TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The ancient capital, Kyoto shows various aspects in each season, but above all, the beauty of the red and yellow leaves in the city and the surrounding mountains attracts and allures us for one month from November to December. Autumnal tints of leaves in Japan starts from Daisetsu Mountains in Hokkaido from September, and starts moving down south along the Japanese archipelago. We call this “Momiji (autumn foliage) Front,” looking forward for its arrival. Momiji front reaches Kyoto in the end of October, and starts to color the leaves red and yellow from the suburbs, Ohara, Takeo, and Hiei-zan Mountain. After mid November, the temples and shrines in the main part of Kyoto are also covered in crimson veils.

To get beautiful leaves in autumn, the prerequisite is to have large temperature difference during daytime and night, and hot summer with long hours of sunlight and a lot of rain. Surrounded by mountains all around, Kyoto meets all these conditions. By the end of autumn, the lowest temperature in Kyoto will drop below 5 degrees, turning the leaves red and yellow in its best colors. This year, the weather suddenly became chilly in November, and the autumn tint started slightly earlier than usual, but due to the temperature rise the middle of the month, the peak season consequently started from 20 November as it has been in the past years.

On 27 November, when the leaves were in its best color in a wonderful weather,I went to see the autumn leaves in “Tofuku-ji Temple,” the No. 1 scenic spot of Rakunan Area, and “Eikan-do Temple(Zenrin-ji)” near the end of “Tetsugaku-no-michi Street (Philosopher’s Path),” a path along the canal starting from Ginkaku in Higashi-yama. This year, among many scenic spots of the scarlet leaves, I would like to report on this live information through this article on Inbound Tourism.

“Tofuku-ji Temple” is a large Zen temple leading the Kyoto Gozan Culture. By its long prestigious history, its large temple edifice is magnificent, but the foliage of the valley “Sengyokukan” observed from “Tsuten-kyo Bridge” also makes the visitors speechless from its spectacular view. During the peak season, there are thousands of visitors on weekends that makes me worry that the bridge might even break apart. Considering the location being slightly off the center of the city, this is undoubtedly one of the most popular autumn leaf viewing spot in Kyoto. On this day, I arrived in Tofuku-ji Temple at 3pm, but the temple was crowded with endless flow of visitors coming out of the train station and group tourists arriving by coach. The approach to the precinct of the temple was packed with people, just like being caught up in a melee during the new year’s visit to a shrine. As the day was in a bluebird weather, the temple was heated up that it almost made me perspire. Though the tinted leaves in “Sengyokukan” were in its best, the view from “Tsuten-kyo Bridge” was just against the sunlight around this time of the day. From my experience, I would recommend you to visit Tofuku-ji Temple before noon, also to avoid the crowd.

From “Tofuku-ji Temple,” “Tetsugaku-no-michi Street (Philosopher’s Path)” is about 40 minutes by train and bus. The 1.6 km walking path, loved by the citizen of Kyoto as “Tetsugaku-no-michi Street” starts from Ginkaku-ji Bridge over the temple’s approach, following south along the canal of Lake Biwa’s branch. It is named after Ikutaro Nishida, a philosopher in Meiji era, walking about this path being lost in meditation. At first, the path was called “Shisaku no Komichi (Trail of Thought)” but started to be referred as “Tetsugaku-no-michi,” which was officially designated as such in 1972. This is a walking path selected as one of the 100 Best Road in Japan, colored with sakura in spring, and tinted foliage in autumn along the canal.

Walking few steps further from the end of “Tetsugaku-no-michi” there is “Eikan-do Temple(Zenrin-ji),” one of the scenic autumn foliage spot in Higashi-yama Area, and also one of the oldest temple in Kyoto known nationwide as “Momiji no Eikan-do (Eikan-do with Scarlet Maple).” Statue of Amitabha Tathagata, the principal Buddhist image, is in a posture facing diagonally backward, known as “Mikaeri Amida Nyorai (Amitabha looking back).”

Just as being named “Momiji no Eikan-do,” the foliage tints the precinct in red and yellow, in a vivid color as if it is trying to squeeze its color out before it falls off. The daytime entrance ends at 4 pm, but resumes at 5:30 pm for the night visit. The autumn leaves at daytime is great, but here, the lighted up leaves look more fabulous. The pretty crimson maple leaf that appears from the dark allures the visitors with bewitching beauty.

Perhaps it was because I visited Eikan-do on a Friday early in the evening, but there were more than 300 visitors lining up in front of the gate at 5:30 when the gate opened. But I was not bothered about the crowd as darkness hid other people and the light-up only showed the maple leaves; this is also the merit of leaf-viewing at night time. The foliage coloring the ancient capital Kyoto this year will fall of quite soon, and bitterly cold winter will come giving the city an atmosphere of the subtleness and quietness of Zen.

During the chilly night, Kyoto Cuisine and hot sake from the local region, Fushimi, warmed my cold body. There are many sophisticated restaurants around Gion Area that renovated old Kyoto-style townhouse.

Unlike ochaya (a restaurant entertaining guests with geisha) turning away first comers, these townhouse restaurants welcomes tourists with a sense of Kyoto offering original Kyoto Cuisine in a reasonable price, including Gion Rumble, the restaurant I visited that very night. As the restaurant makes use of the first floor of an active ochaya, you will get to enjoy the feeling it dining in the restaurant. One of the joy of traveling is bumping into your kind of shops while strolling out in Kyoto at night.

Source: Travel Vision

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