In the morning we went first thing to the famous Fushimi Inari shrine. Not early enough, though - it was already packed. This was the most crowded place we went on the entire trip.
This shrine is dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. He's a fox.
It's most famous for thousand of these orange gates winding around up the mountainside. This means, of course, that everyone has to go up this one path. And that people want to stop for selfies in there and make everything even worse.
There were places it opened up, though. So many of these orange gates. These are donated by both individuals and corporations - the cost starts around $4,000 and goes up to over $100,000.
As we got higher on the mountain, it became much less crowded.
Here's Ben being annoyed at me for something (probably for taking his picture).
The uncrowded parts were really cool. There's something a little unsettling about all the tiny gates piled up haphazardly.
We got up to this overlook and stood around for a while, drenched in sweat, trying to find out how much farther it was to the top. It looked to be maybe another 20 minutes, which in those conditions seemed straight up grueling. We asked some people on the way down if it was worth it, and they said the summit was totally anticlimactic to the point that they weren't even sure they were at the top. YES. Permission to skip it.
I never saw one monkey. Unfair.
We went back down the wrong way, I think, and wound around through neighborhoods and mostly deserted temple areas. These dudes were repairing a copper roof in the blazing sunshine. I hope they're all right.
Just before leaving, we were accosted by another group of Japanese schoolchildren who wanted to ask us questions. Cute.
After this we took the bus to Nijo Castle, a shogun palace dating from the 1600s. The bus in Kyoto is great, really inexpensive and easy to use.
The elaborate gate is one of the reasons this is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
No shoes allowed!
No pictures, either, and it's too bad because the contrast between a 17th century Japanese palace and ones in Europe from the same era is very striking and interesting. In Japan it's all very calm and open and simple. Relaxing.
The palace is surrounded on all sides by gardens, of course.
And a moat! There is also an inner palace building that was being renovated, so we didn't get to see it.
After this we were dangerously hungry, and found a ramen shop down the street where you order and pay at a kiosk just inside the door, then give your ticket to the staff. The kiosk claimed to have an English menu, but only about 15% was in English so we picked from those items and it all worked out. Duck ramen for $6. "Oh, Japan is so expensive."
We saw more women in kimonos in Kyoto than anywhere else. There were quite a few people clearly dressed up for instagram photos, but some of them must be actual geishas too.
The next stop was Kinkaku-ji, the golden pavilion. There is nothing to do here but walk around and look at this thing, but, I mean, look at it!
It was definitely worth the trip. Like the other shrines there's a walking path up the hill and through gardens, too.
In the evening we popped over to Osaka for dinner, only a 30 minute train ride from Kyoto Station. The main reason I wanted to go to Osaka was to see it at night.
We felt like we hadn't had enough sushi in Japan, so I found a conveyor belt place in the Dotonbori district. It was awesome! You just take whatever you want and at the end they add up your plates to find out how much you owe.
Then we walked around to see the lights.
We saw this utterly chill cat hanging out by the canal in the middle of all that neon. He was awesome.
The Glico running man sign is very famous, for reasons that are unclear to me.
We needed some dessert. Baskin Robbins maintains a strong Japanese presence - who knew? - so we went there. They had some pretty crazy flavors. This place was full of chattering Japanese teenagers - the noisiest and most casual behavior we had seen anywhere, for sure! It was fun.
Here you can see the extremely clear instructions for how to organize yourself in the train station, which everyone obeys without question. I wonder what happens when Japanese people visit New York City. Nervous breakdown? All the trains and train stations are also nicely air conditioned.
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