Day Four - 8/26/09

On day four, we rented bicycles from the Kyoto Cycling Tour Project for a tour of Kyoto. We rode our bikes through the pedestrian area of Kyoto station (and were asked to stop... and we did... briefly). After a ride north along the Kamogawa (Kamo River), we stopped for some refreshment at a convenience store. My brother introduced me to a sports "drink" that was really more of a sports "gel", and I grabbed the lemon protein one which was rather tasty, but awfully strange at the same time.

Then we continued on and found ourselves in a small street that led to the Ginkaku-ji Temple. There were many open storefronts selling a special candy that Kyoto is famous for called yatsuhashi. While it did taste good (I only tried the fresh kind), it wouldn't survive the length of my trip so I had to let it go. It is possible I may be able to pick up some baked ones before I go.

We hiked up the street with our bikes, and then found a spot to park the bikes on a road perpindicular to the alley. This is actually quite a problem in Japan, they actually have people driving around on scooters looking for bikes not parked in the proper spots, and they call it back to base and sometime later a truck shows up and takes the bike to the impound. Luckily this didn't happen to us here, but I witnessed it happen later in the day.

We made our way through Ginkaku-ji Temple, past the "magnificent" hedges, amazing sand sculptures, and beautiful scenery. It was quite a place to be in, and certainly one of the most natural spectacles I've ever encountered.

We returned to our bikes, which were still in the place we left them, and started riding south along the same street towards and stopped at some small but interesting shrines nestled in the hills.

We then reached our picnic bento lunch spot, Nanzenji. We enjoyed a lunch prepared by my brother's girlfriend of sushi, and I found that I do not like umeboshi (pickled plums). I figured it's a plum, didn't realize it was a pickled plum, and put it my mouth thinking it was going to be sweet. Turns out it was sour, salty, and spicy, but I did manage to put it down.

After lunch, we walked up behind the aqueduct to Nanzenin, and then we walked along the aqueduct to what looked like a large building with a bell inside, but it was locked up and it remained a mystery.

From there, we headed back down towards the center of Kyoto, and stopped to take some more photos looking both ways to Heian Shrine. We stopped by another gate for a photo, and then made our way over to Kiyomizudera Temple.

Again we cleverly hid our bikes, and then followed the masses around the temple. There were many interesting sights, including a bell that we rung, a very large stage, and a man and his bunny.

We returned to our bikes, grabbed a drink from a vending machine, and drove down back down the river, through Kyoto station (we rode the whole time), and we got the bikes back intact.

This was a pretty amazing and unique way to visit Kyoto, and everyone had a great time.