Kyoto Trip III

Bronze statue of Naomasa Ii in front of JR Hikone Station

07/18 Saturday - Day 1

Our third visit to Kyoto was H O T! The temperature was consistently in the 90s with high humidity levels. Because of this we took things a little easier on this trip than on our previous two trips to the city. From school, I learned that Japan uses WetBulb Globe Temperature (WGBT). WGBT measures heat stress by factoring in the temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle and cloud cover (solar radiation). It is different from the heat index which measures temperature, humidity and is calculated for shaded areas. I receive alerts about the heat from the Safety tips app for travelers in Japan. The app sends alerts about earthquake early warnings, tsunami warnings, and other weather warnings within Japan in English. It also provides communication cards and informational flowcharts on what to do in case of an emergency.  

            

On the first day of our trip we visited the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Manga are Japanese comic books that are extremely popular in Japan and have also gained followings in many other countries, including the U.S. The museum has three floors filled with manga; the majority of them are in Japanese but there is a small section with foreign and translated manga. The building also used to be an elementary school, so there's information throughout the different rooms on the school. There's even a giant room where people can pick a manga and sit down to read it.

07/19 Sunday - Day 2 (Hikone City)

 

The next day we went to Hikone city to see Hikone Castle. Hikone is in Shiga Prefecture, which was the only prefecture in the Kansai Region (which includes Himeji) that we still hadn't visited. Additionally, Hikone Castle is on of Japan's five National Treasure castles and, at the time of our visit, was the fourth that we'd been to. Located at the base of the castle is Genkyuen Garden. It is a landscape garden and has beautiful views using borrowed scenery. We enjoyed walking around the pond and seeing the lotus field next to it.

Genkyūen Garden (玄宮園)

07/20 Monday - Day 3 

Nishiki Market (錦市場, Nishiki Ichiba)

Nishiki Market is a narrow covered shopping street with shops and restaurants. Most of the shops offer food or food-related items like dishware. Usually the street is very busy, but because of Japan's decrease in foreign tourists we were able to explore it without too many crowds.

07/21 Tuesday - Day 4

Higashi Honganji (東本願寺)

Higashi Hongan-ji, or East Hongan-ji was built 11 years after Nishi Hongan-ji just a couple blocks west of it. We had visited Nishi Hongan-ji on a previous trip to Kyoto and wanted to see its sister temple. They both look quite similar and are temples for one of Japan's largest Buddhists sects, the Jodo-Shin Sect (True Pure Land Sect). 

 

Kyoto Tower can be seen from Higashi Hongan-ji. Kyoto Tower has an observation deck where you can see a nice panoramic view of the city. The tower is a bit controversial as many Kyoto residents do not like it because it seems to clash with the traditional buildings in Kyoto. 

Our last night in Kyoto, we walked around the Kamogawa river again. We got some drinks at a Starbucks next to the river and enjoyed the view. The next morning we returned home to Himeji, exhausted from the heat in Kyoto.