Wandering Fel

If you are a curious traveller and like to make a stop here and there in order to see interesting stuff, you will probably need to allocate more time whenever you are visiting a temple in Japan. Most of the famous temples in Japan (e.g. Fushimi Inari in Kyoto and Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo) have temple street which is filled with food and souvenir shops. The food and the souvenirs that these shops sell are usually so tempting. For instance, how about some oden stuff on a stick, anyone?

A shop with a cute bunny on its signpost must be visited for sure. #weaktocutethings

A lot of bunnies are sighted in the shop. One cute bunny costs at least 540 JPY though. If you decided to adopt all of them, you will go homeless I think. Hahaha. Okay, I guess that's an overstatement but you got the point.

The shop sells other interesting stuff too like Furoshiki which is actually a mere wrapping cloth. However, the Japanese has a God-given talent in wrapping stuff and hence, probably a lot of tourists were cheated buying this because they thought it is a kimono. Okay, the notice is definitely necessary. 

If you want to see how lucky you are in finding love, you can take one of the reading. Getting a bad luck? No worry, you can tie your bad reading under the red box. Looking at the count of paper tied below there, one can't help but wonder if there are more bad luck than good luck inside this glass box. 

Not interested in food, souvenirs and love reading? It's okay you will enjoy the spring walk anyway because there are so many pretty flowers to see along the road. 

We needed to rush a bit toward the end of the road in order to reach Ginkaku-ji Temple on time because we totally spent so much time adoring all these stuffs. You have been warned!

If you are confused, you can look at the building opposite the bus stop as the building is pretty distinct, I have to say. It looks like the Japanese traditional opera house. Hahaha.

You will be able to see the sign "City Bus" which is put up at the bus stop. We took bus no. 201 to go to both Philosopher's Path and Ginkaku-ji Temple The journey lasts pretty long around 30 to 40 minutes I think, if there is no traffic. 

Once you are ready to alight, you can press this button so that the bus driver knows when he needs to make a stop. The convenient thing about riding the city bus to popular place like Ginkaku-ji Temple, a lot of other tourists will be alighting at the same stop with you and hence, you don't have to worry about missing your stop. 

Right after you have alighted from the bus, you will see this sign and congratulations for alighting at the right stop. Tetsugaku no michi is the Japanese name for Philosopher's Path. 

There is this yellow flowers right beside the wood sign but we are pretty sure sakura does not come in yellow...yet. Nothing is impossible nowadays. 

Uhm, this is not what we really expect when we plan about coming to Philosopher's Path. As what I said in my previous posts, we came to Kyoto one week too early from the blossom date of the sakura flowers. Such a pity. 

If you come to Kyoto when the sakura flowers are in full bloom, it is a must to go to Philosopher's Path because the path will look like this. Like a scene from the movie right? 

Oh well, better luck for us next time. If we ever come back to Kyoto in spring, that is. =P