No up, no down, no Insurance read the add for the Johnny Hill walker guided tour of Kyoto. Its quite a short walk about 2km but takes nearly 5 hours winding through the backstreets of Kyoto, taking in Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and the ancient cottage industries of the city which includes Nin-ten-do??
The tours first stop is at the Higashi Hongashi temple, unfortunately much of the site was under restoration. The temple was until recently sinking under the weight of its roof tiles, these are now being replaced lighter ones, problem, fixed. There was still plenty to see including the magnificent Dragon Fountain in the photo above next to Johnny Hill walker. Surprisingly in one of the newer temple building there was a state of the art cinema where even more surprisingly the monks sometimes watch Rock Music Videos. I'm not sure if this was a joke or not but the monks we have met seem a jolly laid back bunch of guys.
Above is the entrance to Higashi Hongashi, behind it you can see the building which has been built around the temple to protect it whilst its being restored. I was standing about 50m from the gate when I took this photo so you can get an idea of how big these temples are.
Amongst the fan makers and potters there is the original Nintendo building, here is where it all started in the form of a card game called Hanafuda in 1889, right here in the back streets of Kyoto. Before coming the video game giant they are today Nintendo ran a taxi company and a love hotel. Quite something as Nintendo now turns over US$4.5 Billion a year.
The last stop of the day was at yet another temple Kiyomizu-Dera. Visually impressive and like Machu Picchu in Peru nominated for one of the new 7 wonders of the world. The main temple is built upon wooden stilts, with a 39ft drop from the veranda. It is said that if you can survive a jump from here you wish will be granted. There were 284 jumps before it was prohibited and 84% of jumpers survived.
Weary from a long days walking we headed back to our hotel through one of the charming side streets near the temple.
Highlights: Pretty interesting to learn the history of Nintendo and the temples were stunning again today
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