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Kyoto

Christmas Day 2022 in Kyoto: the torii tunnels of Fushimi Inari, gold at Kinkaku-ji, the lanes of Higashiyama and a sake toast in Nishiki Market.

We gave Kyoto our Christmas. December 2022, cold and mostly clear, and we packed the day the way you only do when you know you might not be back for a while: shrines in the morning, temples all afternoon, sake by lantern light.

Inga and Dileep walking through a tunnel of closely spaced orange torii gates at Fushimi Inari shrine
Christmas morning in the torii tunnels of Fushimi Inari. Between tour groups you get the tunnel to yourselves for roughly nine seconds. This was ours.
Inga and Dileep in front of the gold Kinkaku-ji pavilion and its reflection in the pond under a blue winter sky
Kinkaku-ji in winter sun. The gold does not need a filter and neither does the pond.
Inga and Dileep standing in front of a weathered wooden temple hall on the stone-covered grounds of Kiyomizu-dera
A quieter corner of the Kiyomizu-dera grounds, a short walk from the crowds on the main terrace.
Inga in white standing on a sloping stone-paved lane leading up to the five-storey Yasaka Pagoda
The lane up to Yasaka Pagoda, probably the most photographed street in Higashiyama. We joined in.
Inga walking past a dark tiled temple gate in Kyoto under a dramatic golden evening sky
End of the afternoon at a Higashiyama temple gate, under a sky that looked borrowed from a woodblock print.
Inga and Dileep raising small glasses of sake under colourful paper lanterns at a market tasting counter
Finishing the day with a sake tasting under the lanterns in Nishiki Market. Merry Christmas to us.

We based ourselves in Osaka for this trip, with Kyoto a short hop away, and carried on to Hiroshima the next morning.