Kyoto is like going to the beach in New Jersey. At some point you ask yourself why anybody goes to the beach in Jersey. For me, I wonder why everyone goes to Kyoto. Kyoto is a disaster of 2 million shrines and temples peppered in this sprawling mess of city filled with buses, bikes, and endless traffic lights. OK, I know, I'm jaded because I was driving a car through Kyoto during rush hour, but Kyoto has none of the coolness of Tokyo or Osaka and all of the traffic. In fairness, Kyoto has some amazing shrines and temples. But at some point, you're kind of done with temples and shrines. The golden temple is neat to see and the grounds around it are beautiful. By far, my favorite shrine in Kyoto was the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Reasons for awesomeness: 1) It's right off the expressway, 2) free parking, 3) Thousands of red torii gates and beautiful grounds. I'm sold. The tunnel of gates go all the way up the mountain and is quite the processional. It is definitely worth the trip to Kyoto to see this shrine, and some of the other temples and shrines, but probably best to leave Kyoto as its own adventure and not tag it onto the end of a ten day tour of force through Japan. I'll give Kyoto one more chance, next time, we're taking the train.
