Time is precious and it's slipping away

I woke again at around 7, had breakfast with Soma and then headed out.

First stop for the day was actually outside Kyoto. Namely, Soma had asked me if I wanted to see the mountains and go hiking (to which I of course replied "yes-yes-oh-god-yes") and then recommended Mt. Kurama to me.

I needed to change trains 3 times to get there and it took an hour just to get there but... It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Words can not describe the place.

If you ever happen to be in or near Kyoto
Just. Go. See. It.

Supposedly it was the peak season to go see it, but the place was relatively quiet and empty. Which is one part of its allure. But trust me, there is a lot more to it. Basically, it is a Temple built on a steep hillside of a 550 m high mountain, with gorgeus architecture and scenic views. But seriously, it has to be seen to be believed.

After coming down the mountain and walking the scenic valley path to the next railway station, I got back into town and headed towards the more usual suspects.

In town, I stopped by a diner to have a quick lunch. I ordered a Set Special, which contained zashimi and tempura, mushrooms, seaweed, rice and miso soup - or in short a good overview of Japanese cuisine. Menu had a note that it might take some time, but it was all delivered to me in an orderly manner and I was finished half an hour after entering the restaurant.

First up, Ginkakuji or The Silver Pavilion, which, unlike its golden counterpart was not silver but just white. As usual, it came attached with a beautiful garden but since I got there at around 1 pm, the place was crowded.. which meant walking the garden path felt like standing in a long and slow-moving queue. Not the way to enjoy Zen garden architecture. Good way to practice your patience, though. Thankfully, it was that slow for only one section and eventually sped up so I did not have to spend too much time there. One of the main sights besides the villa itself is a perfect geometrical cone made of gravel called Kogetsudai, that supposedly represents Mt. Fuji. Seriously - abstract art a few hundred years before the europeans :)

As hinted by the name of the post, I was on a pretty tight schedule. Soma had highlighted a number of temples and I had only 4 hours before they were about to close. Thankfully, most of them lay on a straight path. Bad news was that the straight path was around 5 km. It also turned out to be a bit less straight than originally anticipated.

The first section was called "The Philosophers path", which was a nice walkway along a canal lined with maple trees. Crowded, of course, but not nearly as bad as I feared, as it was still enjoyable. Especially if you walked on the other bank which was nearly empty.

On the other end of the path, Soma had marked I should visit Eikando temple but it was crowded, charged 1000 yen for admission and did not seem all that special so I decided to skip it and head onwards.

Next up - Heian shrine. Got off the path a bit and had to ask for directions twice. Once I got there, the first emotion that overwhelmed me was "Oh, Fuck". The front courtyard was just enhormous. An then I found out that the gardens surround it. Considering I had been walking for 4-5 hrs by that time, "Oh, fuck" seemed appropriate again, this time with a bit different connotation. The gardens were still completely worth it, though.

From now on, it was a straight sothward path, first through the modern city centre and then through a district that constantly had temples and shrines on both sides. I wondered into a few of them, but there were really way too many and I was on a time budget.

At one point, this forced me to ask a group of tourists "Excuse me, could you help me out a little? Im not entirely sure which temple Im at right now". Turned out I was a bit behind the schedule as they had just come from the place where I was heading (and where I hoped I actually was).

In short, I had a quick look into Chionin temple, Maruyama park and Kodaiji monastery. It was a quarter to five, sun was setting and I still had one thing on my list.

Kiyomizudera. A temple with a famous terrace with a 15 m drop that people used to jump down. Japanese version of Russian roulette - if you live, you do the thing you planned, if not, well... then not. Although, jumping down what would be the equivalent of a sixth floor window. Onto a paved road. Seriously? Thing is, a few people actually did survive this. The saying "To take a plunge at Kiyomizudera" is still in use with meaning similar to english "to take the plunge into the unknown" (according to Wikipedia). Seriously - you cannot miss going to see something like that. So I didn't. I arrived just as the sun was setting, which made the place enhormously beautiful.

I finished the temple tour just as the temple was closing. As my legs were killing me by now, I just found the nearest cafe, sat down, ordered coffee and just rested for a while. I then went to the nearest sovenir shop and bought a few things for people back home.

Doing so I realized I was actually running low on cash. I had a conservative estimate for the ticket costs all the way to the airport and I had maximum 1500 yen (200 eek) extra after that. And Japan is expensive, so I had to really watch my costs from then on.

So, I headed back in the direction of the temple.. and saw that instead of being closed, they had moved up the ticket counters to also cover the temple park. And increased the prize for the ticket twofold. It was still less than I paid in the other temples - Kyomizudera was surprisingly cheap, considering most other places I had visited were all 400-600 Yen but that was only 200 during the day and 400 now. So I entered the same temple for the second time, paying double.

For a childrens ticket, as it turned out.. or well, they accidentally gave me the wrong one. Thankfully, the person checking the ticket also thought it had been an accident (and in fairness, I had paid the adult prize) and let me in without trouble. The temple was even more beautiful at night, and so was the park, with the red maple trees lit up in the most beautiful way.

It was 7 p.m. by now and I had to find my way back to the train station to go back to my host, pack my stuff and head for the Airport. I had spent my last spare money on a birthday present for my aunt and now tried my best to ignore all the small souvenir stores and restaurants that lined the path to the station. Not easy, especially considering I was getting pretty hungry already. I was looking around for a place to change money and at some point even entertained the thought of asking some european-looking people if they would be willing to change a few EUR-s I had in my pocket at a rate beneficial to them... but in the end I still overcame my temptations and went directly to my host's appartment.

There it turned out that the tickets were actually a bit cheaper than I first thought and that I also had a few more large coins that I had not noticed before, so I actually had enough money left for a nice strong meal in the railway station. 800 Yen for a bowl of noodles in a fast food place. Bowl so big I would have had trouble finishing it had I not been walking for the entire day. And that was not the first time I got served such a quantity - the portions in Estonia are usually smaller, which does not make sense since Estonians themselves are considerably bigger. The food was good, despite being served at a fast food restaurant again (I was pressed for time, after all).

I arrived in the airport without any real problems, but the ride was considerably longer than I expected. In the airport, I now had 8 hours in the airport, 1 on the plane, 3 more in Tokyo airport, 9.5 in the plane, 3 in Helsinki, 3.5 on the plane, 1 in Tallinn and 2.5 in Tartu before getting home. This sums to 30.5. Fun, as always, considering I cannot usually sleep in busses or planes, and had been up for 17 hours before arriving to the airport already, which means I had 48 hours of uptime with maybe 2x2h of sleep in total.

Sweet insomnia - it only makes what follows that much enjoyable :)