The Kyoto Days 27-30

May 16:

Tokyo station, the day is nice and sunny. Finally the Japan I wish everyone experienced.

The train ride to Kyoto is upon us, we do the whole tourist dance of arriving early. Picking the right Bento box and being uncomfortable with it giving with our bags.

The first Shinkansen M has ever been on. Has arrived, and this being a first class seat makes it even better.

We sit on our seats. I tell him I expect to see mount Fuji out from the window... At first we don't think much about it, but when it finally appears in the view, it is indeed as holy as all Japanese regard it

It's feels more than just a mountain, and seeing it on such a nice day, it really blessed our journey ahead.

We arrived at almost 30deg, hot and Kyoto, hotel as near to the station as possible, but such luxury from a simple priced hotel, big room, big beds, location on point.

We lay the bags down and start the walk. I call it recon, as it helps me orient myself how far is everything that looks close on a map, and how to find the hotel by more than just looking down at Google maps. The first challenge proves to be hard as we don't see a way through the station, only around...

So we do go around and hit the first temple. It's much bigger in size to anything we saw in Tokyo previously, the word grandiosity will describe every temple from here on, as every temple in Kyoto is bigger than Tokyo, and every buddhist monk wanted their own clerical status to be shown in more than just size... some temples have gates for the emperor, gold leaf and holy creatures, but emperor never came to use these anyway... why leave the imperial palace.

We hit the local shopping street, as it stretches far and leads to more temples, we end in a Park, and see another temple complex, bigger than the temples we saw before. These monks really mean business, I understand they did not know figures such as Pope existed, but they almost replicated that lifestyle without the references. Buddhism being all about elimination of greed, hatred and ignorance, feels like they do that, but in terms of space they occupy, I think they might be a bit greedy...

We end the first day of Kyoto, with a nice Teppanyaki style dinner, feast for eyes and for the mouth, I do know there is this Gion District, that has wooden houses, and all the traditional style, so I put it on the map, and it leads us to a modern, red light district, with absolutely nothing what I expected... I guess I was wrong, but I was proven wrong a day later.

17 May:

Starting the second day, we have a bike tour, I'm happy with any kind of biking, I hope I don't burn in 30 degrees awaiting us, but it will bite me in the ass later. Good alaskan tour guide, full of cycling spirit, and Japanese knowledge.

We ride through a few new temples, some as old, as Buddhism in Japan, all earthquake proof and without a single nail, with some of the biggest buildings in Japan at that time.

We go towards some other areas we have seen before, Golden Temple, unfortunately is so crowded, is hard to enjoy, but the stories surrounding it are enough for now.

We stop for a good lunch, a nice alternative ramen, we cycle towards Fushimi Inari and listen to all the stories he has to say, we decide on the spot that we need to come back to Fushimi Inari early morning and do the whole loop, that might take us an hour or two, but it's worth it for being empty around 4am.

I also buy my new Goshuin Cho (stamp book) and start it from Fushimi Inari to the next stage, after that, we head back home, stop the bikes, and we must go again towards Gion District for another tour.

Gion District, Geisha District or as people in Kyoto know them as Geiko, is very charming, but the tour is worth the 8 pounds we paid for it, reading a wikipedia would give us more insight, the guide is still friendly and entertaining with the rest of the crowd, we do manage to spot one Meiko in one of the tea houses, and call it a day, return towards our area, get another round of Teppanyaki, happy and time to head to bed, as the climb of Fushimi Inari awaits.

18 May:

Wake up before sunrise, to catch it on the mountain, don't check any sunset calculators or maps to see if it's actually relevant, but the light is still golden in those hours, so as we catch a cab towards Fushimi Inari, we see it in splendid light, empty as it should be, pristine, and I start taking picture after picture as we climb up, thousands of red gates and all a bit different, we arrive in 20 minutes to one of the parts of where we get a bit confused, some characters do make sense to guide our way, but we have to backtrack and comeback to the rest of the path.

I was expecting a bigger temple on the top, but apparently it's not really about any temple, but just the path itself.. and we finish the entire loop under one hour, which is a good time, we sit down on the benches in one area, have a sandwich... and as it's still way too early we decide to hit the Bamboo forest after this.

Taxi all the way to Arashiyama, and it's really just an Instagram vs Reality kind of spot, too early for any temple to open, so the bamboo forest itself is about 200 metres worth of grove, and one or two pictures for your entertainment, but if you're going all the way out from Kyoto for this, without visiting any other temple around it. I would say it's not worth the trouble.

We catch a train back to our general area, and I spot the train conductor with a watch, a pocket watch, also connected to his key, but the way it's actually done, it fits the dashboard of the train, like the train itself is expected to have this watch... I am intrigued.

We return for a quick nap, I edit some pics while M rests. After that, we still haven't seen one specific area, so I decide we should, catch another cab for lunch for some Ramen around that area, go up towards one of the biggest shrines with a terrace overlooking the forests around, a waterfall with 3 waters, Kiyomizu Temple and Otowa Waterfall, you can only choose 2 to drink from: success, love or longevity. I am happy to see a lot of youth picking the spoon and sharing it, but as I'm not sure which one is which, I decide not to test my luck.

This temple also hosts Sakura and Moon Viewing events, I now have a new todo item, to comeback in autumn to Kyoto.

Go down the street, see a familiar Arabica coffee, stop for it and head back towards our central market area, do some browsing without much success and spot a Geiko, a Maiko and their mama-san, as usual on the way to a job, I manage to snap a few photos, although the background could not look more boring for this type of encounter.

We find a nice place on a map, that looks modern, upper scale and interesting, apart from a bit low rent traditional ones we've been hanging out previously. We find it by me happily knowing how to recognise the Ice kanji.

The food is fantastic, and the bill is still tiny, we have it all, including beef tongue, M has a few dishes different from me, but we return happily to our hotel and rest.

19 May:

M wakes up feeling sick. He decides to lay in for a while, it's a rainy day, intense rain actually, I decide to put a raincoat and my camera and head out. I enjoy the wandering around the temples I've seen before heading towards Manga Museum, the pictures of people in the rain, the temples in the rain all turn out great, the manga museum is more like an endless library, every book can be picked up and read at your own pace in any corner, or even in the outer rooms, when it's not raining you can go wander around the garden. It tells you a bit of history of drawings in japan, some of them as simple as wood blocks, to a more political propaganda and satire when priting press became readily availble, to what we know now as just manga, it shows you the economics, how much to produce a volume, all the parts involved, and the cost of getting it out there, nowadays even including the international rele

i pass by the yearly sections to remember how old JoJo manga is, 1987 and what other manga came out same year... notice even Evangelion had a manga around those which I was not really aware of... See a few more rooms, one featuring casts of hands of famous mangakas. The rest of museum is just more rooms where you can get opinions on your manga with some professionals, when they are availible, so a good resource for aspiring people.

M wakes up around this time and says, let's visit the imperial palace, so we meet around it, and what we thought was imperial palace, is actually Sento Imperial Palace, the word Sen, i knew by then, means previous... so this is the retired home of emperor's father basically, and we have to get it only via a guided visit, they do give us an audio guide, but the audio says about 1 min of what the place is, and then the japanese guide continues for about 20 minutes about each location, each rock and the way the moss fills the gaps... we get bored so quickly, as we can't go inside, and as M does not have a camera, plus being sick, he was probably 10x as bored as me, we manage to find an easy way to escape after about an hour of listening and walking around the garden. In my honest opinion, unless it's sakura season or autumn, this is the most boring palace you can learn anything about, and having a japanese guy doing the tour, entertaining about 10% of the audience while the rest of the white people wander how to get out... is not a good way to pass time in Kyoto. The rain is finally over, we escape towards the hotel, pack up a bit and as M is sick, he says its better to have some pasta. We find an italian place inside the station and call it a dinner, it's fine, except you still eat with chopsticks, amongst other things they adapt for the menu...

One thing I forgot to mention, in the middle of these days, M has lost his JR Green pass, equivalent to a first class ticket, to everywhere in Japan. As far as a mood killer, to lose the ticket on the first journey... at least it was the most expensive journey for now, we tried a few things like using receipts, talking to hotel and station lost and found, but to no avail... lessons learned, don't lose something worth about 400 GBP on your first journey.

Kyoto is great, but Osaka awaits the following day. I would definitely come back to Kyoto for autumn foliage, for the moon viewing and for whatever else...