2009年10月31日 11:03
Where to go when you want to feel like a real tourist
From the time I arrived to Kyoto, I`ve already seen some beautiful places here. I mainly saw less popular ones, but this time I decided to visit one of the most famaous temples in Kyoto, Kinkakuji. Golden Pavilon is open for tourist from 9 am. I suspected a lot of people will be there, that`s why I decided to start my day from visiting this temple (hoping that in the morning amount of tourists will be a bit smaller). I get there just after 9 am and I already knew that it won`t be easy time for me. I`m not fond of crowded places and in front of the Kinkakuji entrance area I saw many pedestrians, cyclists, cars, buses... It was just too much! But I really wanted to see the Golden Pavilon, so I went in. The place is really amazing and really worth-seeing. However it`s not a good place to relax. I really enjoyed seeing that gorgeous temple as I always wanted to see it, but I`m not sure if I would like to go there again.
Very close to Golden Pavilon, Ryoanji is located. It`s also very famous place, but after practising my strength among crowds of Kinkakuji, I thought I will be able to manage another crowded place. Ryoanji is famous for it`s beautiful stone garden. However when I first saw it, I wasn`t so amazed that I thought I would be. There were couple of school trips, it was loud, crowded and the garden seemed to be very small - nothing special. Fortunately, while I was reading about the garden (and about that it should be calm and quietly to see the real beauty of this place!), the groups moved forward. So I sat down and enjoyed watching the garden. It was really nice experience. I could imagine that this indeed is a good place for meditating. So eventually I saw its charm.
Because I didn`t want to waste time for cycling a long way, my next destination (Ninnaji) was also very clese to Kinkakuji and Ryoanji. As my guidebook said, it is a very good place to relax after crowds in two previous places I`ve been. And it was true. Ninnaji was so peaceful that I spend there a lot of time. It`s not only one temple but whole complex including also museum and palace. I`m not sure why it`s not so popular but thanks to that it is good place to regenerate your mental condition.
Because of the fact that it was very busy day for me and it was really hot, I felt exhausted. But even though I went to see one more nearby place - Myoshinji. It is also kind of complex of temples and it was also very good idea to go there. Similarly to Ninnaji, there weren`t many toursist so it was relaxing and enjoyable to walk around there.
After such a day, I know, that even though it was worth to see `one the most beautiful temples in Kyoto` I prefer visiting something less popular which is also beautiful and I can enjoy it in silence and tranquillity. However, there are some more `must see` places that I`ll probably visit. And even fact that after such a day-off I`m sometimes more tired than after work, it`s still the way of spending time that I like. I can see many wonderful places and meet many interesting people.