In which city in Japan the foreigners want to live for a long time?
Is there any city you came up with in your mind? I can drop you a hint, it's not Tokyo 😉

The answer is...!

Kyoto😊

I can't but agree with this, I have visited quite a lot of cities in Japan, Kyoto is still my favourite together with Osaka.
I don't even know how many times I have already been to Kyoto, but there are still a lot of new places and good restaurants that I want to visit. Today I would like to show you two of the most beautiful places you must visit in Kyoto.

Kiyomizu-dera

This UNESCO world heritage temple is known for its beautiful scenery from the top, also the alleys to the temple with many adorable stores selling traditional Japanese snacks and craft items. The Traditional Japanese buildings you can see are also incredibly stunning as you can see in the picture 😃

Kiyomizu-dera is one of the bustling tourist spots in Kyoto all year around. When we were there it was especially busy, not only because cherry blossom season started but also the dark room, underneath the temple closed for a long time, finally opened to the public for few weeks.

The dark room symbolises a mother’s womb, you will get to the reason why it's called dark room the moment you step in. The darkness was way beyond I could imagine, everyone moves quite slowly holding a bar next to them. Almost til the end of the room, there is a large, strangely glowing stone, you can touch the stone and make a wish. After a few steps more, you can come out from the room and see the light again, this whole process symbolises being born and meeting the world for the first time. I can't say it truly is or not, as we all might not remember the feeling of being born, but it was definitely a rare and precious experience 😆

On the way going down from the temple, you can see a unique Starbucks which converted the traditional wooden house that can be found all over Kyoto, also don't miss some of the souvenir shops that have nicely presented Japanese zen gardens😍

Fushimi Inari-taisha

Magical, calming and eerie shrine! If I have to choose only one place to visit in Kyoto again, I would say this amazing shrine. It's not easy to explain this place's diverse atmosphere, you will be amazed by mysterious and fascinating ambience all the way walking up to the top which will take approximately 2 hours.

This shrine is made for a god Inari, which is the god of rice, traditionally merchants and manufacturers have worshiped Inari for their business. That's the reason there are countless, various sizes of torii(gates) donated by Japanese businesses in the shrine and this shrine is known for having the most torii in the whole Japan.

You will see a lot of fox sculptures in this shrine as foxes are the messengers of the god. A lot of people misunderstand this shrine is for worshiping foxes, which is not true! Actually we also thought the shrine is for foxes, because small and big fox sculptures were literally everywhere 😺

Still not convinced to visit Fushimi Inari or not? 😯
Here is another reason that you need to visit it, as it's a shrine there is no entrance fee 😁 also you can taste delicious Amazake, a traditional sweet, low-alcohol Japanese drink made from fermented rice on the way coming down.
One last thing, this is one of the most beautiful places which is shown in the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha", I hope some of you still remember this impressively colourful scene.

Thank you for reading 😃
I hope you enjoyed my very first post at Steemit, I will write more about my Japanese travel. Please leave a comment or your question below ✌