trip reports

Kyoto: Higashiyama Temples: Maruyama Park, Yasaka Shrine, Kiyozdemeru

August 20, 2023

Background

In July 2023, our family visited Japan! We visited in late July and combined this trip with a Hawaii visit and 5 days in Seoul.

This post covers the Higashiyama Temple area. This was split between our first half-day and our last half-day.

Read all of our 2023 Korea/Japan posts at the following links:

Day 1: Higashiyama Temples: Maruyama Park, Yasaka Shrine, Kiyozdemeru

Hello Kitty Train! We kicked off the Japan portion of our trip with a ride on a Hello Kitty Train! The Haruka runs from Kansai airport to Kyoto station and has cute decoration, seats, and even bathrooms lo. Tickets are about $24 per adult and half-price for kids

Lunch: Eel! Near our hotel, we found a small chain called Nakau that sold curry, eel, salmon, and fried chicken. Super cheap too! After getting settled into our hotel after our day of travel, we decided to go see some temples. We didn’t have big plans for the day but just wanted to visit a few sights on our first day. Because we didn’t head out till around 4pm, many of the sites were closed by the time we got there. If you’re copying our plans, this should be done earlier in the afternoon rather than later like we did.

Southern Higashiyama Temples: Chion-in Temple was the first temple we visited. Chion-in is very grand with a huge entrance gate (the biggest in Japan!). There are beautiful pagodas and gardens. The cost is less than $5 for adults (paid in cash). We walked by the entrance gates and continued our walk to Maruyama Park

Maruyama Park: This cute park is beautiful and has lakes and bridges and mountains in the background. We grabbed some vending machine drinks and walked through the park to the Yasaka Shrine area. The kids rang the bell and we saw the large and beautiful shrine.

Gion Walk: We skipped some of the temples as we continued south through Ninen-Zaka & Sannen-Zaka Streets. This area is super cute with beautiful houses and a 100-year old starbucks. Warning that there are lots of stairs in this area! 🙂 But check out these views of the Yasaka Pagoda! This pagoda was built in 592! We continued the walk towards Kiyomizu-Dera temple. Although we were too late to view the temple, it was still awesome to see. If we had planned our day better, we would have tried to grab some convenience snacks for lunch and headed out immediately so we could see the sights when they were open

Izakaya dinner: For dinner, we had some awesome yakitori (and edamame!) at a restaurant near our hotel. There were no English speakers but we survived with google translate and papago and it was delicious!

Day 5: East Kyoto Temples: Philosophers Path, Nanzeji Temple

Random Kyoto neighborhoods: I made this a category of its own because it was a fun little side adventure. We decided to save some of the other farther sites such as Nara and Fushimi Inari for a future visit but still wanted to visit a few more good free temples on our last full day. I saw a blog post for some off the beaten path spots and we wandered over to Takenaka Shrine and Shinsho Temple. These are not on anyone’s top lists but were still gorgeous. And we found a neighborhood playground. Always a joy.

Philosopher’s path and Nanzenji Temple: We walked along the philosophers path from North to South. This path is a beautiful walkway next to a small canal. I’ve read its especially gorgeous during cherry blossom season. The walkway got its name from a philosopher who used to wander the street to walk to University. The walk itself is only about 15 minutes.

We ended the walk at Nanzenji Temple. This temple was absolutely gorgeous with gardens and mountains in the background. It even had an aqueduct. So cool!