Kyoto is a popular sight-seeing place also for Japanese tourists. Therefore, a lot of tourists visit there on the spring or autumn of sightseeing season, in addition to a lot of backpackers in the summer.

To my regret, a lot of people tend to try to visit the same sightseeing spot in Kyoto.

Most popular temples are Kiyomizudera temple, Kinkakuji temple, and Ginkakuji temple. And famous shrines are Heian-Jingu shrine, Yasaka-Jinja shrine and Fushimi-Inari shrine. Of course these famous sight-seeing spot temples or shrines are in fact beautiful and impressive old buildings with beautiful gardens, however, I think you should better visit another temples or shrines if you want to have your unique memories of Kyoto.

Here I introduce you about a beautiful Five-Storied Pagoda you can visit in Kyoto, Yasaka-no-tou.

Five-Storied Pagota is a traditional style Buddism tower often found in big temples in Japan, and you will find a famous one in Touji temple. Although Pagota of Touji is called just a Five-Storied Pagota of Touji temple, a part of the buildings in Touji temple, interestingly, the name of Yasaka-no-tou means a tower in Yasaka region and independent from the temple name.

Surprisingly, many of the Kyoto people do not know the real name of the temple, Houkanji, to which this tower belongs. But everybody in Kyoto knows the name of Yasaka-no-tou and quickly image the view of the tower standing at the end of the cobble stone-paved road ascending to the tower.

Yes, Yasaka-no-tou is known as if it stands in the end of old small shopping street and that view is attractable for many Japanese people because it can imagine us the old Kyoto ordinary people combined with faithful life to Buddism.

I here recommend you to enjoy watching this tower a little bit more than other tourists do. Most of the tourist just glance the tower from the street and never walk into the temple, but I say you must walk into the Pagota by yourself.

Inside Pagota, there are old statues of Buddha at the ground floor, the preserved condition is not so good, but you can pass by the statues and walk up to the first floor by steep ladder.

You will find yourself at the top of the hill from the downtown of Higashioji. And the interesting finding is the view from knotholes found on the wall of Pagoda. From the knotholes of walls you can enjoy the narrow view as if you are a small squirrel just watching the outside world from a hole dug by your parents.

Since the majority of the temples in Kyoto is made by wood, you think it is easy to find out the knotholes on the wall of the old buildings, however, as far as I know, this is the only place where you can enjoy the view from knotholes of Pagoda.