Kyoto - coffee, alcohol and more shrines...

A Kyoto bus turns around Gion Corner in front of the Yasaka Jinja Shrine.

Our hotel for 5 nights has been the Okura Kyoto, at the corner of Oike and Kawaramachi Streets, was a taxi ride from Kyoto Station for us and our luggage. The Okura is possibly the best we have stayed at so far on this trip. Our room is a big suite, the bathroom was spacious, the shower was hot and forcefull etc etc. Thanks Alan for arranging this stay! A great buffet breakfast was in the top floor restaurant with a great view to the east across the river, and a leaflet explained what all the landmarks are. The Okura let us check in early, and has direct underground access to a shopping centre and a subway station.

One of the very best hotels on this trip, the Kyoto Okura.

Origami cranes let for us by staff at the Okura.

The Kamogawa River travels in a straight line south down the east side of Kyoto and no doubt helped to define the rectangualr grid of this city.

Earlier crossings of the Kamogawa River have been replaced by modern bridges and even stepping stones.

Early cherry blossoms at a high school in downtown Kyoto.

Most of the tourist hotspots are in the hilly rim surrounding Kyoto, but this shrine is right in downtown on Oike-dori.

Coin laundry we used in Kyoto was tiny, modern, clean & tidy and we had to take our shoes off.

After some exhausting days on Kyoto buses, we decided to have a relaxing, walking day assisted by the subway. Higashiyama Station is only a few stops away from the hotel, and from there we walked to Shoren-in Temple just to look at its very old sprawling camphor trees, and we found a nice quiet little zen garden there too. This is a pleasant spot bypassed by most visitors, it seems.

Ancient camphor trees outside the Shoren-in Temple.

Serene zen garden at Shoren-in.

Virtually next door is Chion-in a huge and popular temple complex where the major shrine Mieido is undergoing a massive renovation and is entirely covered by a huge scaffolding shed which almost dominates the skyline. The works are not discouraging visitors - the place was quite crowded with both visitors and worshippers. Chion-in has yet another massive san-mon gate at the front steps.

Another huge but characteristic san-mon gate at Chion-in.

Bamboo grove at the Chion-in Temple complex.

Mossy ramparts on the hike upto Chion-in.

Created from wasteland only 300 years ago, Maruyama Park is very popular year round.

Under guidance of a walking map, we found Maruyama Park, a wasteland when developed some 300 years ago, now a paradise of a Japanese garden whose cherry trees must be a picture in spring. But our main objective of the walk was a giant buddha backing into the hills that we could see from our breakfast room, and which (from the hotel's annotated flyer) we figured out to be the Ryozen Kannon temple, which doesn't feature much in Kyoto highlights.

Considering the crowds nearby, it was very quiet at Ryozen Kannon, and maybe we discovered why. It memorialises some unleasant truths. The 24m high buddha is "A Tribute to The Unknown (Japanese) Soldier - World War II" according to the brochure, and an adjacent memorial is for unknown allied soldiers who died on Japanese soil or occupied territories during the war. A large card index purports to contain the names, one to a card, of every such allied soldier. And, within the temple, there is a sad memorial to miscarried babies. There are cases of tiny statuettes, which now number just under 5000.

Giant buddha at Ryozen Kannon is a tribute to unknown Japanese soldiers who died in WW2.

This memorial at Ryozen Kannon is for allied soliders who died on Japanese territory during WW2.

Side view of the buddah Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.

Making wishes at Ryozen Kwan-on Temple.

Many of nearly 5000 statuettes at the memorial to miscarried foetuses.

Just south of Ryozen Kannon we stumbled on a shopping/cafe area which is one of the prettiest we've seen. The main street in this area was labelled Ninen-zaka Path and in that area we also saw the Yasaka Pagoda, apparently the third highest wooden structure in Kyoto.

Unheralded Ninen-zaka Path is one of the most pleasant streets in Kyoto.

We figured we would walk home from here, even though snow was still falling. We passed through the area called Gion, a very popular touristy district, found some lunch, and walked along Shimbashi Street, a reputedly beautiful historical street. It was virtually closed - obviously Sunday is not a working day along here.

These two schoolgirls asked us to participate in a survey about our favourite foods in Japan and at home.

Drip falling from a bamboo pipe at a frozen washing fountain. Note that trapped leaf!

Tasteful craft store near Gion.

The "Happy Bicycle" shop specialises in tiny models like these.

The Yasaka Pagoda overlooks a popular shopping lane near Ninen-zaka St.

Endless selfies by young ladies in kimonos.

On another day we did some socialising and visited friends of Alan Gibson in the Kyoto area of Saiin. Saiin is towards the middle of Kyoto, so well away from the touristy rim, but near the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Eddi (Australian born, Italian by heritage) and his Japanese wife Hiromi own a cafe called Caffellatte in Shijo Street and gave us a great welcome. We enjoyed paninis, espresso coffees and gelato, and great conversation. You can find Caffellatte at http://caffe-llatte.com/index_e.php, we can recoomend it. Thank you Eddi and Hiromi!

Hiromi and Eddi at Caffellatte in Saiin.

In the evenings in Kyoto, when not after coffee, we usually wanted something stronger, but found bars were often expensive and (worse) smoky! We know that Japanese are renowned as heavy smokers, but frankly, have scarcely noticed smoking at all, wherever we have been, until we went into a bar. Smoking is clearly now discouraged in cities, and is outright banned in some streets. Restaurants have no smoking, or at least no-smoking areas. But bars! Well, that discourages us from having another drink, which is a good thing!

Steep cover charges are apparently common, and when you are not drinking that much, makes it an expensive tipple. Frankly, we paid too much for a drink or two in several places. Tourists' dislike of the cover charges must be becoming known - we now notice places advertising no cover charges for foreigners.

Around the Yamanote Line...

The Yamanote Line is a JR (Japan Rail) above-ground train that navigates a large circle within inner Tokyo, taking about 90 minutes for one lap. It runs both directions, but we did it clockwise from Shinjuku getting off at several locations to have a look around the neighbourhood. Our PASMO cards, topped up previously, worked a treat, and the terminal gives you a clear indication of the balance at each swipe on.

New Year's Day, pretty quiet on the JR Yamanote Line.

At Tokyo Station, near the Imperial Palace, we just wanted to look at the renovated station building from outside. The renovation was completed in 2012 and restores the 98 year old building to its pre-war condition, having been bombed-out in 1945. It is a long and stunning building, moreso because of the magnificent empty square in front of it. With lawns and paving, and vehicles only at the extremes, the views of the building are superb.

Destroyed in WWII, beautifully restored Tokyo Station.

This station takes more trains than apparently any other in Japan, and lots of exploring to do around the station, most notably the Imperial Palace, but we saved that for another day.

Pachinko seems to be a captivating distraction for men, this one in Akihabara.

Crowded swap meet at Akihabara Station.

Akihabara is renowned as an electric city and we strolled aimlessly around the (very crowded) streets for a while. The electric retailers were fascinating, but the most interesting thing we saw was in the station forecourt where a huge gathering of men were involved in a swap meet of photographs of young female celebrities, we assume. Photos were being traded and placed in what looked like quite generic photo albums. (At Shibuya, we later saw a smaller version of this with young women swapping cards showing boy-band celebrites.)

Nautical themed temple in Ueno Park.

But the main part of our day was spent at Ueno Onshi Park, next to Ueno Station. We had been told that this would be very popular during the New Year holiday period, and indeed it was. The park is very large, and is home to the Ueno Zoo, several museums, many shrines. The latter were the subject of long queues of people lining up to pray and ring the bells. A large lake, Shinobazu Pond, is at one corner of the park, and its island features the famous Benzaiten shrine which had such a long queue that a facilitator was there to manage the crowd. The causeway to this shrine was lined with market stalls selling all manner of fast food products, including, we noted, kebabs, being run by a pair of decidely non-Japanese looking vendors.

Shinobazunoike Pond in the Ueno Onshi Park.

One of many stalls offering fast food to visitors tp park and shrine on New Year's Day.

Tori Gate leads to the Toshogu Shrine.

Washing and drinking rfitual at the Ueno Toshogu Shrine.

Hoping for health and prosperity in the New Year.

Eternal flame from and memorial to the Nagasaki A-Bomb blast.

Promises and prayers outside the Ueno Toshogu Shrine.

Visitors in front of the golden gate of the Ueno Toshogu Shrine.

The real reason we went to Ueno was to look at the Ueno Toshogu Peony Garden. The admission arrangements made it clear that this was the garden of the Ueno Toshogu Shrine, a magnificent gold-gated building with a fine path through a Tori Gate. A sign at the Garden apologised for the state of the peonies which had suffered due to "bad weather". The peonies on display looked pretty good, and were protected from the day's sunshine with straw umbrellas, and their stems and the soil around them were wrapped in straw matting. The day of our visit, 01 January, was the first day of the two month opening period for the garden.

Appreciation of the flowers in the Ueno Toshogu Peony Garden.

For this day of outings around the Yamanote Line, it was sunny and cool, about 9C, but no wind, and conditions were very pleasant.

New Year's Eve...

Cocoon Building, a spectacular landmark in Shinjuku helped us find the railway station.

Our flight to Tokyo's city airport Handeda was uneventful in the end, but almost didn't happen. At Sydney airport we were asked the mysterious question "do we live nearby?", the reason being that the aircraft was having engineering issues, and we might not be leaving until the next morning. But it boarded only about 30 minutes late, and we found out what the engineering issues were. The seat in front of us had major electrical problems, and four burly technicians spent the best part of an hour on it before departing, without success it seems, because the passengers who discovered the fault had been moved somewhere else and were never seen again.

Twin towers of this imposing Tokyo Metropolitan Government building.

Love Object, Shinjuku artwork popular for selfies.

Passage through Haneda's customs and immigration was lightening fast and efficient, despite several incoming aircraft. Fingerprint and photos of course. Our taxi (and its driver) was immaculate, though not quite big enough to hold our baggage comfortably. The driver's English was good enough to understand our instructions. He took Credit Cards, which was a pleasant surprise. The trip to Shinjuku (on the western side of Tokyo Central) seemed to be mostly though tunnels, took half an hour, and cost JPY8000.

The Hilton Hotel is quite close to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government towers.

Waterfall feature called Niagara Falls in Shinjuku Chuo Park.

One evening, while we were in our Hilton Hotel room, we felt a mild but distinct earth tremour. It lasted maybe 5-10 seconds and the vibration was quite noticeable 28 stories up in our modern skyscraper building. We were reassured by the knowledge that these are frequent occurrences in Japan, and buildings are built to withstand them. Certainly, this one produced no fuss or alarm.

This ceremony at the Juniso Kumano Jinja shrine was repeated all over Japan on New Year's Eve.

Our arrival in Japan was on New Year's Eve. Like all big cities, there are fireworks, but the main New Year's custom is the ringing of 108 bells at shrines by Buddhist monks. Well before midnight people come to the shrine and ring the bells themselves in a ritual involving washing, clapping and bowing. And, for days afterwards, people queued up at at every shrine we saw to perform a small ritual at the front steps, including throwing a few coins to a receptacle. We suppose the purpose of this is to pay respect and pray for good health and wealth in the coming year.

Shinjuku is predominantly a business district and the streets were very quiet during our stay here for the holiday season with goes to 04 January. But our hotel was 100% packed with holiday-makers, almost all Japanese, with only a smattering of tourists like ourselves - we must have been lucky to get our bookings here. The region houses the Tokyo Metropolitan Office, a gigantic twin tower building. As a concession to the public, the observatories at the 45th storey of each tower were open (and busy) on 01 January, although closed on the other holiday days. These offered 360 degree fabulous views of Tokyo (through some haze), including the legendary, snow-covered, Fuji-yama (which we could also see from the hotel).

On our first day here, we had a prearranged meeting with Nakahara-san who was to assist us validating our prepaid rail passes, making reservations on the major trains, topping up our PASMO cards (like Opal cards but with wider utility) and showing us where to make other bookings. We could probably have done this ouselves, but finding the right counters at the massive Shinjuku Station (36 platorms, 200 exits, almost 4 million people every day) would have been difficult without him.

Glimpse of Electric City, retail outlet district in Shinjuku.

Shinjuku Station is only about 400m from our hotel which provides an excellent and well patronised shuttle-bus service. From the Station, we set about getting the hang of Tokyo's extensive railway system.

View of this iconic Mt Fuji from the Observatory of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government office.

The mass of suburbia west of Shinjuku.