A day inFushiimi, Uji, and Nara

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Today I decided to wake up extra early (and by extra early I mean 7am!) to visit fushimi Inari.

Temples get super crowded by 9-10am so I knew I had to beat the crowd if I wanted some Torii pictures without that many people.

By 8:30 I had arrived at Inari station and I walked to the big torii across the street. I was surprised to already see some people but it was good enough to take a couple of pictures and not feel overwhelmed by all the tourists!

I decided to hike up and do the loop to come back down. I took my time taking pictures and enjoying the walk; then it started to get steeper and with a lot more stairs! After 70 mins of walking I asked a girl who was coming down how long more I had to go and she said FORTY more minutes! Oh my goodness! I was already tired of the torii bonanza and the heat was starting to get to me. The girl said the view was nice and added "but it's hot" and showed me her sweaty pink tshirt!... I'm definitely not going up!

I turned around and started descending towards the train station. And had more time for pictures (as if I hadn't taken enough!)

I found this man restoring the torii.. I can't imagine how long it takes to fix them! I went up and then down in maybe 30 minutes and he had done only one full character! So much patience!

Once I got back to the entrance of the temple I was glad I got there early! Thousands of people were now there so I was happy to be heading to Uji!

I took the JR train in the same direction as I came and headed to Uji to see the Byodoin temple. It was actually nice but not nice enough to deserve a stop and ¥500! I think the main attraction for Uji's temple is the Buddha inside it but it wasn't a big deal! I think that I might be getting tired of so many temples so now if they want my money they have to be really worth it.

And hour or so after arriving in Uji I was taking the train to Nara. On my way out of town I got to see a very funny white tiger backpack!

and also got to see how a man cut matcha udon noodles... pretty cool!

A friend of mine said that Nara was not that impressive and that it would be totally fine to skip it but I am so glad I didn't! I actually really liked it.

If anybody has ever been to Nara probably they would say that it is the city with deers and they are right! There are hundreds of deers walking all over town! Super strange! People can pet them, give them some food and even take selfies with them! They say (and I did see it) that if you bow they deer will bow back! haha

...Beware, even if the deers are used to humans, they are still animals and behave like such!

There were so many of them walking all over, some nice, some not very nice! Some deer would randomly go to stranger and start to bump them with their horns, mostly if they had crackers! (and some deers had their horns cut, probably because of tourist safety! haha)

I didn't like Nara just because of the deers (and if you ask me, they were a little annoying!) but because of the temples, and the walks between lantern filled streets, and trees all around. In all honesty I only intended to see the big Buddha temple but I got a little "lost" and that took me through temples I didn't even know were there!

Now the Buddha Temple!!!!!

After paying the ¥500 one gets into this gigantic courtyard with a huge temple on the other side. There was some incense like the one in Senso-ji and people of course were blowing the smoke into their face and i think breathing it in!

Then it was time to see the Buddha... The Buddha was GIGANTIC, I think it might even be bigger than the laying buddha in Thailand! I did not do a good job at taking a picture showing the magnitude of it but trust me... it was huuuuge!

I had a great day and the perfect end for my Kyoto stay, now moving on to Hiroshima!!!!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!