Tourists on speed

This past weekend, I visited Kyoto, Nara and Koyasan. Its started with a morning wake up call at 6:30am. The goal was to reach Kyoto as early as possible. We missed our bus at 7am by less than one minute, so had to cab it to the train station. The cab driver was very nice and informed us that his son was a translator (we think) and that his older sister lived in Boston. We attempted to tell him we also lived in Boston, but we doubt he understood.

Once at the train station, we grabbed a quick breakfast--just stopped by at a bakery/bread shop. They have a lot of these all over Japan and the bread smells so delicious, its hard to resist not buying something every time you walk by. The only problem is that they sell stuff cold. For instance, they had hash browns, which looked very good, but were cold and let me tell you, it was tasty but I can only imagine what it would taste like warm. I also sampled a bread/corn/squash thing and that was actually pretty good too--except they put mayonaisse on everything it seems (reminds me of a story a friend told me about the UK being obsessed with Mayo). Despite that, it was also tasty, though again, must've been delicious when it was warm.

We made it to Kyoto in under 3 hours and were off to sightsee. Our first stop was Chion-in, the temple with the largest gate in Kyoto (perhaps all of Japan). It was huge and had MANY stairs leading up to the temple.

Inside, we were able to observe a Buddhist ceremony of some sort, or choir recital--can't tell which--but it was all women and they all had instruments--and then there were the Buddhist priests which were all men. Chion-in also has the largest bell and its said that it takes the power of at least 17 monks to be able to ring it.

From Chion-in we walked through Maruyama-koen (park) over to the most well known temple of Kyoto--Kiyomizu-dera. On our way, we stopped for some ice cream as with the heat index, it felt about 100 degrees. We enjoyed green tea and roasted black sesame seed flavored ice cream. The fact that it wasn't too sweet was just perfect.

While walking through Maruyama-koen we got stuck in a downpour. We took cover under a partially covered driveway and a few minutes later, a woman on a bike stopped there. We thought she was also taking cover but she lived there. A couple minutes after she went inside, she came back out with an umbrella for M and I to use so we could continue our trip. She was very kind, but I'm not sure if she just wanted to get rid of foreigners standing in her driveway, or get rid of the umbrella (it was designed for a very tall individual and she was rather short) or what. Anyway, it was very kind and we moved along in the rain.

Kiyomizu-dera was amazing. It was huge and colorful and the surrounding streets sold many traditional Japanese items and crafts. As expected, it was very crowded, but nonetheless, enjoyable. We walked around for a while and stopped to drink the "healing holy water". We waited in line, with everyone else, to sample the magical powers of this spring water. At the top, you can get a ladle that is UV sterilized (I was actually a bit worried about the "healing waters" actually getting you sick due to sharing cups and was tempted to buy my own cup for $7).

We only had a couple hours in Kyoto so we moved on to Nara, our next stop on our temple filled weekend.

Nara is known for its deer. They were considered sacred at one point and still are free to roam through Nara-koen without trouble. There are signs warning parents to be careful with their children and show pictures of angry deer mothers staring at children playing with baby deer. Kinda frightening actually. So the deer here pretty much own the place. Several times I came across some deer that seemed to be giving me such attitude--like "yeah, that's right, I'm sacred" just chillin' in the park. I wanted to take a picture of one particular deer that had such a "fresh" look on his face, but just as I was going to do that he/she turned around to lick their behind. I did manage to get a picture of one more gently looking deer just hanging out on a bridge.

We made our way to the Todai-ji temple complex and first stop was the Daibutsu-den Hall--the largest wooden structure in the world that house the largest Buddha in Japan. The Buddha was enormous and the hall itself was beautiful.

We then walked up further to Nigatsu hall to watch the sun set behind the city view. We then went to find some food and found a nice place in one of the arcades. Amazingly, when we were done with dinner around 8pm, everything was closing down. In a matter of minutes the small crowds of people vanished. We wondered how they disappeared so quickly...

M and I then decided to head "downtown" to check out what was going one. Little did we know that "town center" is where our hotel was located--we thought it was in a distant part of the city. Oh well. We called it a night and watched a teenage Japanese soap opera. We tried to figure out what was going on based on the action, but we definitely missed some jokes as everyone onscreen was laughing and M and I were completely lost.

The next morning, we got up and went back to Nara-koen. It was rather peaceful at this time, since none of the tourist crowds had yet arrived. We walked through the park down a path surrounded by many lanterns. The whole morning was very relaxing, exactly what I wanted after a day of going from one temple to the next. M stopped at one of the shops near the temple to buy a prayer board (dont know what its actually called) where you write a prayer or wish down and hang it up outside the temple. They had three different kinds, as the old woman informed us: One for upper body wishes, one for lower body wishes, and one for boy/girl romance. I took a shot of what they look like and got yelled at--apparently no photos were permitted. Anyway, the "upper body wish" board was hysterical as it depicts a womans breasts:

We had lunch in Nara and then headed on our long journey to Koyasan. We were meeting up with Mo, Mi and FJ up on the mountain. Luckily, we only had to transfer trains once. But the ride was sooo long. The last train takes a very winding path that at some instances feels like the train is going to fall off the edge of the cliff--pretty scary. At the end of the train ride, there's a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain.

We were staying in a Buddhist temple for the night so we arrived, dropped off our stuff and headed for the sights. The most well-know of the sights is this huge cemetary where it is said any true Buddhist (followers of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism founded by Kobo Daishi) leaves a piece of dead relatives in the cemetary near Kobo Daishi's grave so that they're taken care of or something when Kobo Daishi reawakens for the arrival of the future Buddha. The cemetary was awesome. It was in the middle of a forest of cypress trees--the trees were incredible--gigantic and ancient--very impressive. The tombs were also pretty impressive and there were sooo many. M said it gave her the willies to be walking around a cemetary but for me, it was one of the coolest parts of my weekend.

After the cemetary, we went back to the temple for shoshin ryori (mountain vegetable meal) since the Buddhists are vegetarian. The dinner was actually very filling and most of it was very good. The most interesting tasting part was the rehydrated tofu--it was like biting into a sponge--very strange.

Like Nara, Koyasan closes down at 8pm. Luckily, we managed to make it to one of the souvenir shops a few minutes before closing and bought some souvenirs. We went back to the temple and had baths. The rest of the girls were brave enough to handle the public baths, but I am not so comfortable with public nudity and luckily the private shower stall was free.

After bathing, there wasn't much to do, which turned out great because we had to be up early for the 6am ceremony. There were learned that water can listen to and read words and distinguish which are good and which are bad. I really liked the message the head priest was trying to send--saying bad things to people not only hurts them, but it hurts you too because of the bad spirit it comes from. The part that bothered me was his attempt to use "scientific evidence" to prove this. I am all for sending this kind of message, but to fool people into thinking that there are physical/chemical/biological reasons for this is not cool. This particularly bothered me because every time he said it was scientific, not only was it not scientific, but a number of people around me were astonished and I sensed that they were taking this as scientific evidence. It really bothered me that these people did not know enough to realize that really, the images he was showing were just pictures and didn't prove anything. In the end, I left with a slightly sour taste, but let it go and was satisfied with the fact that I approved of the overall message he was trying to send.

After the ceremony, we ate more shoshin ryori and headed to the next destination. At this point M and I went different directions--she headed for Osaka and I went back to Kyoto.

In Kyoto, we went to Nijo-jo castle. The castle itself wasn't very impressive but the paintings on the walls of the tatami mat rooms were amazing. It reminded me a lot of things that I've seen in Europe. I wonder (and I'm sure some art history person knows this) when people stopped painting pictures on their walls. They're such beautiful paintings--I wonder if its one of those things that became tacky or if its one of those things that only wealthy people could afford and went out style. Hmm....I'm tempted to hire an artist and have them paint my room.

After the Nijo-jo castle, we headed over to Gion. This past weekend was the Gion Matsuri festival--one of the biggest in Japan. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain all day long and I think the usual crowds did not show up. I got to see a couple of floats but nothing spectacular. I think I missed the main event because I needed to catch my train, but from the pictures friends sent, didn't seem to miss all that much. The highlight of that afternoon was getting to see Geisha and Maiko. I was too slow with the camera and they move very quickly with guards around them, but Mo was able to run in front and have of the them pose for her.

Overall, I had a great weekend and got to see a lot of old Japan. Kyoto reminded me a lot of Rome, as you're walking through downtown and come across some really ancient stuff. I really think I was meant to live in a place with a rich history, yet I don't think I would give up living in the US.

More photos here