Peter's Japan blog

In this part, I'll talk a bit about more places I'll (most likely) visit on my next trip to Japan this year.
Like I said in the previous part, I said that I wanted to stay in Kyoto this time in the south as opposed to Osaka the last 2 times. But because of the tight schedule, I won't have much time left to explore many new places in Kyoto itself, except for the first day I arrive in Kyoto. I'll be arriving at noon in Kyoto, so I still have the whole afternoon free. After looking around a bit of things to do in Kyoto (and there are still plenty of things to see), I decided to walk the Path of Philosophy from Nanzen-ji to Ginkakuji (the silver pavillion), which has a few shrines along the way. This should have many good spots for taking pictures. I might also try to do Sanjusangendo on the way.

After Kyoto will probably come Kanazawa and Takayama, and then I'll go to Koyasan (Mount Koya), which has many buddhist temples. These temples have special accomodations for tourists to stay one night in a temple. Sounds interesting and I will try to do that. The next morning I will go straight to my next location, Kumano, which is not far away, but requires quite some travel time. As transportation is not very fast in this area and there are quite a few nice places to visit there, I unfortunatly have to make a choice of just one location before I return to Kyoto. I've chosen Nachi Taisha in Kumano, which is a shrine temple located near a large water fall. I will not be doing the other popular shrine in Kumano: Hongu Taisha, due to time constraints.

More planning, next week!