Day 8: Kyoto – Kinkakuji Temple & Fushimi Inari Shrine

Day 8 of our Japan trip was spent visiting two of the most iconic and unique sights in Kyoto City; the Kinkakuji Temple, and Fushimi Inari Shrine. Both institutions were in almost opposite sides of the city; Kinkakuji was in the north-western part of Kyoto, Fushimi Inari in the south-east. Just as well; we went to the former in the morning, and on our way towards the latter stopped by Kyoto Station for round #2 at God-of-All-Katsus-Restaurants, i.e. Katsukura. Had exactly the same thing again, which only goes to show how delicious the tonkatsus were.:)

Kinkakuji is also known as the Golden Pavilion as the three-story structure is totally covered in gold leaf, and on its roof top sits a bronze phoenix ornament. The entrance fee was 400円, and there already quite a few visitors by the time we got there just past 10:00 AM. But we were blessed with great sunlight, which gave an awesome sheen and gloss to the structure, and an almost perfect reflection of the structure itself into the pond. There is adequate viewing areas for visitors so that shoving and pushing to get a view weren’t necessary, though I think there were one or two really excellent spots for photographic composition. I was initially a little leery of having to pay yet again for admission into a site, but this was really worth the fee.

Tummies filled with tonkatsus at lunch, we headed to Fushimi Inari Shrine and reaching the venue at 2:10 PM. This shrine is dedicated to Inari, the deity of rice and sake, but is especially well-known for the tens of thousands of torri (gates) that line a long path that leads to the inner shrines. This much photographed avenue shows up as one of the most iconic pictures of a lot of Kyoto travel books, and is also in the Memoirs of a Geisha film. There were a lot of visitors about, which made photography tricky. I didn’t need to photoshop anyone out though – thankfully – but did have to wait at several points for a moment where there weren’t any visitors to take some of these pictures. Absolutely stunning locale – and no admission fees too!