Fall Trip Part 6: Higashiyama and Kodaiji
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
After Kiyomizudera, we headed towards Kodaiji. I had originally planned for us to go there after Kiyomizudera on Saturday night, but of course that didn't happen because of the crowds. But luckily we hadn't really planned anything for Monday anyway so it worked out fine.
First we got another jumbo chicken stick. So good!
To get to Kodaiji we walked through the Higashiyama district. It was really nice!
There were a lot of really nice shops.
Wow, that picture looks really crowded. I don't really remember it feeling that way though. Maybe I was just used to it by then.
That adorable character caught my eye and I had to go in the store! They had a lot of cute and pretty merchandise, including several items with Kotone, the character in the picture above. I ended up getting a folder which is hanging up on my wall now.
We saw a store with a bunch of bikes made out of wire. They were impressive!
There were quite a few rickshaws in the area. I've seen them in Asakusa, Tokyo before but haven't been too interested really. But it looked like it would be really cool in that area, especially while dressed up in a kimono!
I also saw several girls dressed up as maiko (apprentice geisha). I doubt they were the real thing though. There are many places in the area to do a maiko makeover. I did it once a few years ago, though I didn't get to walk around outside. I think it's more expensive to do that.
Finally we made it to Kodaiji!
So cute! And so tiny!
Those parasols were lit up at night, which would have been neat to see.
We took a short break for a few minutes and rested in there.
Kodaiji was really nice, though I was feeling a bit templed-out while I was there. I would have really liked to see it at night. It's too bad we didn't have the chance to see any of the temples at night.
Then we began making our way back to the station.
I saw a couple of stray cats outside of a temple. I didn't get a picture of the other one, but they were both cute! I wonder if they were actually stray or if they were taken care of by people at the temple. They looked healthy.
Huh?
This time is delicious? Haha. I want to ride that bus.
That's the Yodobashi Camera store we visited two nights before. If you like gachapon toys, you must go there if you're in Kyoto!
We got some bakery stuff for an early dinner and ate in front of the Christmas tree in the station. The steps were rainbowy! :)
Then we got ice cream from Ice de Lion (by the same company as Mister Donut) which I had been eyeing every time we passed it in the station.
I got cream soda, strawberry brownie, and chocolate fudge. The cream soda was surprisingly good. Well, I expected it to be good, but it was really good. It was melon flavored sherbert with vanilla ice cream. The strawberry brownie was also really good and just like I expected. The chocolate fudge was actually rocky road so I'm not sure about the name (maybe because of rocky road fudge?) but it was good. Though Jonathan had some double chocolate flavor that was super rich and amazing.
We had a really nice view overlooking the bustling station. It would have been nice to just relax a bit, but we had a train to catch.
Before getting on the train I went to the bathroom. I couldn't help taking a picture of that sign. Hahahahaha!
I was sad to leave Kyoto. It would have been nice to spend one more day there. I had seen enough temples and culturey stuff I think, but we wanted to go back to the arcade we went to four years ago and I would have liked to spend more time (and money...) in the gachapon section of Yodobashi.
Our trip had been really nice and we had really good timing with the fall colors, though that also meant crazy crowds. Kyoto is very beautiful in the fall!