The road less travelled

The road less travelled…because it was 8km of walking.

So I arrived in Japan a couple weeks ago and it turns out I have a hard time letting my responsibilities go. This seems like a good trait but not really. For the first few days I was constantly checking my emails and making sure everything was ok because I like my tasks being done a certain way (my way). Anyway I got pretty annoying and received some sage advice from Sing.

SO, I planned Kyoto in a day. Now let me give you some sage advice, don’t do Kyoto in a day. I mean you can, I did, but don’t.

I wanted to hit up all the major Kyoto sights and then some so this is what my route ended up looking like

I started at Kawaramachi Station and headed west to Arashiyama via subway/train

Then took a taxi north to Kinkaku-ji

Then took a bus east to Ginkaku-ji

This is where the fun started. Don’t be fooled by my map above, the orange route is not a short distance. I decided to walk because it was the most convenient (cheapest) way to explore East Kyoto.

From Ginkaku-ji I walked along The Philosopher’s Path (Tetsugaku no michi) which was a really nice, long, peaceful, long walk.

Would love to see what this looks like in the spring. I did get to see a family of teddies fishing and a basket of cats though so that’s cool too.

I eventually made it to Nanzen-ji

and got to climb to the top.
I don’t know what temple I’m looking at here…

Continued on my journey to Chion-in which had the biggest entrance gate

you can see a women sit down in the bottom right hand corner here
I feel you lady, I’ve had a long day too.

Walked through Maruyama Park

and then eventually made it to Kiyomizu-dera

took some quintessential tourist snaps

and then headed to the station to go to my final destination. This was the end of my walking journey, or so I thought. I thought wrong.

I headed to Fushimi Inari Taisha

it was a little creepy because it was sundown
but it did make the view so much nicer

This unfortunately was not the summit. By this point I had been walking up the mountain for who knows how long. I didn’t know if my legs would make it out ok. I didn’t know if I would make it out ok. But being the ever determined (stubborn) person I am, I had already made it up so far, I can’t just stop there, the top must be near. I was wrong. Another 230482394 steps later I made it to the top.

This was all that was there to greet us (and a shrine).
-_________________________-“

I don’t know how accurate the Apple Heath app is without those trackers you wear on your wrist but these are my final stats for the day

as you can see, there is a huge spike near the end.
That was Fushimi inara, thanks Fushimi inari. My legs appreciate it.

Kellen