We Traveled to Japan’s Philosopher’s Path | Watch This Before Going To Kyoto – Japan Travel Guide

Taking a walk along The Philosopher’s Path, a famous walk in magical moss covered Kyoto Japan
Subscribe for more travel videos: https://goo.gl/2OsFKV
Watch our Japan Playlist: https://bit.ly/3wYcDVr
Follow us on Instagram – Nate and Adriana – @yetAnotherVisaRun
New Videos Posted Every Week- on Sundays!

Title: Exploring the Philosophers’ Path: A Tranquil Journey Through Kyoto’s Timeless Beauty

Nestled amidst the serene surroundings of Kyoto, Japan, the Philosophers’ Path, known locally as Tetsugaku-no-michi, offers a tranquil journey through nature and philosophy.

This picturesque stone path follows a canal lined with cherry trees, providing visitors with a serene ambiance ideal for contemplation and appreciation of beauty.

Embark on a Journey of Contemplation and Beauty:
The Philosophers’ Path offers more than just a scenic stroll; it invites visitors to slow down, reflect, and appreciate the harmony between nature, culture, and philosophy.

Whether you’re admiring cherry blossoms in spring, marveling at autumn foliage, or savoring a bowl of matcha in a traditional tea house, this timeless pathway promises a memorable experience that transcends time and space.

So, take a step back from the hustle and bustle of modern life and immerse yourself in the tranquility of the Philosophers’ Path—a journey of contemplation and beauty awaits.

I’ll let you know how to get there, what to see, which temples to visit, tea rooms to experience, and other places to explore along the way.

Getting There:

The Philosophers’ Path runs alongside the Shirakawa Canal in the northern part of Higashiyama district in Kyoto. It is easily accessible by various modes of transportation:

Public Transport: From Kyoto Station, take the Keihan Main Line to Demachiyanagi Station. From there, it’s a pleasant 15-minute walk to the southern end of the path.

Bicycle:Renting a bicycle is a popular option in Kyoto. Many rental shops are available near major attractions, offering convenience and flexibility.

On Foot: For those staying in the eastern part of Kyoto, walking to the southern entrance of the path is a viable option, allowing you to explore the surrounding neighborhoods along the way.

What to See:
1. Cherry Blossoms: The Philosophers’ Path is renowned for its breathtaking cherry blossoms in spring, transforming the pathway into a tunnel of pink and white blossoms. The best time to witness this natural spectacle is usually late March to early April.

2. Small Shrines and Temples: Along the path, you’ll encounter several charming shrines and temples, each with its own unique history and architectural style. Be sure to visit Honen-in Temple, Otoyo Shrine, and Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple.

3. Art Installations: Keep an eye out for various art installations and sculptures scattered along the path, adding a contemporary touch to the traditional surroundings

4. **Canal Views**: Pause to admire the serene waters of the Shirakawa Canal, especially during the cherry blossom season when the petals gently float on the surface, creating a mesmerizing scene.

Temples to Visit:
1. Honen-in Temple: Tucked away from the main path, Honen-in Temple exudes tranquility and simplicity. Explore its moss-covered garden and admire the subtle beauty of its architecture.

2. Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple: Known for its stunning autumn foliage, Eikan-do Zenrin-ji Temple offers a peaceful retreat year-round. Don’t miss the panoramic views of Kyoto from its elevated vantage points.

3. Ginkaku-ji Temple (Silver Pavilion): Although not directly on the Philosophers’ Path, Ginkaku-ji Temple is worth a short detour. Marvel at its elegant gardens and the iconic Silver Pavilion, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tea Rooms and Places to Check Out:
1. Nanzen-ji Temple Tea Garden: After exploring Nanzen-ji Temple, indulge in a traditional tea ceremony at one of its tranquil tea houses. Experience the art of tea preparation while savoring matcha and seasonal sweets.

2. Okazaki District: Adjacent to the northern end of the Philosophers’ Path, Okazaki District boasts an array of cafes, galleries, and artisan shops. Take a leisurely stroll and discover local craftsmanship and culinary delights.

3. Higashiyama District:Extend your exploration by wandering through the charming streets of Higashiyama District. Explore traditional machiya houses, browse souvenir shops, and sample Kyoto’s culinary specialties.

When to Go:
Spring – Experience the ethereal beauty of cherry blossoms along the Philosophers’ Path during spring, typically from late March to early April.

Autumn -Witness nature’s vibrant hues as the maple trees lining the path turn fiery red and golden in autumn, usually from late November to early December.

Weekdays – To avoid crowds, consider visiting the path on weekdays, especially during peak seasons.

#japan #japantravel #japaneseculture #japanvlog #japantrip

Japan has always been a place of Wonder for me a place of introspection and nestled within the ancient city of Kyoto lies a Hidden Gem the Philosopher’s path philosopher nashida kataro wrote Life is a constant process of becoming a combination of States we have to go through where people fail is that they

Wish to elect a state and remain in it this is a kind of death qaro took his daily walk along the shirakawa stream contemplating life in nature he believed life is a journey the mind we treed out to the eastern part of Kyoto at the base of the higashiyama mountains to walk

Along this Fame scenic route in search of clarity which brings us to this point here so we are going to be going to our first temple of the day basically it’s a bunch of Temple hopping right now here in Japan oh my gosh this is crazy look

Garden this is a great example of a traditional Japanese zen garden you have this incredible pond with lily pads and these beautiful trees and the rocks have been placed carefully I heard that some of the Landscaping here was actually designed by a painter and this whole place is just so relaxing and tranquil

So you’re walking on this little path that they’ve designed that just kind of takes you through the zen garden and you can see this place is just covered literally covered in Moss I heard it’s also really nice to come here when it’s raining the water on the Moss looks really

Beautiful and here we’re entering past a Tory gate and usually that symbolizes in the Shinto religion I read that it’s like passing from the mundane to the sacred world this so nice you know this is one of the temples that we heard was not very highly visited but really worth visiting

So there’s no tourists here right now really not a lot of people so I feel like we have the whole place to ourselves it’s like empty here huh it’s crazy wa so the whole point of the Philosopher’s path is that you’re just supposed to walk along and contemplate your life and

Just think about everything I guess and it’s a path for contemplation and thought make it a place to reflect it is there’s a nice little dude in there you see they have all these Buddha statues this is a zard dude look at this oh my God

Oh dang I’ve been wanting to see one of these the whole time so here’s our first zen garden where they rake the gravel and the other Temple we’re going to visit nenji that Temple was built for an emperor and it’s kind of like one of his Retreats that he had here on the

Mountain side you can see we’re in the eastern mountains of Higashiyama wa that’s insane that’s really cool the fact that it’s still standing is insane wow that’s beautiful so you can walk under the aquadec here take pictures there’s more tourists at this Temple for sure than the other one you can walk through though it’s so cool so I guess he used to transport

Water from the lake yeah it’s kind ofy here yeah I wonder if it still transports water it’s really really wet oh wow I like this a lot imagine seeing a monk walk around here cuz I mean they there are monks here since this is two big giant School

Of Zen schools of Zen they have to have M oh it’s so pretty here so you’re furing Kyoto you guys got to check this out you could probably take a peek at the Top If okay yeah let’s go check it out yeah we’re trying to see if

We could get a view of the aqueduck from a top it looks like you might be able to actually just walk it oh yeah it’s still in yeah oh it is that’s crazy wow so this is what we walked under there that’s what we walked under yeah

So it’s a little muddy cuz I think it may have like a couple small leaks but it’s still definitely in use you can’t even hear it when you’re underneath the aqueduct at all that’s insane this thing is so old too that’s crazy this is where the you

Can even hear the water when you’re underneath it I can’t believe it’s still in use still this day this is the uh classic wooden shoes look how beautiful it is here they have like a stream running through the whole thing with all this gorgeous MTH and then these buildings are just

Insane look at that it’s like a perfect day too where the sunlight’s hitting the leaves at just the right angle where everything’s just kind of sunlet it’s really pretty make sure to check out our Nomad budget app available for iPhone okay back to the show so right now we’re inside a te-

Room and we just got served our tea and this looks so beautiful it’s actually hot matcha tea and they serve you in a bowl so cheers waa it’s not sweet at all no I like it though like pure strong matcha that’s really good though not for the

Faint of heart no and then it has this like insane view right here of this incredible Garden are hat not a fan intense you’re going to wake up usually I’m used to like a little bit of sweetener just a tiny bit but it’s pretty good and then

They gave us these little um Japanese desserts so let me go ahead and open one the thing I liked about this so far is that the lady served who served us the tea was very friendly and she came here and explained what the tea was and she

Was really like uh clear that these are very sweet cookies the packed of sugar yeah but I think it’s a pretty good deal overall this is only 500 yen extra Beyond The Garden ticket yeah that’s insane lucky this is another example of the dry Landscaping that they do here in Japan like these

Buddhist temples just insanely gorgeous check that out it’s unbelievable W what I heard was that the raking pattern is meant to be temporary so they spend a lot of time making the raking pattern and then it’s just meant to be destroyed sometimes they’ll rake it and then like sweep over it just to

Show the impermanence of life everything I guess I think it was converted into a school of Zen in 1291 also pretty recently yeah it’s pretty a modern house here wow it’s really peaceful here yeah it’s really quiet oh here’s the panels oh man so a lot of these murals are

Hundreds of years old oh wow so as as you walk the entire circumference of this ven school has this really cool Garden that’s freshly Raped so we just got to this Temple oh this is so pretty a lot of history here being one of the older capital cities of Japan so you can just feel the age and it’s just so old here there’s just so much history here um I could see why they would

Choose it as the capital especially in that time um but Tokyo is definitely like a better capital for this era the current ERA cuz it’s such a massive mive City now I don’t see Kyoto being able to adapt to being a massive city which is

Kind of nice it holds on to the history and the age and the Tranquility I was really happy that we were able to see some of those dry Landscapes that they have here and I heard that the reason that they have them is to reflect the moonlight so I

Thought that was pretty beautiful and supposed to enhance a Japanese jaes Garden as well we’re basically shrouded in Maple Leaves right now and it’s such a nice time of year now that the rain has subsided today you see all the wet Moss everywhere it’s just gorgeous so

There is a lot to see here and honestly uh we heard that it would take about 4 hours I would say maybe 5 hours if you really want to just kind of take your time and not feel rushed I don’t really want to like rush through this uh so we

Have a couple more temples that are on the path these structures here are insanely incredible from the 1200s and this whole place was a little retirement Villa a little one yeah for an Emperor Japanese emperor so really really nice place to come check out if you’re interested in architecture or

Just getting a dose of nature you just want to chill out take a hike and see some Japanese temples with not a lot of crowds I I mean it’s there’s a fair amount of people here today but it’s not like it’s not gross but one of the things that I love

Here in Kyoto is all these little candy craft shops this one sells like little Japanese porcelain plates and also tea of course tea paraphernalia and if you know the significance of this Japanese bear statue please leave a comment and let us know I’ve been seeing it everywhere so

I’m sure it’s some sort of good alen um or good luck charm so we’re heading to the entrance of the philosophers pack we’re just outside of gaki Temple and there’s all these shops here selling souvenirs and they do have some street food I going check that out later

Check out these fish on a stick I think they have the real ones barbecuing inside I’m not sure if those are real or a display be prepared to start getting sweaty and get it exercise look the road’s changing to like this brick road pretty cool it’s like stone bricks looks

Like we arrived so we made it to the Philosopher’s path so it looks like it’s going be 20 minutes down here to the temple that we’re trying to make it to so this Temple is supposed to be really famous for having some of the best zen

Gardens in Kyoto so it’s supposed to be a really nice like peaceful way to just you know spend your day and just relax and take it easy and this whole area is just like so zened out I mean yeah it actually has you know the school of Zen

Here uh all these retirement Villas and Retreats in the mountains have been converted into Buddhist temples but yeah literally as we’re walking we can hear them hitting the gong and it’s just incredible here there are some bamboo Groves kind of interspersed with these moss covered Trees so this is the Philosopher’s path you get to walk along the canal the whole way I think it’s about 20 minutes just like this of walking along the tiles and it’s really cool you’re right here in the forest and man is it beautiful here so relaxing honestly it’s just such

A beautiful place I love nature I love being in the jungle I like being in Forest like this this is really nice it’s so quiet wow check that Out can you hear the birds it’s so incredible here it’s like a little soundtrack of birds chirpy the Buddhist concept of mujo noi is deeply ingrained in Japanese culture it translates to the path of impermanence the Japanese find comfort in reflecting on the impermanence of Life accepting

The inevitability of change and Decay to find beauty in the imperfect Ordinary World world is thought to bring inner peace the Philosopher’s path is all about the journey it’s not about arriving at the temples but the walk to get there and the things you see along

The way it’s about a feeling an emotion and a deep sense of gratitude for life in the moment the temples are fantastic but I think coming down this path is just a great way to take it easy and just relax and feel like you’re disconnecting from the hustle and bustle

Of the central big city here yeah that’s true so hope you’re enjoying our Koto videos if you are make sure to subscribe so you can keep following us on our journey we have a lot more videos coming from Japan and then also we’re heading to Thailand next going to

Bangkok it’s kind of like country life out here it is we’ve seen a lot of nice temples since we’ve been here but this is probably some of the best stuff that we’ve seen yet I think the nice thing about Kyoto is that it keeps um exceeding my expectations in a lot of

Ways you know where whenever you go somewhere you’re going to have some like preconceived notions I can’t really get around that but it’s nice to just see like what the reality is when you actually get to a place we thought it closed in like 15 minutes but it looks

Like it’s going to allow people in at 5:00 hi how do you got the we’re here at gaki Temple and I’m so stoked that we actually were able to we’re always late I’m Hispanic so I think it’s like in my jeans to like never be on time there’s an interesting meditation practiced by

Japanese Zen monks known as kisan Su koku sometimes Japanese Zen monks destroy a carefully raged pattern to practice the art of Detachment after meticulously designing a dry landscape they will disrupt the pattern to reflect on the impermanence of all things it’s a symbol of accepting renewal and change in

Life wo this is crazy I read about it but I didn’t know it was going to be that tall so they rake the sand into a cone and it’s really tall like it’s probably almost as tall as Nate check this out I’ve never seen this that’s

Pretty crazy looking so this type of zen garden is called coet Suda and it’s a very special style that I’ve never even seen a photo of so this is pretty spectacular check this place out wow this is so cool awesome so this place was actually um a retreat center

Built in the mountain side for a Shogun and a Shogun uh Nate was telling me is like a warlord so you know someone who is like a high ranking official in the military and he has had this place built as a retreat from the Civil War that was

Happening in Japan at the time it’s 1400s is when it was built so it’s pretty incredible that it’s all still here you could write uh uh something that you’re interested in and then they’ll put it in here and they’ll burn it for you yeah like a good

Wish it says 300 Yen I think a monk will burn it you could say what you wish for like world peace or good marriage or recovering from illness and then you just write it on that stick and then you place it in there and the monks will

Burn it on your behalf just going to show you guys around because we don’t actually have a lot of time here so just wanted to show you how incredibly beautiful this is definitely the most spectacular Temple that we’ve been to this is insane so pretty like I’m

Sues so here you have a pond it’s basically a a temple now so now it’s been converted to the scho of Zen and the Landscaping here is pretty incredible there’s waterfalls everywhere everything’s covered in Moss you can just see how how far reaching it is it touches the mountain side

Oh man this is cool this is so pretty whoa look at all the Moss over there that’s incredible this is crazy looking oh I think you can walk up there I see people up there oh wow okay so we’re going to kind of move a little bit

Faster so we can kind of see some stuff here they’re going to kick us out we’ll see what we can see here looks like a fairy tale it’s so pretty this is like one of those shrines here people put their offering in here and then you know they pray they

Bow what we’re going to do is make our way up the mountain side here and you can see that it’s just like a gorgeous path anywhere here at this Temple so let’s head up the mountain looks like there’s a bamboo Grove up ahead and unlik arashiyama where it’s just Jam Pack full of

Turrets like no one here so if you’re looking for a bamboo forest to go to come to this Temple this is crazy looking they have little signs everywhere that tell you where the route is so you can know where to go man look at these Mossy covered

Hills looks insane it doesn’t look real honestly I can’t believe it this is so crazy looking man I bet this is unbelievable in the Autumn when all the leaves are changing colors we have to come back to Kyoto we him honestly we have to come back now that I’ve been here in the

Summertime I’d like to see kiyoto when it’s cold and cozy with all the foliage turning different colors I think it’d be pretty spectacular I think next time what I would like to do in Japan is probably take a full train ride all the way through the country and just go

Start maybe in the North like in Hokkaido and just go all the way through and then stop in some of the smaller Islands yeah that would be pretty cool this doesn’t really seem like a country just go to one city and you get a full picture I think you really need to see

More that it has to offer cuz it’s such a massive place with a ton of History I think we’ll have to come back to Japan and see more cities more countryside so if you have any recommendations if you’re Japanese or you’ve been to Japan yeah leave them down below cuz we are

Looking to do some day trips as well it’s quite a walk but it’s so worth it it’s so nice here this is amazing looks like a magical fairy land here this place is from the 1400s so all this was constructed in the 1400s and they actually had a famous

Painter do the Landscaping here and they actually have a tea ceremony room here that is so famous that they base all other Tea Ceremony rooms on this Tea Ceremony room at this at this Temple but we’re here at the tail end of the day

And we already had a lot of green tea so I’m not really sure where that tea room is but if you have more time definitely try and find it we had that absolute like nuclear green matcho TOA is like the strongest matcha I’ve ever had in my life

Yeah we can’t go in that building huh I wanted to see that one no this is the famous building here I think this is the silver Pavilion we just ran into some Japanese people who asked us to take a photo so we did and then they were so

Nice they’re like in Japan we return the favor so they wouldn’t let us um leave without taking a picture of us but yeah now we have a nice souvenir look at this place man this is so cool really beautiful here at at this time of day because it’s close to Sunset

So you get all the reflections of the trees on this Pond here it’s really beautiful I think this trip has totally been worth it I think this Temple I don’t know why it’s called the silver pagota or whatever the silver Pavilion Pavilion yeah but maybe they have a lot of silver in

It yeah I heard it was just to kind of distinguish it from the other Temple that we were at but neither one is golden or silver so I’m not really sure about another explanation is that back in the old days a silver Pavilion was covered in a black lacquer which

Reflected the Moonlight and gave it more of a silvery appearance thanks so much for watching I think you might like this video right here it’s pretty cool and also make sure to subscribe if you haven’t done so already we are traveling fulltime so we have a lot of travel Vlogs coming your way