Sunday, August 16, 2015

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One of my goal while living in Japan is to visit all of the world heritage sites (if possible) and Japan three great sceneries. This time is Byodoin temple (平等院) turn, which located in Uji city (southern part of Kyoto). Uji-shi can easily reach from Kyoto by JR Nara line or Keihan railway, It's 20 minutes train ride from Kyoto by JR rapid service train. 

Byodoin has been on my list since i came here, but because it's still in Kyoto so it's not my priority. I went to Uji yesterday to visit this famous matcha restaurant I reviewed before. I wrote a review about their branch store in Kyoto station, so I want to feel their main store in Uji. Byodoin is not that far from the restaurant so I decided to visit.


Phoenix hall at Byoudoin temple

It was 15 walk from the station to byodoin. The admission is 600 yen for adult, If you want to enter the phoenix hall you need to pay another 300 yen inside. Since it was summer holiday, it was pretty crowded. I know that Kyoto always packed with tourists, but this time it reached to the point where I didn't feel like i was in Japan. Inside the train that I rode from Kyoto to Uji, 90% were tourists; everyone spoke different languages.

Japan post box at Uji station

Phoenix hall is the the main attraction at byodoin, there are actually other building in this complex, but  the crowd made me not wanted to enter the other building. Inside the area there is a museum, but you can't take photo inside the museum. The museum is really nice, inside they keep the temple's bell, the old door decoration of the phoenix hall, some Buddhism statues and paints, and treasures. At the exit of the museum you'll find out why they are not allowing us to take photos, they sell the photo book (like a museum guide) with all the photo of the things they keep inside the museum, some post cards, and merchandise.



Phoenix hall and the lake from the left side

the right side of the phoenix hall

Not far from byodoin is the uji river with uji bridge and a small island in the middle of the river with a 12 stories stone pagoda. there are some people fishing and playing in the river (it was a hot day). We did enter the phoenix hall, we thought that we would see something like what we saw inside the museum. It's a worship hall so inside is only the gold painted Amida Nyorai seated statue and you can't take photo also they give explanation in Japanese. so if you want to spend 300 yen just to stand listening to Japanese your guide explanation then do so, I would not recommend to enter the phoenix hall.

Uji river from the uji bridge

One of the bridge at Uji river with stone pagoda

The view of uji river, surrounded by mountains

The 12 sories stone pagoda
 About the famous restaurant that I talked about at the beginning of this post it took a lot patience to eat at this restaurant. We wrote our name before we enter the phoenix hall around 12.30 pm, we came back to the restaurant after we enter the phoenix hall (2pm) and still we had to wait for 1 hour. We finally got seated at 3pm, I ordered the matcha soba set. I would recommend the matcha jelly, I don't really like the matcha jelly, but this place serves the best matcha jelly.

Uji matcha soba

we paid visit to Kawaramachi in the evening, we wanted to experience the terrace dinner at one of the restaurant along the kamo river side. Those restaurant they really suck your money. Some of restaurants only serve course menu when you want to eat at the terrace which range between 3500-10000 yen. We finally picked a restaurant with a reasonable food price, but once inside the waiter at the front door showed us some rules. In short their rules is they will charge 700 yen/person for the table, 500 yen/person for the appetizer and for every food you ordered you are subjected to pay consumption tax 8% and service charge 10%. we thought okay, we would just order some appetizer and drink water, we just wanted to feel the experience not the foods. Once we were seated we ordered two appetizers and ask for water, the waiter said that we have to order two drinks too, and you know a glass of oolong tea is 480 yen + 8% tax + 10% service, that's almost 600 yen for a glass of oolong tea.

In two week I'll go to Shirahama in Wakayama prefecture. It's a seaside area of Japan, heard that it has a nice beach with white sand that was imported from Australia. I didn't know that you could import a white sand beach.

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Success in PhD and Have a life too
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