Day 3 - Kyoto

Well, that was a big day! 30,848 steps later, Gabby and I are a wee bit foot sore and weary (we estimate well over 20kms walking all up with all our meanderings... You can check out the map to see our trail of wanderings.).

Today's adventure started with an all you can eat (but only one coffee or juice!!) breakfast buffet at the hostel. We managed to set ourselves up well for the day, which is good, because who had time for stopping to eat!

We left the hostel by 9.30am with the bright idea of walking to today's destinations. First up it was a brisk 6km walk through Kyoto cityscape and suburbs to Kinkaku 'Golden' Temple (and it was, very gold and very shiny!!).

Next stop was Ninna-ji Temple and surrounds, a further 2.5kms walk into suburbia. We walked through The Goten buildings, saw more temples, some lovely gardens and the very, very tall Gojuno-to Pagoda. One iced coffee was partaken in lieu of lunch. By then it was 11.30am and we started on the next leg of our trip almost 5km to the Tenryu-ji Temple complex and gardens, best known for being next to the Bamboo Forest. By this time we had started to come across a lot of other tourists all trying to see the same sights, which was a tad disconcerting and slowed us down somewhat. But we courageously battled on!

From the Bamboo Forest we strolled down to the river where lots of folk were out boating on a not so sunny afternoon.
We then crossed over some old wooden bridge famous for not having collapsed as yet (called Togetsukyo Bridge) to go see some monkeys. They made us work hard for this privilege by putting said monkeys at the top of a mountain. Not happy, Jan! Or at least my calves weren't, after the initial set of stairs that seemingly went on forever. After that, the path was just a slope with no stairs, so much more manageable! Anyways, we made it to the top, took photos of the city and saw a lot of monkey butts. Well worth the trek, if you are interested. The walk down was a heck of a lot easier and faster.

From there Gabby and I admitted defeat and we changed our plans for the rest of the day. It was just after 4pm and we had thought to catch a train back to town to go visit the Geisha district and have dinner. Turns out, we aren't as young as we think we are and we decided that there was dignity in admitting to limitations. So we trekked back over the bridge that stubbornly still refused to fall down, and made our way to a bus stop to head home.

A kind local lady recognised our inability to decipher the bus system and helped us out by explaining something in Japanese which we didn't understand but thankfully ended with us all very happy and Gabby and I on the bus she too got on. Fortunately, it was the right bus, going in the right direction and we made it back to town 40mins later.

After a quick stop at the hostel to do some seriously needed stretching, we headed back out to go to a local ramen restaurant, called Moon and Back, that did some killer wagu and vegan noodles (not in the same bowl...). We rolled our way out of there not long after, having educated Gabby on the children's classic "Guess how much I love you?" (she didn't understand the reference in the name....).

We are now hanging out in the hostel lounge trying to catch up on travel blog entries, listening to ABBA.Read more