Images of Kyoto

Tuesday was our last day in Kyoto. We had hired a guide and met her – Setsuko – at 9:00 and headed off for the Golden Pavilion in the northwest part of the city. This is one of Kyoto’s most famous tourist attractions, and we experienced our greatest crowds yet, though it wasn’t mobbed by any means. There were lots of school kids on field trips, some of them in dressed in kimonos.

The place was originally constructed as an aristocrat’s home and used by a shogun as a summer residence. After his death, in accordance with his wishes, his son turned it into a Buddhist temple and had the gold leaf applied to the exterior of the upper two floors which had been added on top of the house.

The morning sun reflected off the lake and made the eaves of the temple shimmer.

Setsuko and Mark

From the Golden Pavilion, we headed next to Nijo Castle in the center of Kyoto. This was one of the highlights of our trip so far. Quoting from the brochure:  The castle was originally built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu ... It is one of the finest examples of early Edo period and Momoyama culture in Japan." It was originally intended to be a fortified castle, but after one of the towers was struck by lightning and burned, a decision was made to build a palace instead.

Detail of the restored main gate

Internet picture of the Ninomaru Palace

The palace consists of a series of reception rooms that grow more elaborate as one advances to the shogun's private quarters. In one of the rooms, the shogunate effectively ended as the last shogun informed his liege lords that the samurai system was coming to an end and power was being turned over to the emperor. The following pictures from the Internet depict this scene (photographs inside the palace were forbidden):

Special pins account for the "Nightingale Floor" which was designed to alert palace officials
to the presence of persons by making the sound of a nightingale. Even after hundreds of years, it still works.

Picture of us on the grounds of the palace

Corner of the moated castle

It was then off to Teramachi Street to see the famed arcaded shopping area. We had some lunch here, as well as found a couple of "recycled" yukatas for Mark and me. These are essentially cotton house coats that are provided for guests' use at most inns in Japan. In Tokyo, they were limited to use in our room, but in Hakone and again here in Kyoto, guests are welcome to wear them to dinner, breakfast and around the inn.

After lunch, we walked through Gion, the area of Kyoto where the houses are the oldest, passing shops that are more than 200 years ago (indicated by the presence of a special lantern having over the door). Thence to the geisha district, and on to a Zen temple.

Gion

Names of Geishas and their trainees over a door

Meditation cushions in Zen temple building

Setsuko and me looking at the temple's rock garden

Ceiling of Zen Temple

It had been a long day. We left our inn at 7:30 and got back at 5:30. That evening, we had a Japanese calligraphy class in the lobby of the inn. The teacher despaired of me, but tried to put a good face on it. We are off to Koyasan today.

Kyoto: Typhoons and Zen Gardens

Monday morning started out with finding out what had happened during the night. Mark’s phone had gone off with a notification sound several times during the night with a text message in Japanese. We found out later that this is an emergency warning system that goes to all cell phones in Japan. 

Later in the day, we learned of the extent of the damage of the typhoon. Over 200,000 people were forcibly evacuated from their homes in the Kyoto area. When we went to the train station that morning to catch a train to our first destination, we discovered that the trains were not running due to the tremendous amount of rain that had fallen during the night. I think I read somewhere that it was the most rain that had ever fallen during a 24-hour period in Kyoto since they began keeping meteorological records.

Courtyard of a sub-temple down the way from the Shunko-in Temple

We had intended to take a train to see if we could partake in an English-language Zen meditation session and lecture at Shunko-in Temple in northwest Kyoto. We were particularly interested in this because the leader of the sessions and the assistant head of the temple is an LGBT rights advocate and a firm supporter of marriage equality, which struck us as highly unusual for Japan. Unfortunately, because we had to take the bus, we arrived too late.

We wandered around the temple complex, which is associated with Myoshinji Temple, but I was somewhat disappointed in that experience. In contrast to other areas where we had been, the signs – everything – were solely in Japanese (except outside the Shunko-in Temple). Plus people were very busy cleaning up after the typhoon. It seemed to us that this area of Kyoto had suffered more than the area in which our inn is located.

One place that we did go into was a garden in the complex. Here we saw the most graphic example yet of the homage that is paid to Jizo, the bodhisattva who looks after the souls of children who have been aborted, are stillborn, or have died. As Mark said as we left, it was kind of creepy.

Parents leave children's toys so that Jizo can find their children in hell and save them

From the Myoshinji Temple complex, we walked up to see the Ryoanji Zen Temple. The notable aspect of this temple is its world-famous Zen rock garden, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. 

Stone bridge on grounds of Ryoanji Temple. Notice the leaves that are starting to turn.

A lone maple leaf that had fluttered down onto the edge of the garden below our feet

After seeing Ryoanji, we headed by bus back to our inn in central Kyoto, arriving back about 3:30 in the afternoon. From there we went to the neighborhood sento (public bath). Mark had been inquiring after a restaurant that served katsu don buri, a pork dish with egg, onion and rice that he remembered having in his childhood in Tokyo. Whenever he had asked about it, he had been greeted with surprised frowns. It was definitely a “low-class food.” But he found one right next door to our sento, and that is the place to which we returned for dinner that night.

Umbrellas hanging out to dry in front of our inn on Monday afternoon

Today's Engrish-ism

Sign outside a temple complex

On To Kyoto

It is early Sunday morning here in Kyoto, and Mark and I are sitting in the lobby of our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn), listening to it rain. It will probably rain all day today, but we are not complaining. Other than a couple of very light showers, we have enjoyed good weather - albeit hot and humid at times - since we arrived in Japan ten days ago.

Yesterday marked the start of another adventure. Every time we leave a place, we leave what level of comfort and familiarity we established there. This has made me apprehensive and anxious at times, but yesterday was much better than previously: I have learned that I don't have to have all the answers of how to do everything at train stations, what to do where, etc. - because there is usually someone in some type of uniform whom we can ask or who will set us straight, er, point us in the right direction.

I meant to include this in my last post. As we were walking back to the train station from our tour with Ken,
we came across this sign. It struck me as so incongruous that I had to take a picture of it.
Who knew? Amish food in Kamakura, Japan. Ken said he and his wife will have to go there sometime.

Such was the case yesterday. We took a train from Kamakura into Tokyo in order to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. We found the gate ok, but our tickets didn't go through the machine properly. There was a uniformed man there, however, and he looked at our tickets, manually stamped them, and we were on our way.

Shinkansen Station at Shinagawa Station in Tokyo

Waiting lounge. The woman at right is wearing a dark green hat that said
"LONGSILENT" over the word "GOODSLEEP"

Japanese babies and little children are SO cute

The train that we took, the "Nozomi," is the fastest train in Japan. It took us two hours and ten minutes to travel from Shinagawa to Kyoto, a distance of approximately 470 kilometers, and that included stopping at two stations along the way, making for a speed of about 185 kph. 

Upon our arrival in Kyoto, it was hot and humid, but the temperature went down during the course of the afternoon in advance of the rain we are now having. We found our ryokan on a little side street about a 20-minute walk from the station, and we were immediately very impressed and pleased with the selection. The manager welcomed us in excellent English and showed us to our room, which is a traditional Japanese room with a little garden off a small deck.

In front of our ryokan

After getting settled in our room, we walked a couple of blocks to one of many World Heritage Sites in Kyoto - the Nishi-Hoganji Temple. (For those who may not be aware, Kyoto was Japan's capital for approximately 1000 years, the seat of the emperors of Japan.) We were immediately impressed by its sheer size and the space around it. While there, we were able to witness some sort of ceremony which we suspect was a funereal service or remembrance. A number of people were admitted beyond a "barrier" and as four monks chanted, each one of the 20 or so people there went up to put incense in a small burner and offer a prayer. That was pretty cool.

Detail of massive wooden gate

Detail of wooden steps leading up the Buddha Hall

The wearing of shoes inside the temple precincts was not allowed

Detail of screen in part of massive wooden gate

After visiting this temple, we made our way to a local sento (public bath) that had been recommended by the manager of our ryokan. It wasn't far, but it took a bit of looking because many of the streets are very narrow and look more like alleys than streets.

This was our first time at a real "public" bath. It was interesting to say the least. We walked in, rented a small towel, then went in past a curtain to the changing area, which was not large, in which lockets were located. There were at least a dozen men changing in or out of their clothes and at least that many inside the bath area. Located there were dozen or so seated areas in which to shower. 

A man next to me, who was there when I arrived, showed me which bottle was shampoo and which body soap. He motioned for me to pump the shampoo bottle several times, but I didn't need that much shampoo - or at least I thought I didn't. But when it came to the body soap, he took the bottle, motioned for me to hold out my hand, and he pumped five or six times, releasing a large pool of soap into my hand. I lathered up and rinsed, but I noticed five or ten minutes later that the man was still seated there, lathering and washing. I felt that my cleansing job was extraordinarily insufficient.

In the bathing area, there were hot tubs and cold water tubs, jetted tubs and non-jetted tubs. We tried most of them. In one that Mark got in ahead of me, he stuck out his hand in the water, then yanked it back, saying, "There's electricity in that water!" A couple of older men around us smiled, as others had done before that, seeing these two North Americans using their neighborhood sento. 

One of the men motioned for me to some over and sit in front of what was obviously the emission point for the electricity, smiling. I did so, and it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life so sit in electrified water. But with my back to the electric emission thing, there was a massaging effect. I smiled at the man and said, "massage!" He nodded, smiling and saying, "Yes. Massage." Even so, I could only take so much of that. It was just so weird.

Another noteworthy image from that experience was of a boy, around 10 years of age, who was sitting on the edge of a ofuro (raised tub), surround by all these old men. The image was striking. It reminded me of this painting by Flandrin. The Japanese boy's pose was almost exactly the same.

After finishing at the bath (vowing to bring our own towels from the ryokan next time in order to dry off), we stopped by a grocery store to pick up a few things, then headed back to the ryokan for cocktails before venturing out for dinner. It had been a good first day in Kyoto. Today, we are off to Nara for a day trip with a guide.

Outside the sento

At the grocery store with the cute little basket they had

In our room

Today's Engrish-ism