Last day in Kyoto, time for another hike. Today I took a trip to Fushimi Inari Taisha on the Inari mountain. Most famous for the pathways filled with Vermillion Torii gates.
My day started easy, good old toast & jam breakfast and heading out to the station. JR Inari is only like 7minutes from Kyoto Station. So really easy to access.
Well I walked the way up trough all the gates to the top (233m). And went down again to the start of the loop to the top. Just a few minutes up another road you get a really nice view of Kyoto.
There I took a side path down to a secluded shrine. Arriving there I noticed another way out of the forest. So I took it I passed by a small bamboo forest and stumbled upon a little town and eventually ended up at the Tofukuji temple complex.
Here I got some Dango as lunch together with a melonpan I brought with me.
After this I went back to Kyoto station and decided I’d try and find the way to the Kingaku temple. But when I sat on the train I didn’t want to pay a bus fare to the temple. So I decided to just stay on the train I was on and go to Arashiyama instead.
There I found the biggest miniature diaroma in Japan. Here they rebuild Kyoto and all of its temples, shrines and other important buildings. They have multiple trains running around and there’s just so much happening at the same time. There’s even a special Totoro spot!
After the diaroma I made my way to the Arashiyama bridge passing by another temple complex.
After that I went back to the hostel, grabbed myself a plate of Gyoza and visited the second hand store in the mall.
But first breakfast! The good old toast & jam will keep me nourished for the next 2 days.
First stop today is Nijo-jo Castle. A place where a shogunate started and ended in probably the same room. The inside is decorated with murals in golden paint. Really impressive to walk around in! This ground castle is surrounded by a pretty nice garden to walk trough.
Next stop was the Manga Museum, for some reason entrance was free and am I glad it was. Next to the giant collection of manga, a “what is manga?” exhibition and plaster models from manga artists’ hands there isn’t that much to see. The cool part about this is that it’s located in an old school building, thus it also has a ‘history route’ about the school.
It was time for lunch, so while I’m here why not try out the Manga Museum Café?
My last planned stop for the day was a visit to the local rivers delta. Why you ask? They placed stepping stones trough the delta in the form of turtles!
After that I passed by another shopping district and the Kyoto Tower by night. For dinner I decided to get something from the local 7/11. Yakisoba!
In Kyoto station they have this handy board stalled out showing the status of the leafs at the moment. So it looks like I’m a bit too early for the red views.
Eventually I also settled down for something to eat.