I went to Takeisao Shrine on Funaoka Yama today. It’s called a “yama” which means “mountain” but it’s really just a small hill. Actually, all the small hills around Kyoto are called “yama”. Perhaps Kyoto people just can’t bring themselves to admit how small their hills are. I think Oda Nobunaga (one of Japan’s founding fathers) is buried on this particular mock-mountain. Anyway, the shrine is built in his honour and they have festival for him there too on October 19th. The shrine looks like this:

From the top of the hill, you can see out over the city but the views weren’t so good today as it was cloudy. Here’s the smaller Daimonji Yama (another hill) little brother to the bigger more famous Daimonji to the east of the city:

And after strolling round there, and listening to the little green tweety birds I went to Funaoka Onsen and had a super-relaxing time. And you can read all about that here: Funaoka Onsen