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Wahoo! Finally, a full free day to explore Japan. Whilst some went to Hiroshima by Shinkansen to visit local musea and nearby rabbit Isle, most Japies stayed in Kyoto to unravel its cultural inheritance. Beautiful castles, temples and shrines were open to visit. Some even decided to attend a local tea ceremony.
To leave our Dutch footprint in Japan, around half of the group decided to tour the city by bike (which was = 1100 yen ~ 6 euros for a decent bike with gears, suitable for a poor Dutch student). Although this may sound like a great idea, cycling in 37 degrees weather turned out to be a lot sweatier than some expected. This led to us sponsoring the local vending machines a lot as water was an absolute must and had to be replenished at every stop we made.
If you want to do the temple tour, then you can start at Higashi Hongan-ji temple and after that the Sanjusangen-do temple, that featured 1001 buddhist statues. Then the most touristy temple was up, namely the Kiyomizu-dera. Here we got some beautiful views over the city. We then had a very relaxing walk through the gardens of Ginkaku-ji, nicknamed the Silver Paviljon. But what is better than silver? Gold! Kinkaku-ji is a temple that has golden outside walls, and also beautiful gardens around it.
Kyoto is also full of castles. The Kyoto Sento Imperial Palace is a must visit, where the Japanese emporers resided until 1817. Plus, the entrance is free of charge and it has a nice park where you can bike around. (It is also one of TWO divided shrines). The castle itself was quite large, with different rooms dedicated for people with different ranks.
The other castle was the Niko castle, which under the reign of the era of the shoguns, which can be regarded as a commander leader. This is one of the interesting castles where you could actually walk inside the majestic palace, and yes, you could hear the errie cracks when walking through the corridor. This cracking sound is due to the placement of the nails in-between the planks.
Some others went out for nature, just like the overcrowded Bamboo forest at the edge of Kyoto city. Alongside the forest, you could cross over a bridge, where you watch the Katsura river flowing towards the horizon on an endless sunset, or at least it felt so.
After a well-deserved shower, we went out for dinner, after which some first went to a local craft beer bar, which served unique beers like a sesame stout, and others went to a karaoke of unlimited alcohol consumption and soaring throats. We then went on to another bar and finally, some of us went to finish the day up in a club, which turned out to be a perfect end of a very busy day.
Written by: Henry Kwan & Joost Coppoolse
