The Arashiyama neighbourhood is temple central. Pretty much every other street has a temple. Each one has something different, of course. Karine, pitying my minimal patience for the spiritual, had picked four temples with very unique elements on the grounds to distract me from the fact that, at the center of the grounds, there’s a shrine.
If you’ve been thinking of a temple as a single building, the same way one thinks of a church, you’re, regrettably, wrong. Indeed, it’s usually extensive grounds with multiple buildings, each with a Buddha statue inside and serving a different purpose. There’s always a main temple and shrine, however, usually toward the center of the grounds.
We had breakfast at Daiki Fisheries Rotation Sushi, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in the basement of Tokyo Tower. Seeing the different plates of sushi passing by amused Karine to no end and sparked a little bit of spontaneous interest in sushi with pretty toppings, often fish covered by a dollop of sauce with a plant stuck over it. Overall, the food was good. We ordered the customary ōtoro and chūtoro tuna to ensure we didn’t miss out, and it also gave us some straight sushi without the surprising toppings.
We took the train from Kyoto Station to Saga-Arashiyama Station. Even though we were well past lunchtime (13:30), the train was full of people heading to Buddhist temples. Our itinerary broke with all of them right away, as we decided to make our way in a loop, instead of going through the marked road to the furthest temple and then walking back along the same road. Instead, we walked along one of the main roads to our first temple. The view on the road was not particularly worthy, but we were the only ones on it (even car traffic was infrequent).
First stop: Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple, known for its countless small Buddha statues, each unique and moss-covered. When you first look at them, you think it’s just a couple of different faces and expressions, especially since the first one we’ve met, we’re older or, at least, more weather-worn, so even if they were different, there were more similarities than differences. The further we explored the site, the more we saw collections of Buddhas, each marked by distinct differences. We met some with animal faces, some laughing, some meditating, and even a couple sharing a glass of wine.
Making our way to our next destination reminded us that you can’t always trust Google Maps to route you appropriately in Japan. In this case, Google wanted us to approach the temple from the opposite end of its entrance, taking a detour across the road to provide easy access. As I explained later to a lady trying to find a nearby temple, when walking in rural areas, follow the map as you would a paper map, and use the blue dot and compass to guide your navigation. Don’t use the routing function.
Our second stop is Adashino Nenbutsuji Temple, with its thousands of memorial statues tightly packed into about 50 square meters. The gardens around it are small and unremarkable but offer shade and respite from a relentlessly sunny day (not that I’m complaining). The memorial statues are many hundreds of years old and are weather-worn. It gives them a style that’s impossible to imitate, a unique sight.
Giouji Temple has a moss garden. Probably the most unique form of garden we’ve seen since we arrived in Japan. The ground is covered in a thick, lush carpet of moss, with trees springing up at irregular intervals to provide shade. Maintaining the proper humidity to keep the moss happy and healthy must be a fair amount of work, but it makes for a stunning effect.
The last temple, Jōjakkōji Temple, is actually better suited for a visit in the fall, as most of the trees on its grounds will change colour. It also affords stunning views of the base of the hill and Kyoto beyond. Even though it's still late spring, we appreciated the garden's views.
We ended the day with the Okochi Sanso Garden. Manicured with great care, the garden is beautiful and offers a foolproof course for a visit. There’s a single route you can take, and it’ll take you around the whole garden and its gorgeous views of the surrounding areas. Before you visit the garden, you will be served a small bowl of matcha tea with a side of sweets. It sure gets you in the best frame of mind for your visit. Timing your visit is essential here, as most temples close at 16:30 or 17:00, and the gardens close at 17:00. We got to the garden at 16:35 and were told to hurry. We managed to make it out just before closing but had to chug our tea and swallow our sweets whole (almost).
The return to the train station is done through a bamboo grove. The tall bamboo, reaching well above 10 meters, is quite a sight. So are the tourists and locals alike trying to stage an Instagram photo shoot in the magnificent decor. I grant you it’s pretty, but do you really need 300 pictures of yourself in different poses in front of bamboo trees?
We grabbed dinner at Hafuu, a great Japanese steakhouse offering one of three set menus, each including 200g of wagyu sirloin. We went with the “ordinary” meal that was anything but. It started with Tataki-style beef slices, followed by grilled brisket, a sweet pepper soup, and a green salad with a slightly sweet yet simple vinaigrette. It was followed by the star, a perfectly cooked steak with vegetables, dauphinoise potatoes and a side of rice (we’re in Asia, everything comes with rice). Trying to eat dauphinoise with chopsticks is no easy task, as you need to break the gratin on top somehow. Maybe the effort of breaking the potatoes is meant to keep you in the mood for dessert. Even if Karine and I ordered the same thing, we were served two different desserts. I had crème brûlée, and she had mango pudding. Both were delicious, I can assure you.
We finished the day walking to our hotel and getting ready to head out to Hiroshima, the last city on our vacation itinerary.