On To Kyoto!

Viewing Deck from Kiyomizu-dera

Off to Kyoto for the final leg of the trip.  It's a short 2 hour run on the JR Thunderbird! (gotta love trains with names). Kanazawa's rail station is a remarkable piece of modern architecture itself. The huge main entry is a huge wooden gate supporting the glass roof is meant to invoke the image of a TORII - the big, usually red, gates at Shito shrines.

 The view out the train window on this leg is similar, but different. This is the South side of the Japanese Alps. There are still a lot of rice fields, but with different growing seasons more of the fields have been harvested and in the second crop for the season [Niigata - the family region - has only one planting season because of their long Winters; further South, they get multiple crops].

There are also a lot more towns and villages, tending more middle sized. More alternative crops can be seen alongside the rice fields. The Alps are the constant background with quite a few mid-sized rivers flowing through the plain.

KYOTO!

Kyoto has the advantage of having survived WWII with very moderate damage (thanks to Henry Stimpson), it maintains the neighborhood of warrens filled with small shops and restaurants with the updated  wooden houses. Our base for Kyoto is a small house in one of these neighborhoods. 

Off to probably the most famous temple in Kyoto - Kiyomizu-dera, on the Mt. Otowa with large orange-red pagoda towering over the city. It's a good hike but, as with most the trip, walking in the sauna takes more time and energy than expected. To get up to the temple, we took the lesser-tourist route ["tourists," as always in this trip, is predominately Japanese, with a smattering of foriegners - much different than the crowds of Chinese/American/European tours that really pack these sites]

 This leads to a pleasant visit. Not having to jostle with the rest of sweating humanity is refreshing. This may be the last time this crowd-free version of attractions as Japan is trying to reopen to visitors. The economy of these places is definitely suffering without them and the government is making noises to reopen.

The temple is a complex of prayer halls, pagodas, store houses, and various other buildings sitting in a 140,000 sq. m. garden setting developed over 1200 years. For me, it's always a high priority visit

The views from the temple are as grand as those of the temple, and the designers made use of it. At almost every level of the complex there are viewing decks or sitting chambers with framed views of Kyoto and the Kansai Plain spread beneath. 

  

Hot, sweaty and at peace, what other time could it be but dinner time. Our tour guide for Kyoto took us to one of their regular spots for something very unique - Kyoto Burrito. The shop is called Que Pasa which is run by a former LA native. They do a tasty Southern California-style burrito which went down with a good Japanese draft

Back to our little place and the healing relief of air conditioning - all praise the compressor gods. As usual, there are a lot more photos in the Google album for the day - shots from the train, more around Kiyomizu-dera, and random street photos. This is at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YLWCR428sX9d8Wcn6