Fushimi Inari and the golden pavilion

We started the day easy with breakfast in the room bought from the nearby 7-11 last night. You gotta love them “conbini” (convenience stores) like 7-11, Family Mart and other similar outlets around the area.

By the the time we arrived at Fushimi Inari, it was almost 10am and there was already quite a number of people there. As we walked the path, we came to the famous orange tori gates which you may have seen aplenty online.

Snapping a photo here without distractions was a challenge because it wasn’t early enough that only few bodies were moving about. In addition, walking higher up the hill wouldn’t make a difference because the gates further weren’t as tight and short.

Therefore, the only choice you would have is to wait for your chance during this situation. And there were many doing the same.

Once we completed our visit, we headed to Gion for a chance to catch some geisha’s walking around. Although we didn’t manage to stumble on any, we had a really good lunch at a restaurant with yummy oyakodon and grilled chicken. As a Malaysian, that’s still a win. Lol.

Then we wrapped up the touristy activities for the day by paying a visit to the golden pavilion; kinkaku-ji. The amount of people here was kinda crazy especially when you could’ve seen the amount of them from individuals, tourist groups and also, school trips.

By the way, if you do visit the golden pavilion, take note the best place to take the photo isn’t where everyone is crowding around. If I may make a suggestion, it’s at the bend between the crowd and leaving the crowd.

The other interesting place at the Kinkaku-ji was a shrine where others wrote on a wooden panel with the face of a fox. It was interesting because you may draw on the white wooden panel with the face of a fox. And being in Japan, you could see the huge influence of manga style in the drawings.

At the end of today, our feet could feel the numbness from the walking and step climbing. Oh how it would feel to enter an onsen or hot bath. Because though our hotel room has a tub, there’s 3 of us and not enough space outside the tub to shower first. Sigh.

Well, we’re not quite sure where we’re headed tomorrow, but I do hope the weather forecast would be wrong and we’d have either a cloudy or sunny day. 🙂