I breakfasted at the Wired Café under Kyoto station on a giant cube of French toast with ice cream and maple syrup, and a cup of Earl Grey. It was basically the only non-Mexican food on the menu, for some reason (nothing against Mexican food, just not for breakfast), but it was very tasty and I needed plenty of fuel as I had a full day of walking planned.
I had decided to dedicate the day to walking the famous (and picturesque) Philosopher’s Path, and started with a visit to Ginkaku-Ji (a Zen temple called the “Silver Pavilion”, although it actually isn’t covered in silver). The approach to the temple is flanked by two long, high hedges, and feels rather like the entrance to a maze. The main attraction, while not as shiny as Kinkaku-Ji, is very lovely – less flashy but arguably more tasteful. The nearby sand garden is amazingly neat, and features an flat-topped cone of pristine white sand which must surely be held together with some kind of glue (or is it a Zen mystery?).
The temple grounds are a beautiful (though crowded) place for a walk. I passed a pool where people have thrown in coins, trying to get them on the rock, I think (a bit like a freestyle tiddlywinks game!).
The paths take you through a very green forest (although part of that might have been the fresh spring growth) up the hillside, where you can look down on the famous pavilion. A lot of people turned up, photographed the temple and left, but I recommend lingering and exploring – the mountains of Higashiyama are a good place to catch a breeze, and the views are stunning.
After I left the temple, I finally got a chance to try shaved ice, a quintessential Japanese summer treat. I opted for mango syrup on mine, and shared the little bench by the stall with a mother and son who were eating a strawberry one. I enjoyed mine very much – extremely refreshing, with the added bonus of not making you feel as full as ice cream does.
After Ginkaku-Ji, I started along the Philosopher’s Path. It’s a very pleasant walk along the side of a canal, with plenty of little cafés and shops along the way. The path is quite narrow, so people have to be careful when passing each other so no one falls in! It’s quite a popular walk even in summer, but apparently it is absolutely packed during cherry blossom season, when all the trees turn white with blossom.
The Philosopher’s Path is named after Nishida Kitaro, a philosopher (unsurprisingly!), who used to walk along it to the university every day. Despite its popularity (it’s in all the guide books), it is a lovely, peaceful walk, and I recommend leaving a whole day to amble along it, as part of the fun is taking detours to visit sights along the way.
Partway along, I spotted a sign for Honen-Ji, a temple with a famously pretty gateway, which turned out to be up a rather steep hill. I walked up a residential street to get there, and enjoyed peering nosily into people’s gardens and admiring their window boxes and sleeping cats. There are plenty of English signposts to stop tourists getting lost, and I was soon following a Japanese tour group up the stairs to the temple.
The gate (pictured below, looking out) is just as attractively rustic as advertised, and people were patiently waiting their turn to pose in front of it. Inside the grounds were more carefully-raked sand banks, and a quietly burbling stream. It is a little strange, having something become an attraction for its pretty, rural peacefulness, and thereafter be bustling with camera-toting tourists, but this is something that the Japanese somehow make work. No one ever seems annoyed to arrive at a tranquil beauty spot and find hundreds of people already there – in fact, I think most people would say that that just proves it’s good! Everyone is outwardly tolerant, but I suspect that some of this is in fact a superhuman ability to compartmentalise. Like Londoners manage to be alone on crowded tubes, the Japanese somehow seem to save the moment of seeing their timeless temples and serene shrines for when they reach the front of the orderly queue for the view. Or perhaps the Path had just put me in a philosophical frame of mind!
I returned to the Philosopher’s Path, keeping an eye out for a likely place to stop for lunch. Before I’d made up my mind, however, the path came to a rather abrupt stop at a crossroads. Instead of looking around for a map or sign, I decided to have a bit of an explore. I walked past a shrine, up a very steep hill (thankfully, there was a stream running down the side of the road, which made the air deliciously cool) to another, smaller woodland shrine:
It was very quiet – almost eerily so, as there was no one else around despite there being houses halfway up the hill and it being Sunday. I took another path near the shrine, and found myself halfway up a mountain, looking out over the city. There were many different kinds of trees planted in a roughly-circular clearing, with lots of signs that were either warning people to beware of crows or prohibiting crows from entering (one day, I’ll have to learn to read Japanese). Rather surreal. I could hear what sounded like a temple bell, but couldn’t work out where it was coming from.
Walking back down to the end of the Philosopher’s Path, I caught a glimpse of what I think was a power station, which brought me back to reality. Wandering down the other fork of the crossroads, I discovered the temples people usually visit after their philosophical constitutional. I spent quite a long time in Eikando temple, which is beautiful:
The temple buildings are connected by a series of covered wooden walkways, and surround a central pond. It’s very cool to be able to wander around in your socks (shoes are left on the front steps, of course) with nature only an arm’s-length away. The whole thing seemed almost like a film set to me.
There were plenty of altars and statues around the place but I found the walkways much more exciting. You could even walk halfway up a hill to a small wooden balcony and look out over all the rooftops of the temple.
After returning to the front steps for my shoes, I followed the signs for the pagoda (walking under the walkways I had just left), and found it up several flights of stairs (which almost did me in). Upon arrival, of course, I could barely tell it was a pagoda, since I was too close to really see its storeys (not sure why I hadn’t anticipated this!), but there is an amazing view of Kyoto and some kind soul has set up benches in the shade so any sufferers can recover before beginning their descent.
I had a pleasant walk through the rest of the temple’s grounds, and found a very picturesque pond to admire. The areas away from the main temple buildings were very quiet, but there was plenty of welcome shade to be had and I enjoyed being able to wander around without having to check whether I was about to walk into somebody’s photograph.
The next temple along the road is Nanzen-Ji, and I followed the steady stream of people along the road towards it, spotting a rather cheeky-looking dog (I think) roof statue on one of the temple buildings I passed:
Nanzen-Ji seemed to be the most popular sight of the area, judging by the crowds of people, but I was very hungry by that stage (and had very tired feet), so I can only tell you that the temple has an absolutely enormous gate and a very pretty brick aqueduct (Victorian-era, I think – the Romans didn’t make it quite this far!), which was rather out of keeping with the rest of the buildings.
Pausing only to buy some pretty stationery at the gift shop, I set out in search of food. I ended up being extremely brave and trying shojin ryori – a kind of vegetarian cuisine developed for Buddhist monks, who were not allowed to eat any kind of animal products. The restaurant I visited was quite fancy (and cost about double what I’d been paying for most meals), and I was ushered to a table and asked to choose a menu set by a very serious waiter. Pretty much everything was tofu- or vegetable-based (aside from a particularly beady-eyed prawn on one of the side dishes). I really enjoyed the vegetable tempura, quite liked the bowl of rice with shreds of mysterious grey stuff and the grilled tofu topped with something yellow and sticky (fermented bean paste is my best guess), was rather underwhelmed by the main event, a brazier-top dish of tofu chunks floating in water, that you were supposed to fish out with a slotted spoon and garnish with spring onions – just too bland for me. I was slightly traumatised by the square of more jelly-like tofu, topped with green paste in a bowl of salty sauce (not my favourite texture). The soy milk that accompanied the whole thing was OK, but I can’t say I’m a convert. The main problem I had with the meal, however, was that there was just too much of it! By Japanese portion standards, it would have fed at least two people. I ended up eating as much as I could, then making good my escape (after paying, of course!) before the waiter could see how much I’d left uneaten. It was definitely worth the experience, but I am glad I’m not a Buddhist monk!
As I set off in search of a bus stop, I noticed a very discreet sign for Murin-An, a villa with a small but pretty strolling garden which I had heard was worth visiting. I ducked through the (very low) gate and bought a ticket.
The garden makes use of borrowed scenery to create a deceptively rural and spacious view (in reality, the place is surrounded by other houses) and its river is much appreciated by local ducks.
Back in the centre of Kyoto, I managed to snag a table at a very popular little café (Lipton’s), where I decided to try the very popular strawberry cake. When it arrived, I was a little doubtful – both sponge and strawberries looked rather anaemic, and it seemed to be mostly made of cream. How wrong I was! It was perfection in cake form – light, fluffy sponge, smooth cream and sweet, flavourful strawberries. Highly recommended!
Tinpot travelogue 