Day 7: Imperial Palace, Narzen-ji Temple & Path of Philosophy (Kyoto)

Hi darlings,

We back to our jalan-jalan mode ok :P

------------------------------------------

1st April 2009

If you notice, most of the entries are about temples, temples and temples. This is because Kyoto is famous for their temples and parks. You may get tired of it but their temples and park is a worth visit to pay. It's very different and serene.

Since we didn't get proper food for few days, we ordered breakfast set from Kawashima Inn and it costs us 1000 yen each.

They gave us rice, miso soup, salmon slice, sunny side eggs, blanched soybean, seaweed and japanese tea.

They also gave us a whole pot of extra rice (look at this container, cute isn't it?)

And we finished all of them! Nampak sangat makan byk ok. And it's japanese rice, a bit sticky like our pulut.

MrComot in yukata (Japanese traditional summer garment)

Since we were so full, we fall asleep straight after breakfast boleh? And woke up later at 1130am! We quickly get ready and move our ass to Imperial Palace Kyoto.

A thing about Imperial Palace is, they only open twice a day for English session, one in the morning and one at the noon. We planned to be there for morning session but since we dozing off, we have to move it to noon.

The route: Shijo - Karasuma Imagedawa - walk down from here Admission: Free but you have to apply the admission to enter in advance

This palace is empty now, last Emperor to reside here is during the Meiji time in 1869 (now everybody moves to Tokyo Imperial Palace). The building is preserved as part of Japan historical and only the ground is opened to public.

We arrived just in time and was the last couple to gain the permission for the tour. Right after we took the form, they put this 'fully booked' notice. We had to go to their office (warning: 10mins walking. So kalau boleh be as early as you can as they are pretty strict with timing. We reached there at 1.45PM *pheww*), fill in forms, and show our passports to get the permission slip.

In front of Imperial Palace. They open the tour at sharp 2PM and it lasts for 1 hour

The big compound. Everybody is free to wander around, only can't go into the building

The bright orange gate to cast away the ghosts

Their royal pond

The bridge where royalties melepak hehe

Tour guide haeling some information

One of the trees inside the imperial palace area

It's blooming

Me among the tourist

MrComot recording macam-macam and I haven't see yet any of it, takde masa :(

After tour around palace, we ventured to Imperial Park, next to Imperial Palace. It is a big park with lotsa sakura tress and the path is tarred with small stones.

Different type of sakura

At bright pink sakura

Hogging one of the tree

Snowy sakura

The big sakura

We went to Nanzen-ji Temple after that for another sight-viewing and their famous path of philosophy!

The route: Karasuma Marutamachi - Karasuma Oike - Keage - Walking distance
Admission: Free

On the way to the temple, it looks hot right?

But it's 12 degrees ok!!! I had to hide my hands inside the pocket all the time.

Monk walking out of the temple

Nanzen-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto and since I already tired of temples (and my feet hurt!), we didn't go inside, just admiring the scenic garden outside. From Nanzen-ji temple we walked around helplessly (with maps in our hand) trying to find Path of Philosophy. We even sampai at one small police station and asked the inspector but as expected, he doesn't understand a word even the name of path of philosophy. Fortunately, in our map also printed the name in kanji saying ("tetsugaku no michi") and he gave some directions that we also don't understand, but his hand showing back to Nanzen-ji temple. So we tried our best while chanting tetsugaku no michi tetsugaku no michi, went back to Nanzen-ji and found a signage written "tetsugaku no michi" and the signage gone after a few meters that we blindly walking, following our hunch.

Until we reached a road among houses, and still yakin boleh!

And finally! Berkat the yakin boleh (haha) and sakit kaki, we reached path of philosophy.

Actually it's a path full with hundreds of cherry blossom trees along the canal and behind residential houses. The path is very nice indeed but not as expected. It supposed to be very scenic but not all trees bloom, so it turned out so-so only.

We reached end of the path with "where are we now" question. The map seriously not helping and since it's evening, the road is very quiet. Shops are closed and nobody wandering around. We kept on walking until we saw a bus stop and with few people there. So we just gambled waiting for the bus too thinking, if there is bus, the bus will take us to bus station, so we can continue our journey from there, no matter where we are.

After few moments waiting for the bus, one of the girl smile at us and asked where we came from. I was like, Thank God, finally got somebody speak English! Apparently, she is a Taiwanese and not that she can read Japs, but at least it's kanji so she can guess where the bus going and the schedule. We talk a bit (very broken english hahaha) and ride the bus together. She even alerted us to stop at which station. Thank you Miss Taiwan! :D

We stopped at Kyoto Shiyakusho-mae station and again, no idea where are we hahaha. But it's a station so the 'lost' game is not that bad. We took subway to Kyoto station for dinner.

The route: Kyoto Shiyakusho-mae - Karasuma Oike - Kyoto Station

As I told before, Kyoto station is vey big and has arrays of food shops. We ate at Porta (a foodcourt full with restaurants) and had this:-

Donbori with ebi and cold soba

This restaurant also doesn't have english menu, we just depend on their food display and try our best to avoid the unnecessary food.

Example of the food display. All shops have this setting.

And since we can't read, we just look at the sample one by one. This is the example of the shop selling pork (thank to the food blogs that I browse hari-hari before, that I can recognize it is a pork meat - the fat is their signature). So we always avoid shops with sample like this. But ada jugak a few yg terlepas, not in display but when we go in, they do serve it.

On the way back, we saw one bakery selling cakes and desserts and bought this:-

Grape fruit jerry (I guess it's hard for them to spell 'L' as I see quite many words with R replacing L)

And it's M-A-S-A-M :))
But it's cute isn't it? They use real grapefruit skin as the holder and real grapefruit as the topping.

There will be one more entry on Kyoto, then everything will about Tokyo! :)