill is Kyoto and the east side is Lake Biwa (琵琶湖). We have booked a onsen hotel near Lake Biwa so we would walk up from Kyoto and downhill to our hotel.

The Hieizan is huge with a bunch of different temples and buildings, a world cultural heritage and it was said that here is the origin of Janpanese Buddhism. It composed of 3 different ares: To-do (東塔), Sai-to (西塔) and Yokawa (橫川). If you walk around all these three, that will be about 16km walk. To go up the hill you need to take cable car from Kyoto or tram if you are from Lake Biwa. You will see Kyoto during the ride.

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The temple area is quiet and rather old. It gives me a solemn feeling. The good thing is that not many visitors find this spot, you can walk around freely.

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The entrance washbasins are really nice.

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To-do area.....

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They have a shuttle bus traveling around all three areas. There was a footpath built to connected among them as well. The footpath was not difficult to walk actually, except some huge and steep footsteps.....

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Sai-do area.....

Shaka-do is the important cultural asset, and you will see a lot of budda around Sai-do area.

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We went down to Lake Biwa from the hill. The first picture overviews the Lake Biwa. The tram on the other side looks newer than that in Kyoto side.

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We stayed at Yomotokan Ryokan (湯元館), an onsen hotel at suburb area of Otsu. Room was quite nice and they had a variety of different hot spring bath. This time you need to go to a specific room for dinner/breakfast.

The food was nice and yummy....

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We had never shopped in Kyoto before and we did it on our fifth day. We went back to Kyoto and did some shopping. Before that, we went to Sanjusangen-do (三十三間堂). The most famous spot for seeing is their 1001 statues of Buddhist deity. We were surprised by this totally, it was beautiful yet solemn. Photo taking is prohibited so I cannot show here. But it is worth to pay a visit, even the ticket is comparatively expensive.

The buidlings are quite nice too.