Day Three - Kyoto

Today's first picture is one of my favorite from Kyoto. I took it in one of the temples when I noticed the tower in the background. I think the Japanese have done a good job mixing the new with the old.

I'm also putting up a map so you can see where we were. Our hotel was between the Kyoto train station and Koji temple.



Woke up very early (about 4:00 AM) because I stopped taking sleeping pills. Had to adjust sometime. Decided to do breakfast in the Japanese restaurant. Talk about different food. They bring you out a tray of food with about 10 different dishes. I recognized rice, miso soup, and cooked fish. The rest was best described as a noodle soup, lots of pickled things, and some purple noodles I think were a vegetable. And roasted tea (oishii!). I didn't really eat that much.

So at around 8-8:30 in the morning we set off (on foot) to see as many of the 50+ (I'm sure there are way more) Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines as we can. And it was raining (which is why so few photos from the morning.) It was going to be a long day...

So we started the day walking north of our hotel to a temple I think was called Nishihangan-ji temple (no admission charge.) It was a working temple and not all that set up for tourists (or maybe I just missed the tourist stuff.) They had some modern offices and we saw some monks walking around. We actually got to see them pray. It was very soothing. Oh, and had a moat around it, I think.

Next was Higashi Hongan-ji temple. This is the Mausoleum of Shinran Shonin (1173-1262), the founder of Shin Buddhism. One of the large halls was under repair but still was large and impressive. They had these ropes that were made of human hair (from female devotees) that were used to haul giant logs to the top of the temple. The largest one measures 367 feet, has a circumference of 1.3 ft, and weighs 2,200 lbs. Now that's devotion!

We passed by a garden and decided to go inside. Glad we did (500 yen.) This was the Shosei-en Garden and was a masterwork of Japanese art. They supplied us with a beautiful picture book and sent us on our way. By now it was raining pretty hard but once again, the waterproof clothing and umbrella made things better. The pond was full of carp and they followed you around waiting to get fed. This place was my favorite garden of the trip. We then walked through some back alleys and I found a fruit stand. Wanting a banana, I gave the gentlemen 150 yen for what I thought was for one banana. It ended up being for the bunch (5) and I carried bananas with me for a couple of days.





After crossing the river, we came across a large grave on a small hill which was not on our maps (about a block away from the Kyoto national museum.) This was obviously an important place judging by how many buses with Japanese tourists were dropping people off. Anybody know what this is?

Finally, we found our first Shinto shrine. It was nice but I really couldn't tell the difference from the temples. Next door was the Kyoto national museum (only 500 yen) and looked at everything inside. They had some of the most impressive Buddhist carvings that I wish I could have shown you (again, no pictures.) Very nice, but I was getting tired (I think it was around 12pm at this point.) We decided to see one more temple and then go back to Porta for lunch.







The last temple was the biggest. It was called Sanjusangen-do and had an impressive number (over 1,000) of statues. I think I heard it was the largest or longest wooden structure in the world (about 120 meters long.) They used to have archery contests along the outside of it. Again, no pictures, so I found some off the web.


this one was mine







Now on the way back, my dad decided that we should eat at a dessert place we saw in Porta (below the train station.) The only thing is we didn't know exactly where it was. We spent between 30min to a hour looking for this place. I'm glad to report that the food was very good and my dad was happy.





Went back to the hotel and slept from 3 to 5:30PM. So much walking!

Jumped on a subway to explore the shopping district in Kyoto. Quick, cheap, and easy. They were setting up for a huge festival (which no one seemed to know the origin of) downtown and there were people everywhere. Very exciting. We went to the top floor of the Diamure Department store (they had about 10 restaurants up there) and found an Italian place for dinner. Great food and service. After dinner, we walked back towards the subway and took a few detours down some pedestrian only roads (we even found a tiny Shinto shrine with a weird animatronic robot) untill I decided to take a picture of some girls dressed up in traditional clothes up in a parade float. I then proceded to knock over a police barricade and was swarmed with cops telling me to move away. I was so embarrased! Oh, and we couldn't really shop because everything closed by 8pm (this seemed to be a trend in Tokyo, too.)



Jumped back on the subway and walked to the hotel. Very, very tired. Tomorrow, the bullet train and Tokyo. Very exciting!