Japan 2015 Day 34: exploring Higashiyama

Weather: beautiful 14°C, high 26°C

Accommodation: Sakara Kyoto.

After making breakfast at home, we took the bus a short distance to so that we were closer to Kiyomizu-dera. Saving our feet was important as we were going to be walking a lot while exploring our area of Kyoto, Higashiyama. ‘Higashi’ means ‘east’ and ‘yama’ means ‘mountain’, which tells you a bit about our area. We are on the east side of the Kamogawa river, and the hills bordering (and restricting the spread of) Kyoto to the east are fringed with hillside shrines and lovely stone-paved streets with older buildings.

As it was Saturday, there were lots of locals dressed up in kimonos so they can walk the streets, visit the shrines, and take lots of selfies (mainly take lots of selfies!).

We walked uphill to Kiyomizudera. It’s a stunning temple complex on the hillside. The views views of and from the site are amazing.

After exploring Kiyomizudera we walked around the neighbourhood looking in shops and making some small purchases, heading north, through lovely streets.

There are so many temples and shrines! We wandered through the streets, occasionally spotting maiko, to the Maruyama Park and Yasaka Shrine area. We had a bit of a rest here, then carried on north.

There was shrine after shrine, some small and intimate and some made to impress such as the Nanzen-Ji.

There were the occasional signs that autumn was on the way, however it was quite warm walking around!

We walked through the streets until we reached our way back home. We dropped off the purchases we had made along the way, then went to Starbucks – as was traditional – and enjoyed our coffee along the Kamogawa at sunset.

Scott and I took turns visiting Muji while the other watched Eskil at a small playground amongst the restaurants.

While wandering around the streets looking at shops, we saw this fantastic antique map of the area.

We wound up at the restaurant we had eaten at the 2 evenings before, but the food was great and Eskil likes knowing what to order so there is no shame in it, right?! This is him checking out the menu and saying, surprise surprise, that he would like some kaga-age.