15 days in Kansai (more hiking stuff...)

[kifo]

I will try to keep this report as short as possible by skipping all uninteresting stuff as much as possible. Uninteresting is always subjective so I should state uphand that all usual touristy stuff to me are not interesting and I am more into the outdoor scenery, some anime/manga stuff and more local highlights. For example, you won't see any Kiyomizudera or Dotonbori in my report.

Anyway let's start. I took ANA to Japan this time, therefore I had to do a transit at Tokyo. While the flight from Tokyo to Osaka is relatively short and painless, the total combined travelling and waiting time was well over 13 hours. While I enjoyed the Japanese movies selection on the flight, the whole experience was a bit too long and tiring.

Lunch on the flight from SG.

The transit to Osaka.

Osaka at about 8pm.

Went for ramen cos I was too tired to think.

Breakfast next morning. After this, I went to get the data sim cards from Yodobashi.

They have created a special section for selling sim cards. The situation has clearly improved from years back when it was impossible to find any bmobile sim cards on display in Yodobashi and you have to personally ask a sales clerk.

I got the IIJmio. I had great reception with this card throughout the trip, even instagramming in the middle of the hill in Mount Hiei. It totally didn't require any APN setting on my Nexus 5, it worked immediately once I inserted the card. My friend got the Sonet card and it must be activated through their website before use. Because I got the IIjmio, I could hotspot my connection for my friend to register the Sonet datasim card without any issue.

If you got the Sonet card in Yodobashi, activate the card in Yodobashi first. They have free WIFI for tourists.

 

[kifo]

The next day it was time to move to Kyoto.

Trains takes about 25+ mins depending on normal or rapid service. I think I enjoy taking normal trains more squeezing with the local people.

The unmistakable Kyoto Tower Hotel. I include it here so you can later spot it in the other photos later.

First stop after checking in - Tamako Market. For those of you wondering what is Tamako Market, it is an anime.

The stone turtle bridges!

Masugata Shotengai! The real life Tamako Market.

The huge shark!

Demachi Futaba, a real life famous Kyoto sweets shop and the inspiration for the Tamako Store! The shop is forever crowded. I queued 30 mins to buy 2 daifuku.

This is probably the real life Tamako.

 

[kifo]

For a great afternoon walk, I would recommend a walk along the Kamogawa. The river is fantastically clear now and there are plenty of wildlife and interesting sights to see. I walked all the walk from the Kamogawa delta to the Sanjo dori before catching a train back to Kyoto Station.

The ducks came swimming near when I approached. Too bad I wasn't carrying any bread to feed them.

There were lots of white egrets along the river, especially along the weirs where I think they can easily catch small fishes.

In good weather, the river is beautiful. Do dress up as the wind was very strong as I walked along the banks.

I walked all the way until I reached the statue of Izumo no Okuni near Sanjo dori, supposedly the woman who invented Kabuki. Kabuki is mostly a male only profession now unfortunately.

Went back early to rest as I would be starting my hike the next day.

 

[Deathskull88]

Haha, Kifo, off to ur off-the-beaten track adventures again eh? Show us the mountains!

Why didn't u take directly to Osaka tho?

The dedicated sim card section is great! Long overdue haha.

 

[kifo]

Erm there aren't many real mountains for this trip as I will be hiking mostly the low hills around Kyoto and Kobe...

Anyway let's start. The first day the weather in the morning was fine, but it soon started to overcast and then it drizzled. Not bad enough to pull out the waterproofs so it was alright.

This is the Kyoto Trail I am doing for this trip. It is a 70+ km trail that starts from Fushimi Inari on the eastern side and then it goes up north into Mount Hiei before crossing the northern hills of Kyoto to come down on the west side of Kyoto at Arashiyama. Basically, it hikes around the perimeter hills around Kyoto and I was indeed able to catch glimpses of Kyoto city from various high viewpoints on the hike.

Naturally, I started at Fushimi Inari.

Didn't start very early, since the first day was more like a city hike. Lots of tourists already crowding up the shrine.

From here starts the torii gates.

Lots of school kids on fieldtrips that day.

This is how much it cost to put up a gate for yourself.

This is the view from the first rest spot up Mt Inari. There are benches here to sit and eat your breakfast or lunch. I had my breakfast here.

A bit about this view - this is to the south of Kyoto. The big highway you see in the picture is the Hanshin Expressway. The hotel I will be staying after the Kyoto hike is over the Hotel Anteroom which happens to be slightly to the right of where the expressway starts in the foreground. (Actually the expressway goes underground from there and it goes under Mt Inari towards Yamashina.)

Lots of tourists will hang around here for a while. There are some shops selling food and drinks.

 

[Crexzz]

Spoiler

Is this photo edited? curious, what camera are you using? on closer look, the subjects seems to be outlined from the backdrop

 

[kifo]

After breakfast, it was straight to the top of Mt Inari.

Nothing much to see here except a shrine.

Then it was down to the rest spot and then taking another route towards the direction of Sennyu-ji temple.

The area around the back of Tokufuji here is quite beautiful.

This is one of the Kyoto Trail trail markers. I kept looking out for them for the next 4 days. There are a lot of them in urban areas where street directions can be confusing, but there are also some spots where it was quite hard to figure out the way because there are some gaps in the marking of the route in certain locations. I ended up missing some turns later in the hike but they are not serious.

I think it was the yuzu season.

Behing Myoho-in, the trail enters into a forest.

 

[kifo]

Is this photo edited? curious, what camera are you using? on closer look, the subjects seems to be outlined from the backdrop

It is just the auto-enhanced effect feature of Google Plus... It is now over-sharpened by the automatic algorithm.

 

[kifo]

The forest was a pretty small one. I think it took me 15 mins to walk out...

But the exit part was a bit confusing, as it leads to an expressway and the only way to cross over was to take one of the exit ramps and cross under the expressway. I missed the route here and had to use another underpass much further down the road.

Roadside deities.

After crossing over, it was a hike up Higashiyama hill to reach the park at the top.

This park is basically directly behind Kiyomizudera and you can see Kyoto Station and the iconic Kyoto Tower in this photo.

Getting down from the park was also confusingly marked. I again missed another turn and ended up coming down by another route nextr to Chorakuji Temple.

So I had to walk out to Sanjo dori and I passed by the pretty entrance to Chion-in.

The next part of the Kyoto Trail is to walk along Sanjo dori until I reach Keage station. Just before getting to Keage, I passed by the Nanzenji end of the Lake Biwa canal, which was a waterway constructed back in Meiji Era to transport water and goods from Lake Biwa to Kyoto.

This was the railroad used for hoisting the boats along the canal. Now it is a park.

The last part of the hike of this first day was to hike up the Daimonji hill where this canal goes under.

A hiker going up the Himukaidai Jingu Shrine near where the hike starts. I took another route which was punishing steep rocky slope up the hill. But eventually, it leveled off to a pleasant trail walk.

 

[kifo]

Got to the top by 4pm.

It was a fantastic sight. You can just perhaps make up the shape of the Kyoto Tower in the center of the picture right just below the sun hiding behind the clouds. The hill just in front is the Higashiyama which I just climbed earlier that afternoon.

It was another 15 mins walk before I reach the Daimonji slope where they lit up the bonfire making the shape of the kanji word "大" (BIG) in August each year. This is part of the Gozan no Okuribi matsuri at the end of every Obon in Kyoto.

This is from the top of the word "BIG" looking down towards Shijo dori.

After this it was a walk down the kanji before exiting the hill somewhere near Honenji around 5pm. Took a bus back to the hotel.

 

[kifo]

Day 2 hiking was supposed to start very early, leaving hotel as early as 7am, but my friend overslept so we were half an hour late. While waiting for my friend at the lobby, the ambulance came and carried out a man who was vomited at the lift area on his way out. The police even came to question the receptionist. So at least my waiting time was quite interesting!

Took a bus to the Ginkakuji area and started walking through the residential streets.

The entrance into the trail was beside a community hospice.

There were supposed to be monkeys about, never saw any though...

The trail condition started out great, but soon became a riverbed. Well at least winter is a dry season.

Passed by a fabled Hakuyuushi home/cave on the way up. Hakuyuushi was this fabled hermit who supposedly cured the famous real Hakuin Zen Buddhist master of his Zen sickness when he was training to become a monk.

After the Hakuyuu place, it was a climb up to the first peak of the day. This is Mt. Uryuyama, which was also once a castle known as General Castle back in Sengoku era.

After gaining the first peak of the day, much of the walking that followed was quite easy and gentle. I saw lots of hikers and mountain bikers on this trail.

 

[kifo]

The trail joined an even wider forestry trail, and there were lots of mountain bikers and trail runners on this section.

When it was time to leave this wide trail, it was a steep descent into a river and then up a steep hill.

Finally reaching the Mt Hiei cable car station which has a fantastic view into Kyoto. See if you can spot Kyoto tower in the picture.

The trail continued onto a road wide enough for vehicles to pass.

It passed by an abandoned ski resort.

And from there about 680m high up on Mt Hiei, I could see the small village Ohara into the distance. I must reach there in another 4-5 hours before dusk!

Finally the road crossed over a highway before entering into Enryakuji.

 

[kifo]

Crossing the footbridge over to Enryakuji. I only covered the western tower section of Enryakuji on this trail. The main eastern tower section is a bit further away and I didn't have time to make a detour there for this hike. My friend was totally new to hiking so the pace for these 2 days was very much slower and most of you who are reading this and have some experience hiking should be able to do better than my description here.

Long flight of stairs down to the main west tower compound.

Joudo in. This temple is in-charge of the Daimonji matsuri lighting of the Daimonji hill fire which I mentioned a few posts back.

Colourful moss on the rocks here.

Typical shinto-buddhist arrangement in Japan. A shinto shrine next to the carpark area in Enryakuji.

This bridge is called Ninaibou after the shoulder yoke of the legendary strongman Mt Hiei monk Musashibo Benkei.

This is the Shakado, the oldest building in the Mt Hiei complex. The original was burnt down by Oda Nobunaga when he ransacked Mt Hiei and this present building was another earlier temple (14th C) shifted here when Hideyoshi took power later.

I had riceballs for lunch in front of the temple and you can see the temperature is hovering around zero.

 

[[M]aiev]

Kifo, i use your picture of Izumo no Okuni. I really like that statue

Sent from GAGT Android App

 

[kifo]

No problem [M]aiev, go ahead.

To continue with my hike...

A short 15 mins break at the Shakado, and then it is back to the trail.

The Kyoto trail actually joins with the much longer Tokai Nature trail after Enryakuji all the way until it almost reaches Arashiyama.

Looking back at Mt Hiei. Into the distance, You can see Osaka and that super tall building is Abeno Harukas.

This is the 2nd tallest peak on this section of the trail. Not much of a view from the top though.

Frost on the ground on the downhill part.

 

[kifo]

After Mt Yokotaka, it was a short distance walk to the highest point in this part of the trail.

It was all downhill after that to Ohara.

It signboard says famous general Minamoto Yoshitsune used this path in one of the legends about him.

The part near the end of the trail towards Ohara was very rocky and wet.

Finally Ohara! After this point it was a half an hour walk along roads to the onsen ryokan.

Misonabe was popularised by this ryokan.

 

[kifo]

Time to update my report...

Next morning I wanted to start off early because I have a super long hike ahead for that day, but the ryokan could only serve breakfast earliest at 7:40am. By the time I got out, it was already 8am.

Do book a stay at this ryokan if you ever get out to Ohara. The onsen at the back is wonderful!

A walk out of the village. Lots of beautiful farmland.

I had to make a detour to the nearest Family mart to get food for the hike which took me half an hour before I could get to the start of the hike.

A cute sign at the start of the hike into the forest.

The hike started with a small stream crossing.

After another 30mins, I had to cross a road up in the hills.

 

[kifo]

Passed by a shrine along the highway.

The trail enters into a forest just beside the main road. While it wasn't very interesting here, at least it was better than walking on the road.

But as it nears the next village, it was back to walking along the road. More farmlands.

Entering the village...

This is really a pretty village.

At the end of the village, the trail crosses over a pass into Kurama. There are many interesting houses on this part of the trek.

Some of the huts appear to be for rent in the summer seasons...

Crossing over to Kurama.

 

[kifo]

Long time never continue, let me try to finish this report..

Descended into Kurama at around 11 in the morning. I was a bit shocked that I took so much time as there was still a long way to travel that day...

The whole temple was built on a hillside. I had to climb higher and higher up since I wanted to cross over to Kibune.

There were just a lot of steps...

Apparently this was one of the power spots in Japan. Likewise I did not miss out on the opportunity to gather some "power" for myself too.

This was the entrance to the "hiking path" to cross over to Kibune.

 

[kifo]

Calling this a hiking path would be generous. I think you have to pay 200 JPY if you enter this path from the Kibune side. I entered via Kurama temple and so presumably I paid have already it with my temple ticket.

It was just a lot of steps. I rushed through the whole trail in half an hour cos I was already running behind my schedule.

Nice fungi???

Kibune Shrine was just next to the exit of the hiking trail. The shrine has a beautiful torii and omotesando.

Probably the most popular touristy thing to do at Kibune shrine is the omikuji that uses water. You can buy the blank paper omikuji from the mikos at the souvenir stand and then bring it to this spot where you wash it with the water here and your fortune will be told as words will now magically appear on the paper. I saw lots of young women and men giggling and excitedly chatting while washing their omikujis here.

I sat outside the temple and had my onigiri lunch while worrying about the time. It was already half past 12 and I still have a long way to hike...

I set off immediately after wolfing down the rice balls. I quick marched down the main road that climbs up to Kibune. It was a long way going down and still some distance before I could really get back into the forest.

Finally crossed into the forest after this train track at quarter past 1.

Steep climb up to this crossroad junction in the middle of the forest. This crossroad was ominously called the Night Crying Pass.