Kim Jong-un ain’t gonna rain on my parade

Today has just been the best day yet and I don’t care what that Korean head-the-ball is threatening, this holiday is getting better by the day.

At 9.00am we hit the streets with our guide for today, the diminutive Mr Tadashi Ichimaru, a Kyotoite with a twinkle in his eye. It didn’t take him long to get the measure of the type of thing we wanted to see, so soon we were off to view palaces, temples, shrines and zen gardens. The good thing about having a local guide is that they can take you to places off the beaten ‘Lonely Planet’ track. So instead of fighting our way through the crowds at the Golden Pavilion, we lost ourselves in the silence at Tofuku-ji, a temple complex with 24 sub-temples, gardens and the oldest Zen main gate in Japan. He explained the whole Zen thing and the principles of a zen garden with its gravel and rocks representing the universe (“use your imagination to expand your mind”) and how the absence of flowers allows us to free our minds from the bonds of actual beauty, to transcend to a higher plane. I sooo got it – Mac thought it was a load of bollocks. However, the reality will hit him when we get home and he is charged with digging up the back yard and laying down a couple of tons of sand and a pile of rocks to create the Mcanespie Zen garden experience.

Tada explained the whole history of the Shogun dynasty as we made our way through the Nijo Palace. He certainly knows his stuff and is such a good story-teller, I could have listened to his craic all day.

Best of all, however, was the sublime sight of the Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a stunning Shinto shrine dedicated to the gods of rice and saki. Its main feature is a 4km pathway, meandering up the mountain, lined with THOUSANDS of scarlet Tori gates. There’s no way our photos can come close to doing justice to the weird and mysterious atmosphere of this sacred shrine.

At around 5.30, we ended up in the Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts, set in a beautiful area of Kyoto, housing the University, Library, Municipal and National art galleries. By now we were knackered and it was time for Tada to leave us but we will certainly be back to this cool part of the city.

Dinner tonight was in another ‘traditional’ restaurant – weird but gorgeous. I swear, I could have been eating anything and probably was. Horse meat is one of the more mundane offerings available here. We hit on a discount liquor store on the way back to the hotel so I’m going to sign off now as a bottle of something calling itself ” gyn” awaits. Slainte.