Dog eat dog world: Day 9 - Kyoto (Fushimi Inari + Higashiyama District)

We arrived in Kyoto after a gruelling 10 hour ride. Interestingly, the Fujikyu bus was actually very comfortable (but then again, it better be coz we paid 8000 yen for it) considering what a long ride it was. What's amazing was that the bus only had ONE driver!!! Imagine toiling through the night from mount fuji to kyoto non-stop by yourself. Even between Singapore and KL, you get 2 drivers for a 5 hour journey!

It felt a bit surreal when we got off the bus. We've arrived in Kyoto. Though also a city, it felt very different from Tokyo. The bus had dropped us off at Kyoto station and we headed to look for macdonald's for some food. By far, this is the greasiest and tastiest mac's brekkie I ever had. C'mon it was a bacon and egg bagel drenched in mayo!! But what was even more interesting at Macs were all these Japanese ladies eating breakfast and putting on make-up. They all had with them their very own super huge mirrors. We were there at 6am in the mornng and there was this Ah Lian with her hair all done up - sprayed and styled in Barbie doll fashion. Strangely inspiring. Haha

We found our hostel (the very excellent K's house Kyoto), checked in and headed off to our first destination: Fushimi Inari Shrine. You may recognise it from Memoirs of a Geisha. What's special about this shrine is the endless line of bright orange Torii Gates that stretches from the bottom of the hill to the top. But I tell you, it was not funny climbing it at 37 degrees celcius. Me and CK nearly died from heat stroke and exhaustion.

After Fushimi, we headed back to our hostel and decided to have lunch at Dai-ichi Asahi Ramen. A small shop near Kyoto station. Apparently this is a very very popular ramen shop in Kyoto, and judging from the queue, I guess it's really true.

Dai-ichi serves shoyu-style ramen. It was really good as the noodles were silky and had a fantastic bite to it. Incidentally, CK ranks this as one of the top 3 things he ate in Japan.

Next on our itinerary was the must-see Higashiyama district. Here, you'll see old Kyoto with its endless slew of temples, old style shops, shrines and all.

Kiyomizudera Temple was jammed packed with people with several tour groups thronging the place. Anyway, what's interesting was that there was this place just before the main entrance that houses Kwan Yin's womb. Yes, you enter her womb! And basically you walk in complete darkness (it's so dark you have to keep your hand in front of your face) and reach this circular thing that you can turn and make a wish). One of the strange things you can only find in Japan. Here's the signboard of that place (you can read the kanji that says womb):

Check out how super crowded Kiyomizudera is:

We walked through Higashiyama and ultimately kinda ended up past Yasaka Shrine and back at downtown Kyoto, near Gion. Feeling hungry, this weird Okonomiyaki shop that had kinky kama sutra-ish drawings and dolls with pubic hair caught our attention. What's even weirder was their menu, which was soooo big but only contained one item! And did I mention the mannequins dressed in kimono seated at every table "accompanying" you?