KYOTO SWOT!

We had a long weekend in Japan – Marine Day on Monday – it’s suppose to be a summer holiday to head to the sea and celebrate all the ocean has to offer… instead we headed inland to Kyoto!

Kyoto is a much smaller city than Tokyo (1.5 million peeps), and was previously the Imperial Capital of Japan. In order to give you a proper analysis, I’ll present my findings in a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) analysis J

STRENGTHS:

·       There are 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Kyoto – we saw a fair few of them!!!

Kinkaku-ji - Golden Pavilion

·       Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) – This was our first stop on Saturday – we took the bus from Kyoto Station up to the northern part of Kyoto and started our journey. The pictures speak for themselves – it was lovely. I can’t help but feel that I was wearing pooh-coloured glasses the whole weekend as we were constantly dripping with sweat and burning in the sun. But, on reflection, it was a lovely sight J We then walked a few kms through the Ryoan-ji and Ninnaji Temples – see “opportunities”!

Mango Juice... with Green tea :( 

·       Arashiyama area – We caught SEVERAL private trains to get the western side of Kyoto – the Arashiyama area. It was rather pretty. We were starving and finally settled on an overpriced café where we got two mango juices… unfortunately, we didn’t suspect they’d come with green tea in them! The quicker we learn to read Japanese menus, the better! 

Arashiyama area

Tenryuji Temple

We hiked through the Tenryuji Temple … we were temple’d out at this stage – the most exciting part was seeing how big the koi fish are in the ponds at a temples! 

The winner

We grabbed an ice-cream and sat on a bench near the Oi River and soaked it all in. Ninja eyed off the Ninja shoes on the rickshaw caddies.

Rickshaw caddy wearing Ninja shoes

Nijo Castle

·       Nijo Castle – The Castle where the Shogun lived. We walked through the various rooms in the “castle” – it’s one storey with high ceilings and covers a large area (could be similar to our Wembley Downs house we’re designing :P)… we couldn’t take photos but it was nice to walk around the on the nightingale floor boards with our shoes off (the squeak alerts the bodyguards when people are approaching). The walls were decorated with paintings of trees, flowers, etc, in gold.

·       Yamaboko Float – this is the pinnacle of the Gion Matsuri summer festival and involves 32 floats. We watched with thousands of others from one street corner. It was crazy – people everywhere – certainly a time to reflect on how nice it is to be tall J

Yamaboko Float

One of the 32 floats

·       Kyoto Tower – This was just near Kyoto Station – it was good to get a perspective on the size of the city and where some points of interest were. We saw a rooftop pool which we longed to swim in, but alas, it was closed!

View from Kyoto Tower

Kyoto Tower

WEAKNESSES:

·       Public transport – in Tokyo you can reach any destination by taking two trains (max) – Kyoto was another story! I bought us sightseeing Day 2 passes which were suppose to give us access to buses and trains inclusive… we later found out it gave us access to buses and two solitary subway lines. The other private railways, JR lines and trains were extra!

·       Kyoto Imperial Palace – silly us for thinking that since the Imperial Palace is now in Tokyo, they’d let the public in to the abandoned palace in Kyoto! Shame, shame, shame. Instead we walked several kms around the outside of the Palace wall, through a forest area, which was rather dull and super hot… ah dear! The highlight was seeing families picnic in the park, and a young boy caught a yabbie in the drainage stream, he was dead chuffed with himself!

Yabbie fishing

OPPORTUNITIES:

·       Ryoan-ji Temple – Ok, so Zen rock art is apparently Japan’s greatest artistic achievement… I sure hope not! We joined everyone else and sat down and stared at the few rocks, but I must say it was more to have a drink’s break, than to enjoy the “art”! This could have been more impressive, Kyoto – next time, add a few more rocks, maybe make the garden bigger… bit more effort required here!

Resting our feet at Ryoan-ji Temple

·       Ninnaji Temple – Few nice buildings, the pagoda was cool… but spread way too far away from each other – took ages to get through it; it had minimal shade; and I really feel that some water mist sprays wouldn’t go a stray here – damn it was hot!

Pagoda at Ninnaji Temple

·       The Shinkansen (bullet train) could go faster – I wasn’t that impressed with it. Leg room was tight (with a suitcase in front of you) and it didn’t feel like we were travelling 240-300km/hr… I expected more!

Shinkansen

THREATS:

·       Heat stroke- The deadly 37 degree heat meant that we were lathered in sunscreen, sweating profusely, drinking 5 litres per day without a toilet break, and juggling a sweat towel, umbrella, fan and water bottle! Go in cherry blossom season (March – April) or in Autumn when it’s orange and milder climate. Some Aussies from Karratha might say that 37C is nothing, but commonly if you are spending 6-8hrs a day trekking in Australia’s North-west, you are rewarded with a swim of some description – not the case in Kyoto.

·       Blink-and-you-miss-the Geisha - On our last day we headed to Gion, the suburb where Geisha’s are prevalent. It was pouring with rain, which I understand can’t be good for their make-up… we walked through the historical area and only spotted one dishevelled Geisha heading to the Gion Corner – she must have been in training, cos her hair-do was not up to scratch. Suspect that Geisha’s are like leopards in a game park… you see a few ‘rock Geisha’s’ before you see a real one on the move!

Gion area - Geisha hunting

 xoxo

Karate Kate