And I reckoned I was justified because I knew I’d be needing the fuel given the day’s game plan, which involved a bus across to Ginkakuji Temple, which we’d been to before and weren’t planning to revisit. We were, however, planning another walk along The Philosopher’s Path.
Unlike the previous attempt, where crowds made us bail out before we’d completed the length of the canalside stroll, this time we were planning on doing the lot, and visiting a few temples. One definite, possibly a second and, should we feel like more there were a number of other possibilities before we ended up in the Gion district, where Madam needed to do some shopping.
With breakfast duly demolished we headed off, looking for the bus to get us to Ginkakuji. There were apparently a number of possibilities, involving a variety of routes, but when we asked the old bloke at the bus station he didn’t clutter us up with options. Number One! was the direction, in a tone that suggested there really weren’t any alternatives.
There's nothing like a definite opinion when it comes to helpful guides.
We joined the appropriate queue, which wasn’t that long when we arrived. By the time it did there was a good bus load of people behind us, along with the people in front who looked like they might have gone close to filling all the seats on the bus that pulled up.
Still, we wangled a seat, and as the rest of the queue piled on it was a definite case of squeezing room only. Quite literally, the bus was chockers.
It was a limited express affair, running straight from the station to Kyoto’s most famous temple. That’s a significant statement when you consider the number of famous temples in Kyoto, but when we arrived I figured I knew why the old guy had been so definite that this was the bus.
Quite simple. Everyone's going to Kyomizera.
Even if we’d boarded towards the end of the queue at the station and suffered the sardine treatment on the first leg, there’d be no problem grabbing a seat after the first stop.
We alighted near Ginkakuji, and headed down the Philosopher's Path, enjoying the contrast to our previous visit, which was slap bang in the peak of the sakura season.