Philosophers and "Silver" pavilions

Yesterday was a kind of ho-hum day. Cloudy and cold, we took the wee bit confusing subway to the closest station to Northern Higashiyama and began our journey upwards to see what we could find. Fortunately the sun began to peek it's way through and the evening was very nice. We started at the Keage Station and worked our way up the recommended path on our free Kyoto map we got from the airport. This map has been a life saver by the way. Anywho, we walked through really pretty streets, snapping some shots along the way. We've definitely realized our photography styles on this trip. My obsession is moss, tree and flower pictures, pictures with the focus point to the right side or and almost all my photos are vertical. Kevin likes horizontal pictures of roof tiles and other details on buildings, as well as the buildings themselves. Hence the photo where I am making fun of him and his roof tile pictures, they are soooooooo amazing, especially when we already have about 800 pictures of them alone... ;)

The Philosopher's path (Tetsugaku-no-michi) was one of our most awaited visits. We had seen pictures online and the place is supposed to be GORGEOUS during the sakura (cherry blossom) season. The path is along a canal that is lined with cherry trees and other flowers. However, when there aren't any sakura...the path is kind of dull. The name comes from a famous Japanese philosopher who was said to have strolled along the path lost in thought. It was pretty, but yet again, another reminder that we are missing the sakura season by maybe 2 weeks or so.

Tanuki

We stopped in at Honen-in which is a temple founded in 1680 to honor the priest Honen. The garden was small and the temple was closed but it was a nice little visit anyway. There wasn't much to see though, we were only there for maybe 10 minutes. AND THERE WERE MOSQUITOES!!! :P

We ended the tour with Ginkaku-ji or the "Silver Pavilion". It isn't really silver, just white and black. The name was given, according to our guide book, to distinguish it from Kinkaku-ji, the "Golden Pavilion". The gardens were pretty and the path lead a little ways up the hill so we got a nice view of the sunset over Kyoto. It was odd though, because for the first time from a viewpoint like this, we couldn't see Kyoto Tower.

After leaving Ginkaku-ji we started the long trek home. It took us FOREVER to get there. We were so tired, I had only slept about 3 hours on and off because of my cough, so the walk seemed even longer. It started to drizzle at one point as well which peaked the stress levels because we didn't bring our umbrellas. Luckily though, it passed quickly. We eventually found our way to the Kamo-gawa (river) and we knew if we walked along that we'd find our hotel's street. Besides, wouldn't you want to walk along this? There were even a couple of sakura trees. =)

Once we made it back, we ate a snack and watched a movie. I had a rough time falling asleep with my cough but finally found a comfortable enough position to pass out. Cough or no cough, sleep was going to happen.
So that was our little excursion for the day. Meandering through the quiet northern Higashiyama area was nice, but it probably would be nicer in 2 weeks. Oh well...

Thanks for reading!


-Anneli (and Kevin)