Travel Journal 2017

First up on the agenda for the day was the Sagano Romantic Train. The old panoramic train winds its way along the Hozugawa River. An experience you can happily skip. Sitting on the wrong side, we spent most of the 25-minute journey staring at a hillside, whenever we weren’t going through one of the eight tunnels.

A trip on a paddle steamer on Lake Biwa was much more our cup of tea. The lake is the biggest in Japan and slightly bigger than Lake Constance.

Kyōto itself has missed out a bit so far, so we had a look at a few places today. The Tōfuku-ji temple and its accompanying garden, for instance.

In the distance on a mountainside, we also spotted a large Kannon statue. It belongs to the Ryōzen Kannon, a somewhat neglected site that’s mainly meant to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the Second World War.

At the weekend and with such lovely weather, you can find women wearing kimonos pretty much everywhere in the Gion district. And if you’re really lucky, you might even spot a real Geiko. That’s what they call a Geisha in Kyōto.

Today was the finale. We walked the Philosopher’s Path, which runs alongside a stream and past several temples. A detour took us to the Heian Shrine with its beautiful gardens. Finally, we hiked through a forest up to the Shōgunzuka Mound, where the viewing platform gives you an unbelievable view over Kyōto all the way to Ōsaka.

Last night we got to experience a little earthquake. Just north of Obama (yep, that’s really the name of the place), the earth shook with a magnitude of 5.0. Back here in Kyōto, about 80 km away, we felt the floor shake just a tiny bit in our hotel. Totally harmless by local standards, but it was plenty of a thrill for us.

Sadly, our trip is already over now. The bags are packed, and tomorrow we’re heading back to Germany. But we’ve got a few photos in our luggage that we’ll be sharing here soon.