Previous Day: A Day in Beautiful Miyajima
Destination: Japan
Duration: 8 Days 8 Nights (Nov 27~Dec 05, 2017)
Day 5: Hiking in the Dark at Inari
We were leaving Hiroshima today and
were thinking we never visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park during
daytime. Since the park was just opposite the hotel, we went there for a quick
walk before checkout. The atmosphere at the park was really different than in
the dark and we spotted things that we did not see before.
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| Across the street to the Park |
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| The Memorial Cenotaph in morning... |
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| Peace Flame from Miyajima - though the flame can't be seen clearly here.. LOL |
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| Children's Peace Memorial |
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| A Panoramic View! |
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| Sammy was there... |
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| Peace Bell |
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| Colorful Leaves |
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| A View from the Bridge |
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| A-Bomb Dome |
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| Memorial Tower |
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| More Yellow Leaves & Sammy... |
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| I think these are the trees exposed to the bomb... |
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| A Random Tree! |
After some photoshooting, we finally
returned to the hotel for checkout and got on the Maple-Loop bus (free for
Kansai-Hiroshima pass) to Hiroshima Station. The bus station was just right in
front of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Entrance and it took us straight to
the entrance of Hiroshima Station. We bought two bento from a supposedly famous
bento stall to take it with us on our Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka.
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| Saying Goodbye! |
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| In the Maple-Loop Bus |
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| Getting our Bento!!! |
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| Beautiful Packaging! |
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| Tons of Food in Wooden Container... Yum Yum... |
Our timing was just nice for Nozomi
Shinkansen and this time the ride to Shin-Osaka took us around 1.5 hour. We had
to disembark at Shin-Osaka Station to take another train to Kyoto as our
Kansai-Hiroshima Pass did not cover Shinkansen between Shin-Osaka to Kyoto. We took
another express train which was included in the pass and we reached Kyoto
station at around 2pm.
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| On the Way from Shin-Osaka to Kyoto! |
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| Kyoto Tower |
We booked a guesthouse called Villa
Court Karasuma Nanajo but the check-in time was at 4pm. The guesthouse gave us
information to leave our luggage at their partner office at I-Satellite
Building opposite Kyoto Station for free. They also provided service to send
your luggage to your room for a fee so we took this option as we won’t want to
rush back to get our luggage later.
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| Girls in Kimono |
After settling our luggage, we went
into Family Mart which was right beside Kyoto Station to get some chocolate but
just couldn’t resist to get some hot food as well. We packed the food to bring
along our train ride to Inari. The train was really packed as it was a Saturday
and the crowd was even crazier when we reached Fushimi Inari.
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| OMG! People Mountain People Sea! |
We ended up sitting at the roadside
to enjoy our food before continued into the shrine. The place was so crowded
until it was difficult to walk or to take any pictures without someone walking
over. The shrine was famous for its endless torii along its path.
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| Let's eat the Family Mart Food 1st! |
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| No people? |
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| Lots of people once the camera is angled down! |
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| Expectation: Nice sky & View huh? |
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| Reality: Too many people!!! |
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| Let's take picture with the crowd then! |
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| Surprisingly most people were rushing for the Torii but missed this spot... |
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| The Endless Torii! |
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| Hiding outside of Torii |
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| I think this is the main spot for photoshooting but people just kept passing by! |
We were following the crowd and also
referring to the map in that area which stated where we were at. We went
through tons of stairs and were expecting to be near the summit since the crowd
was getting lesser. However, it was not the case when we referred to the next
map appearing en-route – apparently we were nowhere close!!! Another group of
tourist shared the same confusion and we were all questioning the ‘scale’ of
the map.
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| Do not trust the "you are here"!!!! |
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| We thought we were near.... |
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| But it seems like we are in middle of nowhere |
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| Some Lake... |
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| More Stairs! |
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| This looks nice! |
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| Will the stairs ever end? |
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| Apparently not.... |
We ended up continue climbing even
more stairs and reached some kind of observatory area where more paths
awaited!!! The view at the observatory area (I think it’s called ‘crossroad’ in
the map) was indeed beautiful but here came the dilemma – do we continue on? We
ended up continuing our hike following the direction given by an arrow which
mostly everyone disregarded and went another direction.
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| Nice View from the "Not Quite Top" |
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| Torii & the View... |
The climb was really really STEEP
with endless stairs. *sweat* One thing we realized this was actually the best
place to take pictures since there were practically no one there! The sky was
getting real dark and I think we passed Sannomine, Ainomine & Ninomine
before reaching Ichinomine (the top). We were kind of disappointed after
reaching ‘the top’ as there was only a shrine there.
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| What else? Stairs again! |
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| You've got to be kidding me!!! |
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| Let's get some ginger ale... |
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| Are we there yet? |
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| Nope! More stairs to go!!! *swear* |
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| Finally at the "Top" - Hmm..... |
We continued the round path (with
STAIRS) which led us back to the ‘observatory’ area again to a breathtaking
night view of the city. After that there were more STAIRS to get down from the
area to the main shrine area. The path was still full of Torii but could be
very dark and needed torchlight. It was around 6pm+ when we reached the main
area and the sky was completely dark. By the way did i mention it was incredibly difficult to find a rubbish bin here? We were taking along our rubbish from earlier meal uphill & downhill and we still couldn't find a rubbish bin! *facepalm*
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| More Stairs - thank goodness it's downhill! |
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| Night View & Torii! |
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| Breathtaking! |
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| It's kind of eerie actually... =P |
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| I think i'm officially tired of Torii... |
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| Finally!!! |
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| There is not much people at this hour... |
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| Fushimi Inari in the Dark |
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| Sammy says Hi! |
We went back to the Inari Station to
take the train to Kyoto Station to search for one of the famous pork cutlet -
Katsukura. Kyoto Station was a really big station surrounded by mall &
restaurant and it took us a while to finally found our destination at 11th
floor of the Cube building. There was a long queue for the seats but thankfully
there were chairs outside for people to sit. We were beyond starving and half
dead by then after all the hiking.
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| Finally leaving... |
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| Even the Inari Station has "Torii"... |
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| At Kyoto Station... |
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| Queuing for FOOD! |
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| Waiting waiting waiting... |
We waited for about 50minutes before
getting a table and we quickly ordered our pork choice of Joshu tenderloin
cutlet zen & Kyotamba Premium Pork. All the set came with free refills of
miso soup, barley rice & cabbage. We also ordered a kids meal for the lil
one as the set seemed so nice from the menu. Let me just say the meal was
really satisfying – it was really delicious and fulfilling at the same time!
*thumbs up*
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| All the condiments... |
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| Finally the foodsss!!!! |
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| Joshu tenderloin cutlet zen with a block of fat inside... |
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| Kyotamba Premium Pork |
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| Mixing it with sauce! Heavenly! |
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| The Kids Meal is a steal!!! 900Yen with orange juice, free sticker, free ice cream, Prawn & mini cutlet! |
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| People are still queuing at 9pm! |
After meal and some detours into
convenient store, we finally arrived at our guesthouse at around 9.50pm. The check-in
process was kind of funny where you had to get your room key from a safety box –
they emailed you on the passcode of the box few weeks before check-in with instruction
on how to get to the guesthouse. Our luggage was already there when we went
into the room.
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| Kyoto Tower at night... |
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| Found our guesthouse! |
The room was like a studio home with
everything built in. The bathroom was particularly amazing with mini TV inside –
one could even set it to ‘dry’ mode where you could dry your clothes in the
closed bathroom after the washing machine cycle. SO COOL!!! I WANT ONE!!!!
Anyway, thank goodness all the rooms we stayed during our trip had bathtub as
it really helped with sore leg when soaking in hot water. Half crippled people
like us definitely needed it! =)
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| Kitchen, Fridge, Microwave Oven, TV, Desk & Bed... |
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| Washing Machine, Bathroom with mini TV!!! |
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| Bought these from Mini-Aeon Convi Store - 100 Yen each only... |
Next Day: A Day in Eastern Kyoto
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