Kyoto: What I Did Instead

Lots of suggestions about sights to see. Lots of doing my own thing.

Dear Jane,

A lot of suggestions were given to me about what I should see in Kyoto. There are so many famous sites, and I ignored most of the suggestions. Sorry, not sorry. I’m just not feeling the FOMO on large crowds. I planned on going to the two touristy things that interested me: the Fushimi Inari Shrine and the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove.

I had a wonderful few days in Kyoto, which had more oppressive weather than Tokyo. The weather app on my phone made it out to seem like it was going to start raining at any second or blatantly lied and said it was actively raining. I wish it had, because that ruined my plans and it was really hot. Kyoto has far fewer tall buildings that block out the sun.

On my first day, I decided I’d go to Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, because (haha) it was supposed to rain, and I figured that Fushimi Inari Shrine was closer to indoor activities that people would try to escape to. I don’t mind a little rain, and I certainly don’t mind a smaller crowd.

Lonely Planet has a book called Experience Japan. In the section about Kyoto, specifically the page about the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove and the Sagano area, there was a little “Top tip” that mentioned you could go swimming nearby in the Kiyotaki River if you did the walk they suggested backwards.

The idea of swimming excited me, and I attempted some research, but I couldn’t find anything about the Kiyotaki River, much less swimming. Japan seems to be about city pools and specific beach towns when it comes to swimming. Google and Reddit had nothing for me except brief mentions of a haunted tunnel leading to Kiyotaki village.

I got to the bamboo grove around 8AM and enjoyed the area until around 10AM when all the other tourists showed up en masse. That was my cue to leave and I made my way up some nearby mountain roads to the Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple. It was more of a hike than I thought it would be, and I really grew to understand and appreciate the metric system. The haunted tunnel I’d read about was just 100 meters up the hill past 1,200 Jizo statues.

It was a quick 7 minute minute walk through the tunnel. When I emerged on the other side, I discovered my parents had been turned into pigs, and the only way to save them was to become an indentured servant to an onsen-owning witch. Oh wait, that’s not what happened to me. I discovered a run-down trail head that led me down to the Kiyotaki River, where there were indeed some swimmers. I immediately cursed myself because I hadn’t brought my swimsuit with me because my phone was a dirty liar.

After taking a few minutes to wiggle my toes in the cool river water and observe the local snail population, I continued on the trail, which positioned me at the beginning of the one-road Kiyotaki village. Kiyotaki is a couple of houses, a restaurant, and a pottery gallery. At the end of town, there were two options: go up Mt. Atago to a shrine, or hike through the mountains to Takao, a different mountain temple village.

I chose Takao. The trail started off with an abandoned and decaying public restroom facility, which was also decked out in handmade bear warning and missing persons posters. This perfectly complemented the haunted tunnel.

The 2.8km hike to Takao was beautiful. It took me through the forest and along the river (seeing more people swimming stung a bit), and deposited me at a dam. Next to the dam were a series of closed riverside restaurants. They sat at the bottom of the 400-step entrance to the Jingo-ji Temple, famous for its good luck ritual of throwing clay plates off the top of the mountain. I would have participated, but I had to climb 400 steps up a different mountain to get to the bus stop. I lucked out in that it was a JR bus line, which means my JR Pass covered my ride back to Kyoto. The health app on my phone told me I got in 35,512 steps that day.

The following day, it was supposed to rain again. As you can guess, it did not. I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, and while I intended to walk through all the torii gates, I didn’t. I didn’t give up, I just went the wrong way. All the guides and YouTube videos leave out that it’s not just one long loop of torii gates. There are breaks as you go up the mountain. Some of them are cafes and souvenir shops, and some of them are paths and mini shrines leading off in other directions. I got duped by one of these off-shoots. Look, there were cute cats, ok? I wasn’t upset when I found out I hadn’t gone the right way. My legs were pretty tired from the previous day (and honestly, still sore from climbing Mt. Fuji.)

So I hopped on the train and went to the town of Uji. Kyoto is known for matcha, but that matcha actually comes from Uji. The tea is grown there and in surrounding villages, and then proccessed in Uji. It’s also home to the oldest tea house in Japan. Tsuen Tea House is currently owned and operated by the 23rd and 24th Tsuen generations.

I sampled a few different teas and had some matcha and green tea flavored sweets. Initially I hadn’t been sure that I was going to try anything matcha, because I don’t like matcha. But I’m glad I did. The matcha in Japan is ceremonial grade, and the match we consume in the U.S. is the lowest level food grade we could consume, and the difference in flavor is absolutely incredible.

The tea house is next to the Uji River and Uji bridge. While I was sipping my tea, I watched a heron dine on freshly caught fish under the bridge. It was a nice slow day in contrast to the day before. After tea time, I strolled through a nearby park and got a matcha cone to cool me off before heading back to Kyoto.

Kyoto is lovely but really hot, so I took a few hours to hide from the heat in the guest house I was staying in. I really hoped for rain. When the sun started to think about going down, I went out and explored the streets of Gion and Higashiyama. No geiko or maiko sitings. No rain. Don’t go to Japan in the summer.

<3 Katherine

PS – Just in case you didn’t get it, the parents turning into pigs joke is a reference from the beautiful animated film Spirited Away. I highly recommend you watch it and then do a deep dive into other Studio Ghibli films.

If you want to do the same walk I did on my first day, here’s the route.

PPS – As of December 7, 2023 the Lonely Planet Experience Japan link is now an affiliate link. This means clicking on the link will enable cookies for 30 days. If you buy something from Lonely Planet’s website within those 30 days, I will make a small commission. It also automatically adds a 10% discount to your shopping cart!