8D Avia Japan Tour: Express Visit to Kiyomisu Dera Temple, Kyoto
At this point of the tour, I feel that I somewhat join an Amazing Race competition instead of leisure tour. Why is that the case? Well, as you may have heard or aware, temples in Kyoto are popular amongst tourists, especially temples like Fushimi Inari and Kiyomise Dera. To be informed that we basically only have 45 minutes top to (1) make our way to the temple (2) take picture of cherry blossom (3) check out stores along the temple street is basically kinda crazy. Especially with this kind of crowd that we were dealing with.
But there’s nothing you can do other than quickly follow the tour leader in front to make your way to what I think it’s the entrance gate of Kiyomisu Dera Temple. Once we have reached this point, the tour leader quickly briefed us that we better off not wandering deeper to the temple ground because you have to calculate your way back via the same crowded street. At this point, my main motivation here is that yummy looking matcha soft serve which everyone seems to carry along the temple street. I have to get my hands on that baby.
But it would be a waste not to take picture of at least the main temple building and the cherry blossom since it’s not really easy to make your way to Kiyomisu Dera (I remember you have to take bus here cause there’s no train station nearby). The sakura flowers seem to be at the end of their bloom when we visited the temple but for us who don’t have the opportunity to see sakura at our own country, we enjoy seeing them at whichever stage I suppose. Except when all of them already on the ground I guess. Hahaha.
We finally found a good spot to take picture with the sakura tree. The side under the main temple will be a good photo spot for you to take picture with sakura tree. The good thing is, there are not many people here as well. By the way, I heard spooky history of Kiyomisu Dera before where people used to jump from the temple above to kill themselves. Well, at least it does not look so spooky during the day especially with a number of human spotted in the premise. XD
Peach coca cola is currently the trending stuff in Japan but since they are available in Singapore, I did not grab any. After all, I cut back my coke consumption nowadays. But I am still unable to resist the temptation of bubble tea sometimes back in Singapore. The weather is just too crazy hot and humid there. Oh right, i did not realised that the packaging for the peach coke in Japan is somewhat different though since they have the limited sakura bottle for the peach coke. You may want to get it if you are collecting the bottle.
The tour leader has warned us not to get matcha ice cream from the stall with long queue. Since my brother and I are pressed for time, we just went for the stall with not-so-long queue. Come on, there is no stall with no queue at all at this popular tourist spot, duh!
We took a glance at the crepe too but Kyoto is well-known for its matcha so we decided to focus on our main objective: buy and eat matcha ice cream. There are three varieties offered for the ice cream: (A) Deep matcha soft ice cream (300 JPY), (B) Deep matcha & vanilla (300 JPY), and (C) Vanilla soft ice cream (300 JPY). I stick to deep matcha soft ice cream while brother decided to mix it with vanilla. Both taste yummy and I love the fact where the spoon that we use to ice cream is actually a kind of snack.
