The Japan Tour: Kyoto day 3 (Part I) - Kinkaku-Ji - 金閣寺 (Golden Pavilion Temple), Kiyomizu-dera -清水寺

This was going to be my last day in Kyoto. I was not very excited about leaving one of the best cities in Japan, but I was very excited because 2 months before coming to Japan I met a friend through Facebook. We were about to meet each other in person (first time both of us were going to do something like that).

The plan for the day was to visit the Kinkaku-Ji - 金閣寺 (Golden Pavilion Temple), the Kiyomizu-dera -清水寺 and finally the Fushimi Inari Taisha - 伏見稲荷大社 with over 10000 toriis. I know all these names might sound a bit unfamiliar but I'm sure you've seen many pictures of all these places.

We had agreed to meet up in the lobby of the hotel and then off to explore Kyoto. He used to live in Kyoto a couple of years ago so he knew his way around the city and that'll be extremely useful if we wanted to visit all the places during daylight.

The experience of meeting people is very interesting and rewarding. My friend (Keisuke) told me that he was very scared and nervous about meeting up. But that he couldn't say no because we had already agreed about meeting up. He also told me that another friend (Takuya) who also like to meet foreigners was going to join us later, "wicked" that was all I said.

Keisuke's English was very good but he was very ashamed of it and he mentioned many times he was not happy with his English. Takuya's English was not that good but signs, body language and iphone translators did the job.

However, I sensed a deep concern about making mistakes when speaking English from both Keisuke and Takuya. It's a pity there aren't places to meet foreigner people in Japan. I reckon that big cosmopolitan and multicultural cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto there might be tons of foreigners who'd like to practise Japanese conversation skills and vice versa.

Japanese and Taiwanese people are the best seriously speaking. I am not saying Koreans ( which I recently started to meet up) Chinese, are bad but the Japanese and Taiwanese had something I haven't found in any other culture. They are extremely polite, humble, friendly and funny ( once they get to know you a little bit). I'm sure Korean and Chinese people are the same but I haven't been lucky yet to meet such people.

The fact that we met through Facebook means that they want to know foreigner people and exchange culture knowledge. I have nothing against another Asian countries just in case. I also know that much of Japanese culture (except from Shinto) was brought from China and some cooking styles came from both China and Korea. By the way, I remember K-pop is in trend among young people at the moment , just so you know.

My friend who used to live in Kyoto, was very into japanese history and we started chatting about history from the very first minute. His friend ,who is now also my friend, knows as history as well but he lack English knowledge so we had to rely on Kotoba iPhone app to understanding each other most of the times but it was ok.

Kinkaku-ji Entrance

The Golden Pavilion 金閣寺 in December

Takuya - Me - Keisuke

We talked a lot on the way to the Kinkaku-ji and once we got there, we saw so many people that I thought we were not going to be able to take any cool picture. But we did. The Golden Pavilion is very beautiful and astonishing to the eye. If you think it looks amazing on the picture, when you're in front of it its shiny golden colour really makes it even more beautiful. I took some pictures and recorded some videos but I don't think neither of them make any justice to the beauty of such place.

After taking lots of pictures and recording some videos like the one above we headed off to another temple. This time we were going to go to the Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺 for the second time. The difference this time was going to be the way we took and also the fact the we were going to visit the temple during the day.

On the way to the temple we came across some interesting things and I want to show you the pictures about those things.

Kyoto inhabitants in December

Japanese Flag stuck on a Kyoto Taxi

On the way to the next temple we came across another Buddhist temple which from outside looked quite big but nobody was interested in going into it, so I guessed it was not that important.

Buddhist Temple in Kyoto

So we carried on and we saw a very typical old-style little street. I honestly don't think it's 100% old-style but there's something special about it. I guess it was the mix of wood walls, the little river next to us, the vermilion lamps and fences and the autumn like colours that made it so special. The name of that street is Shirakawa Minami Dori 白川南通 .

Lamp in Shirakawa Minami Dori Kyoto - 白川南通京都

Wooden Houses in Shirakawa Minami Dori Kyoto - 白川南通京都

Vermillion Fence in Shirakawa Minami Dori Kyoto 白川南通京都

I have to say that street was very cosy and I really wanted to stay there forever, but who knows in the near future what could happen. Anyhow, we're now close to the restaurant. To be honest it's quite hard to find a place to be and eat. Why? because every single place looks amazing.

We ended up going to a very cosy restaurant. - ok, it's true in Kyoto they all look the same but for me it was very cosy ^_^ we had to go upstairs and here you have it....

Entrace to the restaurant

Restaurant's stairs

view from the restaurant

Did we eat anything? Yes we did - and here it is... I'm sorry I don't know the name of the dishes in Japanese but I'll update the post as soon as I find out.