After settling in yesterday afternoon we rented bikes to have on hand for an early start this morning. The bike shop owner had given us a map and a route to follow so off we went. Kyoto advertises itself as being a great city for biking and I'd have to agree. There aren't many (any?) dedicated bike paths but many of the sidewalks are especially wide and labeled for bikes, and the pedestrians seem used to to sharing the sidewalks with the bikers. Driving is on the left side of the road and those rules apply to bikes on sidewalks too. It takes a little getting used to, but we did okay.
I love being on a bike. You can cover so much more ground than if you walk, there's the freedom of stopping on a whim, which you don't have in a car or bus. I love the wind and I feel strong. Biking makes me happy. It is odd though to not have a helmet. In the states or in Kaohsiung I would never consider biking without one but here we just hopped on the bikes and took off. As far as I can tell there are zero helmets in Japan.
We biked along a river then skirted the edge of the hills on the east side of the city, stopping at temples and shrines as we went along.
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| Ginkakuji Temple |
We followed the "Path of Philosophy" for quite awhile where it was peaceful and serene.
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| Eikando Zenrin-Ji Temple, headquarters of the Jodo Sect of Japanese Buddhism. |
Then we headed back to the chaos of city biking and visited the Heinan-jingu Shrine and walked around the gardens.
We were back at the hotel five hours later, which still left us time to put our feet up and still go to the Nishijin Textile Center. We've seen some looms and some weavers on our travels - Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar - but this has been the first place where I could buy silk thread. Happy day. :)
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