Because we were mainly in urban areas in Japan, we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. Really, the deer in Nara were the only megafauna we saw; we were hiking in areas with wild monkeys a few times, but only saw signs warning of their apparent evil.
Seriously, do not mess with the monkeys! Sign from Fushimi Inari.
Of course, there were feral cats a few times, and the nutria in the Shimogamo River. But we didn’t see anything really cool like tanuki.
I did a fair amount of birding, though it was mostly opportunistic in the sense of carrying my binoculars around with me.
Birding at Kiyomizu-dera. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The season and areas we were in weren’t really conducive to seeing a wide variety of birds, but I did see 45 different species (25 lifers).
Black-tailed Gull, Ueno Park.
The only raptor we saw was the Black Kite; there were a lot of these in Kyoto. We’d occasionally hear them calling from our hotel room window, and look out to see them riding thermals over the city.
Black Kite on right; Rock Pigeons on left.
We ended up seeing some neat invertebrates too. A wet day in Kyoto showed us a land planarian that was several inches long.
Pretty sure this is Bipalium kewense. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
I’m not very good at ID’ing insects, but we saw a lot of flying critters in riparian areas (including the giant hornet!). I have no idea what this one is (thankfully, it was not flying):
Seen near a stream in Higashiyama. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
And there were some insects in scenic places, like this caterpillar found on a jacket in the forest at Fushimi Inari:
Kind of a cute little guy. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
If we visit again, it would be nice to get into some less urbanized areas to see more wildlife. Maybe a Hokkaido trip in the future…
After visiting the Arashiyama bamboo grove, we headed north on a scenic walk, visiting two temples along the way: Jojakko-ji (on a hill with an expansive view of the city) and Gion-in (a tiny temple really only known for its moss garden), and a cemetery (Adashino Nenbutsu-ji).
Entrance to Jojakko-ji. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Jojakko-j was very leafy and cool, which was ice because it was a pretty warm day. It had some neat moss-covered stairs, wooden buildings, and a small pagoda near the top of the property.
Jojakko-ji’s pagoda. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
One thing Arashiyama is famous for is its moss gardens. We didn’t visit the most famous (Koke-dera) because you have to apply several days in advance via postcard to get in. But Jojakko-ji and Gion-in had enough moss to satisfy me.
Mossy garden at Jojakko-ji.
This was a good place to sit and be peaceful for a bit.
The grounds of Jojakko-ji are actually quite steep, so there were a lot of mossy stairs.
Yan was perhaps less impressed by the moss gardens, in part because entrance fees can add up if you’re going to multiple little temples in a row.
Gateway at Gion-in.
While at Jojakko-ji, the moss was sort of just there being soft and verdant, at Gion-in the moss was actually landscaped! Different varieties were used to create mossy features under the maple canopy. How cool is that?
“River” feature in the garden.
There were little planters with different species labeled:
Attention to bryophytes.
It was also interesting to see how the light quality under the maples varied from the quality in the surrounding bamboo forest.
The temple itself is small- you can see it in the background here.
The light under the bamboo was quite different:
Bamboo in the background, maples in front.
At one point, we saw a cat sleeping on the moss. Kawaii!
So cute, so fuzzy.
The last place we visited on our walk was a graveyard: Adashino Nenbutsu-ji. As the name indicates, it’s a Buddhist site. It’s known for a collection of small stone Buddha statues-grave markers-all packed together in rows.
The statues all face a central stupa. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The markers were apparently collected from old graves around the area about a century ago and brought to this one site to consecrate them. It’s still an active graveyard, so there were parts of the property with modern graves as well.
More grave markers. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Thus ended our trip to Arashiyama. Of course, we had to walk back to the train station- a few miles away.
Though we didn’t take many photos of street scenes, much of the area was pretty. A lot of traditional older homes, and of course shops and restaurants along the way. It was quite a nice walk, and a nice way to end our stay in Kyoto.
On our last full day in Kyoto, we visited the Arashiyama area, which is right up against the hills on the west side of the city. It’s a very scenic area, with many historic sights and temples. We certainly didn’t visit everything- or even a majority of the interesting sights.
After taking the train to the Arashiyama station, we ate some breakfast pastries that we’d brought with us from the shop at Kyoto Station. Then we headed down to the Katsura River, and the famous Togetsukyō Bridge.
The famous Togetsukyo. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
It’s a popular area for weddings, and we actually saw the bridge in car commercials featuring Arashiyama sights when we had a TV in our Niigata hotel room…but more on that later. The bridge is near the confluence of the Hozu & Ōi Rivers, which are both quite scenic as they cut through the hills. We walked along the river to Kameyama Park, and stopped for a bit to listen to a woman practicing the flute near the riverside.
The Hozu River. The Sagano Romantic Train runs through the gorge.
At the top of Kameyama Park, there’s an overlook with nice views of the Hozu; one can take boat trips up the river or travel on the Sagano Romantic Train. We did neither, but amused ourselves by speculating whether we’d regret not optimizing the amount of romance on our vacation.
At the top of the hill, we saw our first Japanese giant hornet! And gave it a wide berth.
They can get up to nearly 2″ long! (Photo: cracked.com)
One of the main sights in Arashiyama is the famous old bamboo grove.
Tall, tall bamboo. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Really beautiful, but cars are apparently allowed to drive on the path through it. So taxis would occasionally come through, stop at the end and disgorge passengers, and then the drivers would take a picture of the passengers. Some of the taxis had schoolkids, so it was a bit of a cop-out: taking a taxi to the required field-trip sights instead of walking. I guess this gives kids more time to shop for ice cream and Hello Kitty merchandise before catching the train back to town.
We wondered how this painter felt about the crowd of kids taking photos as he was trying to paint. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Our time in Arashiyama was just beginning. Next time: landscaping with moss!
The Fushimi Inari Shrine is located in Inari, a suburb of Kyoto. It’s mainly known for two things: orange torii gates and foxes (kitsune). The shrine complex covers several acres of wooded hills, with lots of paths- and stairs- through the forest. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of shrines and little memorials throughout the area.
Main shrine building. The walk uphill begins near here. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
We spent most of the day at this complex. The torii stretch out over many miles of pathways and trails. All of this is set in the hilly forest so it’s all very idyllic in setting. The multitude of shrines makes it more so. It’s incredible. The site was crowded but that didn’t really detract from anything, plus we ended up taking a side detour that had few people on it (so few we were a bit concerned about getting lost in the hills). In places the torii are packed so closely together in groups of tens to hundreds that passing through them is like passing through a tunnel. It’s an amazing effect.
Walking in the torii tunnel. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The shrines along the way had many levels of detail and sophistication. Some were small things with basically just stones erected in an appropriate way. These often had two cute little 3″ or so clay white foxes on them (yes, we ended up buying a pair of these, but that was later in Tokyo). The main ones were quite large, with elaborate ropes, red aprons for the foxes, brightly colored platforms and posts, etc. Foxes are traditional guardians of granaries, so this started as an agriculture shrine.
Collection of shrines near a stream.
In various places, the trail was lined with shops- either tea stands, ramen spots, or ice cream stands. Most of these offered a place to sit and relax and contemplate the forest (and incidentally catch your breath). Other than these spots, there were very few places to sit. This sort of mix of commercial and religious aspects was pretty much everywhere- e.g., the Hello Kitty paraphernalia that was Kinkaku-ji and and Fushimi Inari themed. Also the wide variety of little charms that you could pick up everywhere.
Cub scouts and others taking a rest break. You can see Kyoto in the background. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
There are main paths at this complex, but also trails that are basically hiking paths that go off into the forest. We decided to take one of these on the assumption that it would eventually loop us back to the main path. (It did.) So that gave us a great chance to get into the woods, and be away from people. It was really quiet out there. The trail ran downstream along one creek and then upstream another in the next mini-valley over. We had the trail pretty much to ourselves.
A less crowded area on the trail. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
At two stops on the trail, there were a dense clusters of shrines. The shrines were sort of wedged into the hillside on whatever flat part of the streamside there was. Very nice to be able to hang out at such a place for a while and prowl around all the shrines without getting in anyone’s way.
You could buy little torii like these for a few hundred yen at the shops along the way, but the bigger gates cost thousands. Note the bonnets and aprons on the foxes.
At the end of the walk, we had some lunch in the ubiquitous commercial area at the entrance to the shrine, along with some fox-shaped cinnamon cookies. Yum.
Fox guardian holding the key to the granary. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
On our day trip to Nara, we didn’t really stop for lunch and so were getting a bit hungry after our day walking around temples and being accosted by also-hungry deer. The day was also cold and fairly windy.
Main gate to Kasuga Taisha. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
As we were walking back toward town from Kasuga Taisha at around 3 pm or so, we saw a woman selling sweet potatoes out of a little portable oven. This was kind of geekily exciting, because years ago this was one of the things illustrated in manga that my sister and I would puzzle over (sweet potatoes as a snack?)- so we decided to buy one.
The price on the sign was 200 yen per 100 grams, so we mentally expected that we’d be buying maybe a quarter or half a potato, and that it’d be 300-400 yen. Wrong. Unfortunately, we did not realize that we would have to buy an entire potato- and the things were huge! Our intended “snack” clocked in at 0.5 kilos on her little scale. So voila, we were the proud owners of a $12 tuber.
The saving grace is that it was really yummy. It was actually a little sweet, nice and warm, and roasted the right amount, so it had a smoky flavor. So we can’t say it wasn’t worth it. And we did see other people buying the potatoes for the same price so it’s not like the woman took advantage of our ignorance.
That’s about $2 worth of potato right there. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
So we took our precious potato and sat down on a bench to eat it. And wouldn’t you know it 5 seconds later a freaking deer comes by and expects to get fed! We had to keep pushing the deer away so that it (probably “she,” from the lack of antler buds) wouldn’t nibble at the sweet potato! She used all her little cutesy tricks, bowing and bobbing her head, but we were firm.
You could see the little thought bubbles above her head: “Come on this is the part where you humans feed me, look how cute I am! I’m cocking and wagging my head in a particularly adorable way, aren’t I? Watch me bow and nod at you. How come you’re not following the script here?!” First she would try to move in on Yan, then move over to me, then move back to Yan. This was exactly like the bunny’s behavior when we’re eating fruit. Herbivores! Little beggars.
Eventually she spotted some little kids with ice cream and wandered off. We did not watch the potential carnage.
Yet more potato.
So we finished the potato, and energized by half a kilo of carbs, we walked back to town. We’d decided to stay in town for dinner (a fusion pizza place with pickled veggie-sake lees pizza! and salad!), rather than heading back to Kyoto first. But only an hour after eating the potato, we weren’t really hungry. We walked around town for a bit, and found our way to one of the ancient burial tumuli marked on our map (for travelers to Nara, note that the tourist map they hand out at the train station is not to scale).
These mounds were built between the 3rd-6th Centuries, before the introduction of Buddhism made cremation popular. The mound we saw was pretty overgrown (so much so that we didn’t take a photo of it, unfortunately), and only had a sign in Japanese. But it did have sort of a mound shape with a moat around it, so we’re pretty sure it was a burial mound. Pretty neat to see.
As my readers may have noted, I’ve been out of touch for a while- largely due to travel, a cold, some travel, and then an allergy attack upon my return. Bleah. I’ve been concentrating on work, and been managing to get some writing done- but the blog has obviously suffered. But I’ll jump right back into talking about out Japan trip.
On one of our days in Kyoto, we decided to take the train into Nara- the even-more-ancient-than-Kyoto-capital. It’s a smaller city about a 45-minute train ride from the former. It has a large number of Buddhist, Shinto, and other sights. The train station is west of the largest concentration of sights, so we grabbed a tourist map and started walking east.
Pligrims at Nan’en-dō.
Our first stop was the Kōfuku-ji temple complex. This is a Buddhist site, and we encountered a group of pilgrims praying at one of the shrines, Nan’en-dō. The “five-story pagoda” was also part of the temple complex. This was where we encountered our first Nara deer.
Five-story pagoda. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Ah, the deer. They are ostensibly wild, but everywhere around the center of Nara and are quite used to people. Lurking inside their cute exterior lies the vicious and aggro heart of a park-dwelling herbivore. Honestly, the deer reminded us of Noe- but with antlers and about 10x the mass.
Looks deceptively innocent, doesn’t it? (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The big thing here is buying deer senbei (rice crackers) from street vendors, and then feeding them to the deer. The deer basically lie in wait at the vendor carts, and then mob you as they see you taking the crackers. And they’re pushy!
The senbei ladies apparently don’t take any crap from the deer- notice how they’re giving her a wide berth… (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
There are warning signs every so often about the cute little buggers. I didn’t get head-butted or reared at, but I did get nipped in the butt.
Pushy, pushy deer. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
After taking turns being mobbed by pushy deer, we walked toward the next sight we planned to see- Tōdai-ji. Again, a Buddhist temple complex. This one is famous for containing the largest freestanding wooden structure in the world, with (I believe) the second-largest bronze Buddha statue inside.
The Daibutsu-den (giant buddha hall). (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
It’s hard to think about what to say about this, other than it was quite big…and quite impressive. The Buddha is almost 50 feet high, and behind him is a huge wooden backing covered in golden paint. To the side are two wooden statues that are “only” probably like 20-25 feet high. Everything’s hugely massive in there.
The Daibutsu, flanked by smaller statues. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)Daibutsu.
After lingering in the Daibutsuden for a bit, we stopped outside to buy some souvenirs, and some human senbei for a snack, then headed onward.
The theme character for Nara was “Sento-kun,” a monk with…deer antlers. Very appropriate.
We stopped at Nigatsu-dō (part of the Tōdai-ji complex), before walking to a major Shinto shrine, Kasuga Taisha.
View from porch of Nigatsu-dō. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Kasuga Taisha is famous for its lanterns- both bronze ones inside the shrine and stone ones lining the paths without. The shrine complex is surrounded by a park area of cedar trees, and is very pretty.
Interior of Kasuga Taisha.
While we were at the shrine we got to see the formal photos for a wedding that had apparently just taken place. The bride and groom were in traditional outfits. The bride’s clothes in particular were pretty neat — she had a huge white egg-shaped headdress.
Stone lanterns and cedar trees. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
After hanging out in the park for a bit, we were a bit footsore, hungry, and chilly. I’ll tell the tale about a memorable snack we had before heading back to Kyoto tomorrow…
Shimogamo-jinja is a large Shinto shrine complex and UNESCO world heritage site in the northern part of Kyoto. It’s located at the confluence of the Kamo and Takano rivers.
Map of the shrine complex. We entered where the little yellow arrow is pointing at the upper left, and made our way down through the forest. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
As you might expect, water is a significant feature of the shrine, and apparently has been part of the spiritual significance of the site for several thousand years.
Mitarashi stream rises from a small spring on the shrine grounds. There’s a shrine over the actual spring.
It was one of the least Westernized tourist sites we visited in Kyoto, and virtually none of the signage had English. This would definitely have been a place where having a better idea of what was around us would have helped.
Main grounds and Mitarashi stream.Ro-mon gate. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The shrine complex includes several large buildings, and it serves as the base for several important Kyoto festivals. We’d just missed the Aoi Matsuri (hollyhock festival), their main festival, which includes a horseback archery competition. We did see evidence that the festival wasn’t quite over. though.
We think this truck was being prepared for part of the festivities. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
On the shrine grounds, there’s a fairly large forested area called Tadasu-no-mori. I imagine this forest represents what the entire confluence point area looked like several hundred years ago.
Tadasu-no-mori and Mitarashi stream. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)Sacred rock?
One interesting highlight is an archaeological site that dates back roughly 2000 years, indicating that the area has been important for quite a while. Because we were mainly in cities, we didn’t see many Japanese archaeological sites on our trip- at least sites that hadn’t been updated and modified for modern use. There seems to be a tendency for prehistoric sacred sites to have shrines built on them, then more shrines are added to those, then a temple is built, and eventually you have a major shrine complex. Unless, of course, the shrine stays small and residential or commercial development completely surrounds it.
Part of the excavated site in the forest. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
While the shrine is situated where it is because of the river confluence, you have to walk a bit outside the grounds to actually reach the rivers. The triangle of land at which the two rivers merge is a nice open site with paths on the banks of all the rivers. The rivers themselves are pretty shallow (I’m guessing that might be a seasonal thing), and there are blocks set in the rivers so that you can cross over them on foot. Pretty neat.
At the river confluence. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)Yan is wistfully wondering where he can rent a bike.
This was also bird central, so we saw a bunch of species, including lots of black kites. They seemed to be the most common raptors around here. We also saw some rodents that looked like capybaras or muskrats or …something. Did Japan have native large aquatic rodents? We had no idea. They were perched on rocks in the river, doing their thing. With adorable babies!
What were these strange little buggers? (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
A few days later, I visited the Natural History Museum in Tokyo, and it turns out that these were nutrias (also called coypu). They’re native to South America, but were introduced to Japan for the fur trade. As we saw in Kyoto, they’ve escaped, and are now a fairly widespread invasive species. So that was our Shimogamo invasive species encounter.
Nijō Castle is an interesting contrast to many of the sights in Kyoto, which are largely temples. It consists of two inner palaces, surrounded by a stone wall and outer moat. On the map below, you can see that there’s a larger palace at the bottom, just inside the outer moat (unfortunately, on the part of the map that was dirty and looks blurry). This is Ninomaru Palace. The second palace, Honmaru, has an additional moat and wall surrounding it.
Map of Nijo Castle. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Each of the two palaces consists of several interconnected buildings. Once you enter the castle walls, you can walk throughout the gardens that surrounds the two palaces, and there is also a spot where you can climb the walls. You can only enter Ninomaru Palace, though. Unfortunately, photos aren’t allowed inside.
Entrance to Ninomaru Palace.
Inside the castle, the rooms are arranged so that visitors would be received in a room that corresponded to their rank- lower-ranked visitors only got to see the outer rooms, and higher-ranked ones could actually meet with the shogun in an inner room. While the walls are decorated with some beautiful paintings- with wide application of gold leaf- the castle as a whole is obviously, and purposefully, designed for security. For example, the doors behind which where the shogun’s bodyguards would wait while he was giving audiences are actually highlighted in the decor, rather than hidden. More obviously, the floors throughout the building are designed to squeak when you walk on them. As you can imagine, the crowds of schoolkids really have fun with this.
The paintings themselves were definitely interesting to see. There was a surprising range of styles, from quite realistic birds and plants on the walls to really abstract applications of gold leaf on the ceilings. But we did as requested and didn’t take any photos.
Landscape in Ninomaru Palace garden.
After going through the palace, we strolled through the gardens for a bit. They’re actually quite extensive. One thing I haven’t really mentioned so far is the huge number of crows that we saw-and head- throughout the urban areas of Japan. Their cawing helped form the background noise for the trip.
It takes a lot of work to give the trees that shape.
There was always a sense that you were in an enclosed space, though- the walls were never quite out of sight.
Stone lantern, Honmaru Palace gardens. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)Part of the inner wall.
There was one place where you could climb up the inner wall (the one that surrounds Honmaru Palace) and get a good view, mainly of Honmaru and the gardens, but also of the hills surrounding Kyoto. It wasn’t quite tall enough to see many landmarks, but it was nice to be able to see over the wall.
View of Honmaru Palace, with the Higashiyama range in the distance. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)Inner moat. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
Kinkaku-ji, located in the northwestern part of Kyoto, is one of the most famous temples in the city. It’s also one of the most clearly recognizable sights, being covered in gold leaf.
View of the pavilion from across the pond. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
The Golden Pavilion (the translation of its name) is actually only one part of the temple complex, but it was definitely the main attraction on our- and apparently everyone else’s- visit. As with most of the sights, there were certain viewing locations that were a magnet for photographers; other locations were passed on by.
People were pretty good about making way for others who wanted to take photos with themselves and the pavilion in the background. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
In contrast to Ginkaku-ji, Kinkaku-ji was actually bigger than I expected it to be. I was really not expecting a building covered in gold to be very large. I know I keep emphasizing the gold bit here, but it really was … shiny.
A closer view of the pavilion.
As with any important site in Kyoto, there were fairly large crowds. We’d read about something that happens occasionally at these sights that actually did happen here- apparently, English-language teachers will sometimes take small groups of schoolchildren to tourist sights to practice on them. This happened to me here, but not to Yan (perhaps the beard made him too intimidating or something). So I answered some standard questions (“What is your name?” “Where are you from?” “What is your favorite Japanese food?”), and was photographed with the girl asking them. It was kind of cute.
Even the gutters were coated in gold! (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
So back to the pavilion. Apparently, it was built by a shogun in the late 14th century/early 15th century, and turned into a Zen Buddhist temple after the shogun’s death. The original structure was destroyed by arson in 1950, so the present version is a replica. Gold has symbolic properties of purification. The pavilion is part of a garden complex that includes some very pretty landscaping, a few small shrines, and some larger buildings- a teahouse, several temple buildings, and (of course) several stands that sell charms, candles, and souvenirs. The complex as a whole is easily accessed by bus.
Map of the temple grounds and garden. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)
As with many of the gardens we visited, water was an important feature. In this garden, there were little streams and a few little waterfalls. This one had a feature called “carp rock,” because the large stone supposedly looks like a leaping fish.
Carp rock.
At the temple building where one leaves offerings, we lit a candle for family health. We also bought a few souvenirs: some postcards (which were surprisingly hard to find elsewhere), a charm, and some green tea mochi on a stick. Yum.
This was one of the “working” temple buildings. The racks for candles are on the left side.
So this was definitely a cool sight to see. There was a nice garden to wander through, yummy snacks, and assorted souvenirs that ranged from sacred (charms for safe driving, good grades, family health, etc.) to …less so (Hello Kitty banners with Kinkaku-ji in the background).
The pavilion from the back. I really like this photo.
