Sarah blogging again. Alan will undoubtedly add his 2 cents worth in red.
This morning we had a nice sleep in. I stayed up last night and then Alan got up to watch soccer during the night so we didn’t actually leave the hotel until midday.
After yesterday’s walking fiasco, we decided not to trust the map and asked at reception about a bus to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple. We were told that the No. 80 bus just outside the hotel would take us there. The sign at the bus stop also said that the bus would take us there. So when we got on the bus we assumed it would take us to the Temple. It didn’t. Well it took us a heck of a lot closer than if we had to walk there from our hotel. The bus driver told us where to get off and which direction to walk. When the sign said the Temple was 500 metres we took it with a grain of salt. It would appear everything is 500 metres in Japan. The walk, all uphill was more like 1km. Of course, when it comes to anything numerically related, Sarah always grossly exaggerates. I vaguely recall you also saying that it was a lot more than 500 metres.
However, it is spectacular once you get there. Kiyomizu-dera is famous for its giant wooden Butai (stage) overlooking panoramic views of Kyoto and its main hall is purely constructed of wood and supported by huge columns and beams without the use of a single nail, screw or bolt.
Just below the stage is a natural spring where visitors drink sacred waters believed to have therapeutic properties. I don’t know about that, but I do know the water tasted pretty good. It was a reasonably warm day today. The crowds were queueing up behind Sarah while she stood there hogging all the spring water as she drank about 15 cups. I took one, unlike a lot of others who also washed their hands in it.
After walking around there for 90 minutes, we decided to hit the large shopping (and food) complex above Kyoto Station. The place is huge. There are 11 floors. I’m sure you can get to the Sky Plaza Observation Deck by lift, although we couldn’t find it, so we took the many, many escalators to get up there. While riding the escalators to the 11th floor, we cold look back down into the station building. It was quite daunting how high we appeared to be. The view of Kyoto wasn’t that wonderful once we made it. They have used a heavy tint to cover the glass and most of it was fairly scratched up. I guess we can’t complain as we had the view for free. As for being a “Sky Garden” it was more like a little patch of grass.
Inside the shopping centre we started looking for food and again found ourselves at an Italian restaurant. Unlike last night’s meal, there was more enough food and it was a lot cheaper. We didn’t realise when we ordered a pizza, pasta and salad that we also got as much bread as we wanted plus soup and a dodgy looking tomato thingy to which we said no thanks. There was no going hungry today. Also, a first for us in 15 days, we actually got a knife and a decent sized napkin. We haven’t seen a knife since we got off the plane. You either live with chopsticks or a fork and spoon combo. We were so happy to see an actual knife.
By this stage we had been out over four hours so we caught the subway back to the hotel for a nice afternoon lie in.
As lunch was more like linner (lunch/dinner) we opted for a little McDonalds for dinner. The thickshakes are great of course but the rest of it is just as bad as in Australia.
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