Uji

Fujiwara no Yorimichi inherited his father's country villa and, in 1052 — a year Buddhist teaching held to be the start of the age of decline — turned it into a temple. The Phoenix Hall went up the following year: a central hall with wings and a tail corridor, laid out to be seen reflected in its pond, with a gilded Amida Buddha by the sculptor Jocho inside and two bronze phoenixes on the roof.

The point of the design is that it is a model of the Western Paradise. The reflection is not a happy accident; the hall was built to be looked at from across the water, which is where you now stand with everybody else. Fifty-two bodhisattvas ride clouds on the interior walls — the originals are in the museum, and what you see inside are those that remain in place.

The Hoshokan museum, dug into the hillside behind, holds the original phoenixes, the temple bell and a set of the cloud-riding bodhisattvas at eye level, and it is included in the $4.38 (¥700) ticket. Most visitors give it ten minutes; it deserves thirty.

Getting inside the hall

The interior is a separate $1.88 (¥300), sold only at the gate on the day, in groups of fifty every twenty minutes from 09:10. You cannot book it by phone, by email or online, and the temple says so explicitly. Twenty minutes inside gets you the Jocho Amida at close range — the sculpture that set the standard for every Buddha carved in Japan afterwards.

In bad weather or during temple events the viewing is suspended.

Tea has grown here since the twelfth century, when seeds brought from China were planted in the hills above the river, and Uji has supplied the imperial court since the Muromachi period. The town's shops still stone-grind tencha into matcha on site — the mills turn slowly enough to keep the powder cool, about thirty grams an hour, which is why good matcha costs what it does.

What to do about it: sit down in one of the tea houses on Byodo-in Omotesando and have a bowl whisked properly, buy matcha by grade rather than by packaging, and try the town's other formats — matcha soba, matcha ice cream that is bitter rather than sweet, and the tea-leaf tempura some shops make in season. Several houses run short hands-on sessions in grinding and whisking your own; a Kyoto tea ceremony is the more formal version of the same thing.

• Gyokuro — shade-grown leaf tea, brewed at about 50 °C, and the thing Uji does better than anywhere
• Matcha by grade: ceremonial for whisking, culinary for cooking, and the price gap is real
• Hojicha — roasted and low in caffeine, which is the one to drink in the evening
• Grind-your-own sessions at several shops on the approach street; ask the day before at busy times

From JR Uji station the approach street runs ten minutes down to Byodo-in through the tea shops. Cross the Uji bridge — a crossing has stood here since 646, which makes it one of the oldest in Japan — onto the far bank for the quieter half of the town.

Four hours covers all of it comfortably, five with a long lunch. It is the shortest genuinely worthwhile day trip from Kyoto, which is why the three-day itinerary offers it as the half-day alternative to Nara.

Uji sits on the JR line south of Kyoto, which puts it on the same axis as Fushimi Inari and the sake district. The strongest version of a southern day is Uji in the morning — the interior slots are easiest before eleven — then the breweries at Chushojima after lunch, then the shrine at golden hour on the way back.

As a day-three option it is the shorter alternative to Nara: back in Kyoto by mid-afternoon with the evening intact. The three-day plan offers both.