On today’s menu….

Starter: Kinkakuji 
First Course: Nishijin Textile Centre 
Second Course: Fushimi district including side dish of sake tasting
Dessert: Kyoto centre and Okonomiyaki again

Up and at ‘em fairly early as per usual and nomm’ed our breakfast down before setting off for one of the big tourist draws in the area: Kinkakuji – the Golden Temple. Although we didn’t want to spend the holiday just doing a series of obvious tourist spots you have to do some and it seemed a shame not to do this one. A bit like going to Paris and not going to the Eiffel Tower really. Both this and Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavilion) are a bit of a hike so we availed ourselves of the Kyoto Tube system and a short bus journey. The Kyoto tube isn’t as extensive as the Osaka one and certainly not in remotely in the same league as Tokyo, primarily consisting of two arms running North-South and East-West. It does run seamlessly into the train network though and the buses (as noted before) are pretty good. And you can use your Passmo card, although we did have to get it “activated” for some reason. Anyhow…

Once we’d walked up past the trinket shops and negotiated the queuing system we got throught he main gate and turned the corner to face…well, Kinkakuji itself (obviously). It was definitely worth the trip as it is stunning from just about every angle. It’s also set in extensive, well-manicured and “to die for” Japanese style grounds (I know – in Japan – who knew!) Face any direction at random and you’d give your right arm (well at least someone’s right arm) to have even a small part of whatever you could see in your own garden. Just jaw dropping. I like to think I can use a camera but honestly even the best photos we took don’t really do it justice.

It was also wall-to-wall tourists.

Even though we’d got there fairly early it was already heaving. I’m not moaning – we were some of them after all. Very much in the same fashion as moaning about traffic while being part of the traffic – grow up and stop whining. And it’s quite easy to get a (relatively) unobstructed view if you develop elbows and accompany these by the obligatory polite but insistent “すみません”. But just be aware that the photos you see of the place (ours included) are judiciously edited to exclude the surrounding mass of humanity. This is not one of those private, out of the way temples that you will be one of the first foreigners ever to visit. We heard about 20 languages in the first 10 minutes.

After we’d taken photos of the temple from every conceivable and physically possible angle we spend a good hour or so doing nothing but following the winding snake-like trail of bodies around the grounds. One-way only mind - make sure you’ve seen everything before moving on!

Apart from buying the obligatory matcha ice-cream we avoided the seemingly endless opportunities to spend your hard-earned cash on trinkets of every size, shape and quality and followed one of the plethora of unicolour baseball-capped school parties out of place and back to the bus stop. In addition to the massive organised school groups such as you’d get in any historic attraction in the UK we were genuinely struck by the amount of small “teams” of students, usually lead by a responsible student (senpai?) who was doing the navigating and organising of bus travel etc.

Sat around the bus stop for quite a while waiting to get on the correct route for the Nishijin Textile Centre which was another destination we’d targeted before leaving the UK. Despite the comments om Facebook and appearances to the contrary I did give up my seat at the bus stop for an older lady AND my seat on the bus too. I would have anyway (being well brought up and all) but it did give me chance to trot out one of my practiced lines “Obaasan douzo”. Got a nice friendly goodbye from the lady when we got off the bus so all good. :-)

Took a little while to find the place once we got off the bus at the right stop but eventually realised we must be in the right area when we passed a bunch of shops selling material samples.

The Nishijin Textile Centre is bit of an odd one. If you do just happen to be in the area then definitely worth dropping by. The museum is quite small and looking a bit tired in places, but it is genuinely interesting and the staff are all very pleasant. However, to be honest it does feel like a tourist trap of the "packaged tour day excursion" type that you get a lot in Spain and Turkey. It's mostly a huge shop with a mixture of some really lovely items and a lot of bog standard souvenirs which you can pick up just about anywhere. Unless you have a LARGE budget don't bother buying yukata here - there are much better quality ones for a lot less elsewhere. Although we had made a special effort to go and see it in all honesty it was a bit disappointing especially for Tracey who has a textile background. She was expecting a much more "interactive" experience. We honestly thought we'd see people weaving and perhaps have a go but there were only static exhibits and strictly no touching/photos. Perhaps we went on the wrong day. Pity really. It feels like it could be so much better. Avoided the Kimono show as it would have brought back too many memories of the “Fashion shows” we’d been forced to watch on said day excursions abroad. Anyway...

After a long hike across Kyoto back to the tube again we set our sights on the Fushimi district, as advised by the two Japanese ladies a few days ago in Toji Market. Sepcifically I wanted to see the Gekkeikan sake museum as they make some of my favourite sake, at least the ones you can get in the UK. The tube becomes the over ground network after a short pause at Takeda so it’s fairly easy to get to Fushimi from anywhere in Kyoto centre.

20 minute (interesting) walk down through Fushimi to get to the museum, the only issue being that it needs better signage. Unless you can read Japanese AND know what you're looking for, you will walk right past it. We did. Twice. 

However, this was an altogether much better experience and thoroughly recommended. It’s only 300 yen to get in (about £2.50 at time of writing) and you get a sample bottle of rather nice Gekkeikan sake that’d cost you at least that much with each ticket. WIN! Although it’s not huge it’s a really interesting museum that gives you a proper flavour of how sake is brewed, from rice harvest to bottling and the history of the Gekkeikan brand. Lovely, pleasant, very helpful staff and I had a nice conversation (in English and Japanese) with one of their guides about how Gekkeikan make my favourite sake on the planet – a yuzu flavoured nigori sake – which now seems to be impossible to find, at least in the UK. Also discovered that Gekkeikan makes the only Namazaki (unpasteurised sake) that doesn’t need to be kept in the fridge. I had wondered about this when I’d seen it on a shelf in the Japan Centre in London. Don’t know how they manage it. Probably magic or oni or something. Oh and the gift shop didn’t take the mickey on price either, although we were saving ourselves for the next day’s excursion to Saijo.

Once we’d exhausted we walked back up through Fushimi to the train station, with detours into a few other breweries and a bar/café that offered sampling menus of the local sakes. Of course we had a sample. Are you at all surprised at this point?

Once back in Kyoto (spotting the Nintendo HQ from the train window on the way although too far to walk back to it from the station mores the pity – next trip definitely!) we went back to the ryokan via the Don Quiote and Daiso stores to have one last go at finding a proper hold all. Failed. Ah well. Just need to compress/vacuum pack the clothing as much as humanly possible then.

Off to find the same okonomiyaki restaurant as last night as it was so good. Could we find it? Nope. Well, not for ages and after trekking round entirely the wrong area for an hour. Note: take a photo on your phone in any restaurant/shop/place you want to revisit and then use the GPS tag to find it again. We realised we could do this because we had taken photos the night before. Obvious really. Unfortunately we realised it after getting back to the UK. Muppets. And what do I do for a living? Exactly. Shameful, just shameful.

Nice welcome back from the ladies in the restaurant with food and beer/sake swiftly ordered. We were seated at the back of the restaurant and the table behind us was filled with a group of Japanese lads on holiday. Lots and lots of good natured conversation in (as usual) a mixture of Japanese and a bit of English. I’m not completely daft – I’m sure there was a bit of piss taking but nothing too overt. Their “ring leader” did teach me how to do Kanpai properly with the glasses at different levels so you live and learn. And they definitely took the piss out of their friend when they asked me what “Emotions” meant that was written on his t-shirt and I told them “気持ち” (feelings) which although not strictly true was accurate enough and got a laugh. Lots of photos taken of us all together so all in all thoroughly enjoyable evening and a bloody good end to the Kyoto leg of the trip!