10.2.12

Kyoto Hike

Something Experimental to do; Today’ Sound for you: Bing Crosby Louis Armstrong' Now youhas Jazz' 

Let’s start with this today: I am generally not fond of doing what average tourists do. In the other words, I prefer not to go only ‘must-go’ places where tourism brochures and guidebooks recommend us to visit or do (well, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t visit Taj Mahal if I got to Agra of India). I would rather do something like trying local resident’s everyday walking course. That’s the concept of the trip for today.


Hello!
Kyoto
A bit of background about Kyoto for you: Kyoto is generally known as the ancient capital of Japan, according to Wikipedia (sorry for being lazy), the city was the capital of Japan over 1000 years (four consecutive eras from 795A.D. to 1867A.D.)  up until the capital city was moved to Tokyo. Kyoto literally means Kyo() – Prince and To() - Capital. Thus, it means the capital city of prince is Kyoto. Interestingly, Tokyo literally means To () – East and Kyo() – Kyoto. Therefore it means East of Kyoto.
Considering the fact that the city has a great and well preserved cultural significance, the entire city is inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List as ‘Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, making one of the best visited tourist destinations for both domestic and international tourists. This medium sized city with some of 1.5million residents hosted 4.5 million visiting tourists (Japan View, 2007). Consequently, the major attraction of Kyoto is visiting temples and shrines, learning a history of this ancient capital. 


Daimonjiyama Mountain Hike


Feel the earth!
Daimonjiyama Mountain(466m) is one of the mountains around the Kyoto Basin (yes, Kyoto is surrounded by mountains ranging from those little ones to about 1000m ones). Daimonjiyama (Mt. Daimonoji) is one of the local’s favourite Hiking rounte, with its easy to medium 45 min walk return.
Walking map of Mt. Daimonji
 My suggested route starts from just off the Ginkakuji Temple  (Silver Pavilion). It’s a fairly enjoyable walk which could be done with high heels on for girls (but not certainly recommended). Anyway, it’s a good walk. This mountain gets a bit busy on 'Gozan No Okuribi', every 16 August, the day when the mountain is decorated by the word '大','dai' which means big or giant, created by fire but otherwise, it a pretty quite trek to do. 

Mt Daimonji (Normal)

Mt Daimonji (with the fire decoration on) Picture Source


On the top you can get one of the best views of Kyoto City (personally, it is much better view than the view from Kyoto Tower, which you have to pay to get in). You can end up the walk at Honenin Temple, which is one of my heavily visited temple, as I like the style of this beautifully yet sophisticated temple.

The view of Kyoto, The top of Mt. Daimonji
The view of Kyoto, The top of Mt. Daimonji 2
Honenin Temple
Honenin Temple is one of my favourite temples in the world (well, I’ve visited temples in Indonesia and India before too). 



The Gate of Honenin Temple

It is not a massive temple like Kiyomizudera Temple, it is rather one of the smallest ones but because its small scale it has a full attention to the details of the set up of the temple (video-graphic image of the Temple). The generous dedication to perfection is seen from every single angle of this temple. The way the temple preserve is the harmony with the nature.  It means, the temple apparently looks like very wild and untouched, but it’s been highly sophisticatedly well considered for its design mixing different types of trees, flowers, moss and even roots of trees are integral parts of this attractive design of the temple.



Sand Garden
A bit of colour added
Beautiful mix of different trees and vegetation
   
Roots of trees are also the parts of the package

My journey still continues slowly for a little while.



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