Ancient Kyoto

 Just happened that was the Kyoto-Jidai-Matsuri Festival at one of the day (22Oct) of our trip

So we managed to attend to this traditional Japanese festival

The locals and foreigners all sit near to roadside to enjoy the parade

I was talking to an auntie, and she told me about the festival briefly

That's all about their authentic old fashions of various periods and characters at ancient times of Japanese

 

After the parade of the traditional festival, we visited to the Yasaka Shrine near to Gion

This is a temple with many lanterns, and with free admission

Gion is the place popular with the profession of Geisha, which has existed since old times of Japan

There were many tourists at this area to wait for Geisha to come out from the premise

as they hope to take the pictures of the Geisha here

It's not easy to take meet them here, as they will be performing in the premise rather than walking out, yet we manged to meet 2 Geishas who walk towards the premise, they are so beautiful!

 

We have the temple day out at one of the day of our trip

We first came to the Kiyomizudera (pic: bottom one) near to the Higashiyama district, a temple built with wood and with a platform supporting by wood pillars

Then we went to the Ginkakuji (pic: upper right), a temple with a small sandy hill and Kinkakuji(pic: upper left), a temple painted in gold built on top on the lake.

All three temples are awarded as UNESCO World Heritage sites

The temples were at the area surrounded with nice scenery, great temples with awesome building structures built since old times of Japan

We were there too early, the maple trees yet to turn to red

Good time to be there would be early Nov everyyear, to see the surrounding with red maple trees!

  

Arashiyama is another place with a world heritage site there, the Tenryuji Temple

This is a temple for the believers to study the religion, it's another beautiful temple!

 

Walking down from the Tenryuji Temple, we came to the Bamboo Grove and Togetsukyo Bridge

Bamboo Grove is a very beautiful place, that was with bamboo plants at the surrounding

Togetsukyo Bridge is leading us to the small town at Arahiyama, where we enjoyed our souvenir shopping and have our tou-fu meal here.

We have missed to take the Sagano Scenic Train as when we were reaching the train staion, the train was left and the next train was an hour late. Not to waste our time, we proceed to next sight seeing.

 

A small tip from me, to go the Arashiyama, our experience told us that, we should take the Landen train and drop off at the second last stop before reaching the final stop at Arashiyama, to take Sagano Scenic Train here. Riding on the train to enjoy the beautiful scenery found here, then stop near to Bamboo Grove and walk towards Tenryuji Temple and Togetsukyo Bridge. If time permits, you can even have a foot bath at the hot spring near the train station of Arashiyama.