Uzumasa is west Kyoto with the tourists turned off — a tram town built around the oldest temple in the city, and a single wooden carving worth the train ride on its own. Three kilometres, an afternoon, and most of it spent on ordinary streets.
Start at Koryu-ji, founded in 603 by the Hata, the immigrant clan who first farmed this ground. The temple itself is plain, weathered wood; the treasure is in the Reihoden — the Miroku Bosatsu, a slender bodhisattva resting a fingertip against its cheek, half-smiling, the first thing Japan ever listed as a National Treasure. Sit with it. There's nothing else quite like it in Kyoto.
Out front, the Randen tram — the city's last — runs level with the shops along the Uzumasa-Koryuji street. The Toei film studios sit just north; look in if period drama appeals. Then wind south-east through the everyday grid of tiled roofs and bathhouse chimneys to Katabiranotsuji, where the two tram lines cross and one will carry you straight back.
