This next installment is brought to you by the month
November and the famous city Kyoto. After Halloween ended, the decorations were
cleaned up and midterms came to a close, every year in the first few weeks of
November the University of Nanzan puts on a week-long festival essentially for
the purpose of giving all of the University’s clubs a chance to do some much
need fundraising. That being said, the entire University gets 5 days off from
classes to enjoy the festival. Of course, being ever restless with spending so
much time on campus I took this short break opportunity and decided to make a
pilgrimage to Japan’s famous cultural capital, Kyoto. A city well-known around
the world for its beautifully colored leaves in the fall and year round- for
its seemingly endless amount of rich and interesting historical sites, shrines,
temples, and entertainment.
The journey, as most journeys
are in college, had only two goals, get to the destination (Kyoto), and have
fun. Thus, I recruited the companionship of my two foreign friends, (Joe Hall
from Indiana, and Mandy Miller from Avon Lake Ohio). The day before we left I
began the necessary preparations for the journey by looking up a few youth
hostels with my phone and packing a duffle bag full of clothes, water, snack
foods, and toiletries. Planning on spending four days in Kyoto, we set out from
the main JR station closest to my house in a district known as Ozone. At Ozone,
the night we intended to buy our train tickets and head out armed with nothing
but our limited knowledge of Japanese and our individual duffle bags filled
with clothes and snacks, we got in line with the map of stops provided by the
guidance of our Japanese Teacher and prepared to tell the ticket seller what
kind of ticket we were trying to buy. We thought, it would be simple,3 tickets
round trip from here to Kyoto stopping at our pre-determined stops, but of
course, as with all good journeys, the beginning must have a rocky start.
I walked up first and pointed to our list of stops asking in
the best Japanese I could manage for 1 round trip ticket to Kyoto on the JR
line train system. The train ticket clerk seemed to understand and rung up the
correct total, but just before I could bask in the glory of buying a train
ticket in Japanese all by myself for the first time, the desk clerk looked over
the stops and pointing to the one which came after Ozone station, explained
that the next stop was no good. He said, what I at first interpreted to mean,
that the train was broken down. Confused and attempting to understand the salesman’s
natural speed of speaking we struggled for a few minutes to figure out if we
could, in fact, still make it to Kyoto the way we planned to, until with no
conclusion in site, and the station attendant becoming slightly flustered with
a line of Japanese customers forming behind us, we stepped aside to discuss our
options in English and try to wrack our brains as to what exactly the attendant
meant by the simple Japanese (この電車は、ちょっと、だめだと思います)
which essentially comes to mean: “This train…well…it is no good I think”.
Looking exactly like the stereotype
of the “Foreigner in Japan”, over-sized bags, blonde hair and all, Our hurried
and confused English conversation about what we should do next was thankfully
over-heard by the ever helpful Japanese population interested in practicing
their English. As if sent by the gods of safe travel, a young Japanese woman
approached us and asked if we needed any help, in almost perfect English. We
graciously accepted her offer to assist us and through her limited ability to
translate, we were able to find out that the station attendant was merely
informing us that due to maintenance the train system was running a little
behind schedule. Thus, the train schedule (not the train) we had shown him had
been incorrect and he was just making sure that the change in times was alright
with us. Ecstatic that our trip to Kyoto
had been saved by the hands of fate, we purchased our slightly later train
tickets and prepared to get on the platform. Little did we know, that our short
trip to Kyoto would test our ability to communicate to the limit and beyond.
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| Mandy singing and Joe covering his ears! |
The train
ride went simply enough, after the past few months of having to learn how to
read Japanese train and subway maps, navigating new stations wasn't even a
problem, thus our transfers went off without a hitch. However, due to the
change in the train schedule that we agreed to when we purchased the tickets,
we would be arriving in Kyoto on the last possible train at right around midnight.
We knew that all of the hotel’s check-in times would be closed by this time so
when we arrived tired from the mind-numbing 4 hours of train riding we did
exactly what you would expect College students to do in Japan past midnight. We
walked down some of the streets closest
to Kyoto’s main train station, and found ourselves a 24-hour karaoke
parlor!(See Pictures) it was tiny but they had a nice 5 hour deal so we could
sing until the sun rose and then go see if we could find breakfast. Thankfully
the karaoke parlor had a great selection of English music, so we all got to
sing our favorite songs! I did a many Beatles tunes but after an awful
rendition of “Hey Jude” round 3 A.M. I
let the others take over the song selection.
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| the Karaoke Parlor |
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| All American Style~ |
After our 5 hour session of
singing, throats sore, and drained from a lack of sleep and bathing we decided
we needed to find something else to do. Using the internet on my phone I
discovered that the hotels and hostels wouldn't not even be available to call
until at least 10 A.M. Really feeling the lack of proper bathing we all decided
the first thing we should do before getting breakfast was to find one of
Japan’s famous public bathing houses. Once again, our luck saved us a lot of
hassle, by looking up bath houses in Kyoto on my phone I found that the closest
bath house was right directly across the street from the main Kyoto station
(where we first arrived) in the basement of Kyoto Tower. The tower stands 430
feet tall and is a recognizable land mark viewable from almost anywhere in the
city. It opened at seven and trust me when I say we really wanted to be first
in line, but when we arrived exactly when they opened, the bath house already
had a line forming outside its door. We got in, paid our fees, and enjoyed an
incredibly relaxing hot spring bath with roman bath décor. After that much
needed refresh, our small steamed and pressed troupe made our way to the
nearest breakfast diner…good old McDonald’s.
Refreshed from our bath and hunger
for our traditional American cuisine satiated, we began discussing how we
should go about finding our hotel or hostel we planned to stay at for the next
three nights. We had a couple hostels with low nightly rates in mind, but
seeing that we had about 2 more hours before the hostel would open we decided
to do some exploring!
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| One section of the whole Temple |
Walking straight, away from the
station, with in only a few minutes we stumbled upon our first tourist destination.
To our surprise right in the dead center of the city was an incredibly large
Buddhist temple known as Higashi Honganji. (see pictures) the temples main
building constructed in 1895 is made entirely out of wood, and it, with a few
other buildings, are currently fighting for the title of world’s largest all
wooden structure. I must say, I had never seen anything so massive constructed
solely out of wood. If the size were not enough, ornate Asian style designs
were carved into the wood for decorative purposes the resulting mammoth work of
art that is the entire temple complex was breath taking even before setting
foot in the temples inner sanctum. If you are interested in knowing more about
the temples history, (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi_Honganji)
please enjoy reading this, in order to cut back on the length of this entry I
will refrain from giving to much background information on the landmarks I saw,
instead I will provide helpful links to the Wikipedia which provides a wealth
of interesting information on many of the places I got to see.
After wandering through the maze of
temple constructs at Honganji, my friends and I decided, tired as we were, to
begin figuring out what we should do about our Hostel/Hotel situation. I took
out my handy smartphone device and pulled up the list of possibilities I had
found not more than a few hours ago. Selecting the one that had received the
best reviews I called it expecting, with youthful naiveté, that everything, as
it had been so far, would go off without a hitch. Alas, I could not have been
more wrong, the hostel was booked solid! Slightly agitated I thought, “Well, no
problem I have a few more options” so I called the next best hostel on my list.
Booked, and the next, Booked, and in slightly panicked fear the last….Booked
solid. Yes, every hotel/hostel within a 5mile radius of our current location
seemed to be fully reserved for the next 5 days. I will spare you the details,
but I am sure you could imagine how the in fighting began amongst my once
friendly travel companions and I. Desperate and sleep deprived my friends and I
began re-calling the hotels/hostels and asking if they knew any place near
Kyoto station that still had a vacancy. The Japanese people ever helpful
provided us with a new list of hostels which did not have online listings. To
all of our great relief the staff of the first hostel we called spoke a little
English and had a room for three people open for the next three days, it could
not have been more perfect.
Excited to finally get some rest we picked up our bags from the train station
and following the broken English directions of our new favorite hostel owner, we
headed back toward Honganji and kept walking straight looking for a small
Italian bar. The bar was easy enough to find and taking a left we found
ourselves going down one of the residential back streets of Kyoto. We walked
along and noticed an interesting café that was not open quite yet and just as
we thought we had walked to far and perhaps missed it somewhere along the way,
the last house on the left covered in vines, and set back slightly from the
road, giving it magical portal-like qualities, akin to Narnia’s wardrobe or
platform 9 and ¾, came into view. A small hand painted sign on the door behind
the vines read, the Casa de Sol or house of the sun, all I can say is even with
the cloudy November weather Casa de Sol certainly brightened our day.
Going in quickly and finding the
attendant already expecting us, we paid for three days in advanced, for our
room which we had yet to see. Thanking the owner profusely in both Japanese and
English we made our way out a side door down a strange inner house ally way
(that was an outside connector to another part of the house) and made our way
in to our room.
It was modestly sized with three
futons (Japanese traditional beds) laid out on a wooden floor and a small
heater in the wall, which because it was freezing, we started up immediately. There
was also an incredibly small shower, which were incredibly grateful to have
(considering we didn’t exactly want to publicly bathe everyday while we were on
vacation). Throwing all of our bags in one corner. we laid out our individual
beds and telling ourselves we’d wake up around 6 to go out and see the Kyoto
night life we set alarms on all our phones. Falling asleep a soon as our heads
hit the pillows at a cool 2 in the afternoon.
We didn’t awake until morning, the
next day. We needed the sleep after all, and none of us were too displeased at
getting it. After a hot shower, privately of course, we all prepared for
breakfast at the all American McDonalds! Once seated coffee and egg and cheese
sandwiches in hand we mulled over the Kyoto tourist maps our hostel owner
provided us and tried to map out our first tourist day. Joe mention that his
friends who went last year went to an interesting park at the top of a mountain
on the outskirts of the south eastern side of the city, without any idea were
to start we decided that mountain climbing would be an interesting starting
point, and afterwards we could walk straight up along the east side of the city
were many other temples were waiting to be explored!
But of course, as usual, something
first had to go wrong. We had all finished eating and I was still sitting and
enjoying my morning coffee which was double tasking as a hand-warmer. Joe,
thinking he would be a helpful guy reached over my shoulder to get my tray of
finished food, just as I made the mistake of setting down my coffee. The result
was coffee all over my shirt and pants and shouting in both pain and surprise
at the scalding hot coffee which once was so soothing, now a tragic mistake.
Angry at the situation and cursing Joe’s kindness under my breath I told my
traveling companions to go buy the bus passes while I went back to the hostel
room to change quickly out of my now ruined attire.
If being tall, blonde, and foreign
wasn’t attention grabbing enough already, being covered in coffee was certainly
turning every eye, in the busy streets of Kyoto, on me. Possibly the most
embarrassing 3 blocks I ever had to walk in my life aside, I made it back,
changed, and returned to the bus top to my waiting friends in a matter of 10 or
so minutes. With my spirits high the
prospect of seeing a beautiful Japanese mountainside looming closer and closer,
I made jokes with Joe about the “coffee mishap” (which we still make to this
day whenever we go to lunch, an at-least
once a week habit of ours)
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| Tori gate on the way to the mountain park |
After a short and incredibly
uncomfortable bus ride (bus seats are NOT meant for people over 5’6’’), we made
it to our destination on the out skirts of town! Following the small road on
our map, which the bus route did not take, we began walking towards the park,
only to be greeted by the breath taking Shinto Gate framing an unforgettable
mountain scene surrounded by small shops. Stopping for pictures shortly and
then continuing on our way we found that the park was fairly tucked away from
the normal tourist destinations and found ourselves receiving strange looks
from the shop keepers looking out their windows, we responded to this with happy smiles and
waves greeting in both English and Japanese our exuberant foreign personalities
paid off and many of the shop keepers who at first looked suspicious, greeted
us in broken English or simple Japanese and laughed at our unusual appearance
and mannerisms we even stopped and asked some people for directions which they
happily provided surprised by our rudimentary understanding of Japanese
communication (something many foreigners tend to lack)
After confirming we were on the
right track, we found a small incredibly old stone stair case at the base of a
mountain with a small sign which in Japanese read “Saru Park” Excited to find
our first officially planned tourist destination we ran up the stairs and
quickly realized that we were entering a small but ornate Shinto shrine alongside
many other Japanese people. Something was different about this shrine, on the
side next to the area designated for prayer a small modern looking hut had been
erected and was selling tickets to continue up the mountain. We found this a
bit strange, but having come all this way, we paid the small fee and received a
small pamphlet with park information on it.
The pamphlet was simple enough and had a picture of Japanese monkeys on it. We
all stared blankly at the pamphlet for a few moments before, at the same time,
realizing this Park was a monkey park! We learned from the packet that at the
top of the mountain you could see the mountains population of over 50 monkeys
and even feed them (in designated feeding spots if you would like) Taken
completely by surprise my traveling troupe and I spoke with excitement at the
thought of being able to see a monkey up close and in the wild. First, of
course we had to scale the incredibly beautiful mountain ahead of us.
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| Fun signs on the way! Almost to the top! |
The mountain seemed to go on
forever and was incredibly steep, luckily the unusual signs with monkey facts
on them along the way kept us all motivated to see the top! It was great to see
the changing leaves as we climbed and although dizzying the view from up high
was stunning. After one last precarious looking stair case, we reached a
completely cleared plateau on the top of the mountain, and what an interesting
once-in-a-life-time-site it was, to see all of the Kyoto skyline along-side
over 50 monkeys just walking around without cages. It was amazing, the monkeys
simply had no fear and would walk right up and sit next you staring with
curiosity. I even got a few pictures with one! On the plateau there was another
hut with grate-style windows for feeding the monkeys from (the park forbade
giving food to the monkeys without the protection of the gate) Even with this
regulation however, it didn’t stop one guy who took out an entire bunch of
bananas from his backpack and threw them on the ground! In seconds one of the larger monkeys snatched
up the bananas and ran into the distance, while several park workers ran after
him in rushed frustration yelling in Japanese. That man was shortly thereafter
escorted from the park we are sure, but the event was still one that sticks out
as being out right hilarious.
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| trying not to scare the monkey away~ |
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| that monkey business |
So many monkeys so little time! In
order to insure we had time to see other things we didn’t stop to try and feed
the monkeys (which was actually quite expensive as well) and decide after about
30 minutes or so it was time to move on. Climbing down the mountain we all made
various jokes about monkeys or bananas and checking our map we tried to find an
interesting direction to take to discover a great lunch spot before we got too
tired of all this “Monkey business”.
Following our map we walked along a
fairly wide street covered with very traditional festival food stands, looking
so delicious and interesting I simply could not resist and my lunch became a
wonderful array of Japanese festival foods, like octopus balls and tofu ice
cream, while leisurely walking with my friends and taking pictures of some of
the smaller beautiful Kyoto temples nearby.
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| beautiful country side |
Laughing, talking, and generally
having a wonderful time exploring Kyoto together we all completely lost track
of where exactly we were on the map, and what time it was! Already going on 3
o’clock and we had no idea where we were, not a temple or landmark insight, and
surrounded by beautiful Kyoto country side we had wandered far out of the city.
A little scared, but still in high spirits, we decided, looking at our map,
that we definitely where walking north and we had simply taken a turn off the
main road somewhere. If we continued back the way we’d came we would eventually
find the bus route again and move on to the last major destination we wanted to
see for the day, Kinkakuji Temple or Kyoto’s famous Golden temple complex on
the northern edge of town we knew we couldn’t be all that far away.
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| Joe and Mandy, too happy at being lost |
After about half an hour of
retracing our steps, we found ourselves even more confused and, second guessing
ourselves, as essentially everything looked unfamiliar. We needed to figure out
a way back on the bus route (which would give us our exact location). To our
good fortune there were still a few Japanese people walking on the streets,
thus, tired of running in circles and wanting to find the temple before it got
dark we decided to stop a kind older looking Japanese couple and ask if they
knew where the nearest bus stop was.
They were helpful of course, though
a little confused by our accents. They actually escorted us to the bus stop and
asked us about where we were from in Japanese. In exchange we discovered they
were on a trip to see a baseball game in Osaka, but decided to stop in Kyoto
and see some sites before they went home. In a matter of a few minutes they
located the bus stop which was in the completely opposite direction than we
thought and our traveling experience was thankfully back on track to where it
needed to be.
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| Kinkaku-ji temple |
Our last stop before the end of the
day was Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple! Known in Japanese as Kinkaku-ji
(literally golden temple) it is one of the most popular structures of Japan,
attracting thousands of visitors from around the world daily. With the fading
light of the setting sun, the temple structure took on an even more austere
beauty than I thought it would’ve had. Gazing on in wonder with my two friends,
I didn’t notice until someone yelled my named that a large group of my friends
from Nanzan (who traveled separately from my group) had arrived! We all made a
big fuss about the coincidence and after taking many pictures of the temple’s
main building, we continued through the remainder of the temple garden complex
together, stopping now and again mystified by the simplicity, attention to
detail, and beauty of the famous garden. Please read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji
if you are interested in the history of my experience.
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| like a picture in a book |
Leaving the temple complex at dark,
when they closed the temple gates until the next morning, Mandy, Joe, and I
decided to split off again from the other much larger Nanzan University group
(which had close to 10 people in it) and go find ourselves some dinner. Joe,
had heard of an interesting one of a kind all you can eat American pizza place
somewhere near the temple from the same friends who had told him to check out
the park, and seeing how the park was an incredible success and trying to save
money to see more temples tomorrow (the small entrence fees were adding up) we
decided to add American Pizza to our growing ( a little depressing list) of
Kyoto “comfort” food. To make a long story short, we got a little lost and
after many bus line switches we finally made it to Dia’s Kitchen owned by an American
citizen the pizza buffet resembled CiCi’s pizza although a tad smaller and with
Japanese flair to comfort the locals. Having only ate street food for lunch
that day, we were starving, and filling our plates to the brim with decent
pizza and French fries we ate until we couldn’t and then ate some more. We even
tried the strange corn pizza (a favorite of the Japanese for reasons I don’t
quite understand) which I don’t intend to eat again anytime soon. Another bus
ride later and we were safe back in our hostel for the night talking about all
the exciting moments of the day and soon dreaming of the wonders for the day to
come.
After a good night’s rest, we woke
up and decided we had gotten a little too much McDonalds and pizza while in
Kyoto, to make up for this lack of local cuisine we decided because it was our
last day that we would splurge and go to the small but interesting looking café
tucked away on the back street near our hostel for brunch (we had accidently
slept in).
The Café seemed to have no name and
was attached to the bottom of someone’s house. It had an incredibly tiny
register at the front and then about 4 tables and chairs meant to sit four
people each but was incredibly tight and was certainly breaking some American
fire regulations. The atmosphere was, an interesting mix of French, European,
and Japanese with various European antiques on the walls and even a rather old
looking melodeon in the back (looking very much like the one we have at home in
fact-mom). As we entered the women at the register looked delighted and was
obviously the owner, the café was already almost full up but there was one last
place to sit in the back and taking the spot happily we were about to pick up
the menu when the server/ owner asked in broken English if we would like an
English menu as well? At first, we refused in Japanese wanting desperately to
demonstrate we were capable of reading a menu, but after several minutes of
struggling with curiosity at the strange menu items (not the usual café coffee
cake menu we were used to) we gave in and asked her for an English menu after
all. As it turned out the entire café served a modified version of the Japanese
buck wheat noodle, which they changed from a noodle to a very thin bread to
make something resembling an incredibly large dinner crepe. Needless to say the
crepes we ordered were beautifully prepared and delicious. It made for an
interesting start to our very last day in Kyoto.
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| the incredibly modern Kyoto station |
After eating we made our way back
to the bus station, purchased all day passes one last time. While on our way to
getting in line for the bus, I noticed a rather lost looking foreign man
looking all over the place, who just so happened to locked eyes with me as soon
as I spoke English. By look on his face, I could already tell, this around
mid-thirties man had no knowledge of Japanese, not to mention he was carrying a
huge camera and backpack with a Canadian Flag on the back. Knowing that if I
had no idea how to speak Japanese I would be scared out of my mind to be on the
busy streets of Kyoto, I asked him if he needed any help and my friends and I
explained we had been here for a few days on a school holiday. He was
over-joyed, he had been trying to figure out
where to get a map and bus pass, all too happy to help a fellow gaijin
in need we gave him one of our extra tourist maps, and then pointed him in the
direction of the bus passes. He thanked us and explained how he was only here
for a couple days on business, spoke no Japanese, and today he was playing
hooky to see some sites for his amateur photography hobby, we made a few jokes
about “adult responsibility” at his expense and then got on our bus waving
good-bye to our nameless, more than likely Canadian friend never expecting to
see or hear of him again.
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| Toji Tower, Japan's tallest wooden structure |
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| The changing leaves at Toji's temple garden |
Another incredibly uncomfortable
bus ride later, we arrived on the door step of the Toji Tower and Temple
Complex in the south of town (see pictures) This was possibly one of my
favorite stops on the trip. With beautiful gardens and an incredible history
and a magnificent Pagoda, we walked slowly through changing fall leaves, and
stared at our reflections in the koi pond.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8D-ji)
If you would like to learn more about the history please enjoy the link.
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| The garden and Toji Tower |
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| the koi pond at Toji Temple |
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| the first gate at Fushimi Inari |
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| shops and gate of fushimi Inari |
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| the Fox Diety |
Following the southern edge we took
the bus all the way to the southernmost stop and got out only to have to
continue walking. Our next stop on our last day tour was the famous Fox Shrine,
Fushimi Inari (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha)
it was incredibly tucked away almost in the Kyoto country side but after
walking through several back streets and asking locals for directions, we found
it! The Inari Temple complex was the largest we had seen yet and excited to see
the temples main attraction we ran past the many smaller shops and through the
main gate to the incredible road of Tori Gates stacked almost on top of each
other in rows. The gates are meant to purify anyone coming into a sacred space,
as well as demark where a sacred place is. At this shrine however, instead of
just one gate to demark the shrines location, important incredibly wealthy
people donated gates to be erected leading up to the many shrines within the
temple (The Shrine/Temple complex is known to provide good luck in business,
and the donation of a Tori gate was said to give good luck to the provider).
The end result was hundreds of Tori gates of varying sizes lined up for a
mesmerizing tunnel effect! Walking through the gates, one after another,
seemingly forever, had an amazing spirituality about it, with the names of the donators
carved precisely into the wood, I really
felt the time that had passed in the construction of each of the almost
identical gates. At the top of the shrine complex, we were able to purchase a
small wooden fox head (in Japanese Mythology the Fox is known to be the
messenger of the gods) to write our wish on the back and leave it hung with
hundreds of other wooden fox heads, some of which had been dated on the back to
the 1970’s! I hope to one day to come back and find my wish, but for now my
wish will remain a secret, after all how else will it come true!
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| the seemingly endless road of Tori gates |
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| the donated Tori gates |
After enjoying a nice walk through
the gates and coming back to the main temple area. We decided to go to an
interesting place for dinner right on the temple grounds. It was a small hut
like abode with an old woman with one tooth outside ushering us in with a wave
of her hand like something out of a movie. She was very witch-like and although
old and hunched with age, she moved surprising quickly and sat us at on old
rickety table inside the over-hang. She then served us huge bowls of delicious
soba noodle miso soup! After eating our fill, we thanked our strange waitress,
and paid the bill, which was surprisingly cheap considering how much we ate.
The whole temple area, shops included just pulsed with a strange old world mysticism
that I can’t begin to properly describe. Not wanting to leave, but knowing we
had one more stop to make before we got on our train bound for home, we
gathered our backpacks and with the November wind at our backs, set off for the
nearest bus stop.
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| Unfamiliar back roads |
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| beautiful river path |
Certain we left in the right
direction when we didn’t find the bus stop within a few minutes, but instead a
road detour, we were confused and lost without direction. Though we knew we
could not be that far off, so looking over the map we contemplated that perhaps
we had taken a wrong turn, retracing our steps and taking the other direction
we walked for about half an hour with no bus stop in sight. In the past, my
friends had found our way easily enough by flagging down a nearby local and
asking for directions, but for some reason after leaving the fox shrine we had
seen almost no one on the street and even less open shops or restaurants. We
walked along a beautiful river that we could not locate on our map, and
wondered how in the world we had gotten off track. Not wanting to be lost for
the last few hours we had in Kyoto we decided to stop walking and study a
larger more detailed map. Stopping at the edge of the river we took out the map
and where just about to get work deciphering the nearest road signs, when
seemingly out of nowhere a very small wispy white haired Japanese person
scuttled over to us and in incredibly old and polite Japanese said, we looked a
little lost. Exasperated from over an hour of being lost we didn’t bother
questioning the old women’s sudden appearance and told her that we had actually
been looking for the bus stop. She nodded shortly, with an all knowing motherly
way about her, and without a word turn sharply and starting walking much faster
than her age should have merited down to a bridge we had not noticed before. We
paused for a moment, and then took off after our eccentric guide. After no more
than 5 minutes or thereabouts, of walking through strange back alley ways the
old women had put us back on the main road right by the bus stop we had got off
at originally! Overjoyed, my companions and I shouted in happy recognition and
for finally not being lost. In that moment, I and my friends remember nothing
more than looking at the bus stop with happiness and checking the schedule for
the next bus. Not for more than the minute that would have taken, did we take
our eyes from the old woman, but as soon as we turned to thank her for her
kindness, just as she came without out sound, so had she left. With a strange feeling,
we looked down some nearby alleys, but nowhere could we find our aged rescuer.
We never, saw her again and if it were not for the quick picture I had taken
right before she began showing us the way back, we might not have believed she
was real. Like my wish at the fox shrine, this woman too it seems will remain a
secret of Kyoto.
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| Mysterious Old Woman after leading us for a few moments |
The next shrine we went to was
Kyomizu-dera, an incredibly large temple complex famous for its love shrine and
beautifully designed fountain said to grant the drinker good luck in life’s
endeavors. Of course, before we could make it to our new destination one more strange
coincidence, perhaps caused by the lingering magic of the old women still in
effect, occurred. We accidently missed our stop, and thus got out at the
following one, not more than a 5 minute walk from the previous, we were not to
upset and knew which direction to head. Getting out of the bus, who else could
we run into taking pictures of a Japanese stop light with his huge Camera
lugging his backpack with the Canadian flag on the back, than the man we ran
into at the start of our day! We all laughed at the coincidence of running into
him again in such a big city filled with tons of tourist attractions, and realized
that if we had not missed our intended stop we would have never seen him
walking toward Kyomizu-dera. After he finished taking pictures and looked away
from the camera, he recognized us instantly and came running over. Apparently
he had been just wandering about, looking for an interesting place to take
pictures and that earlier he went to some shrines he could not remember the
names of. We asked him if he’d like to join us on our walk to Kyomizu-dera close by, and he
agreed, all too happy to have some company and finally introduced himself to us
as Johnston, Mr. Johnston that is.
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| the hill to Kyomizu-dera |
With our Canadian companion Mr. Johnston
in toe, we walked up a huge hill covered with shops with food and souvenirs of
all shapes and sizes. Johnston mentioned he had walked this way a little, but
did not go all the way up to the top, and we laughed saying that at the top of
all this was a beautiful shrine, he seemed surprised and thanked us for showing
up to help him find something interesting to take pictures of. In no time at
all, joking with Johnston and buying street dumplings we made it to the top of
impressive hill, to the massive gates of Kyomizu-dera temple. From the top of
the hill the sunset took on a breathtaking significance and my friends and I
reveled in having chosen an amazing spot to end our journey.
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| the top of the hill |
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Group of Kimono wearing girls at sunset
Kyomizu-dera complex |
We bought our fortunes from a
temple monk, and unfortunately my prediction was bad. When a bad prediction is
pulled tradition dictates that you are to leave the slip of paper with the
fortune on it tied in a knot on a designated “bad fortune” fence. The idea
being that the bad luck would then not be able to follow you out of the temple.
Unfortunately, when I went to tie mine in a knot the paper ripped and horrified
(laughing at my obvious folly) my friends and I helped me tie it down properly.
Let’s just hope that my friends and I are not all cursed now.
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| One of the Love stones (notice the stairs! scary!) |
Bad fortune aside, I did have some
luck at the famous love shrine attached to the temple. Here high school
students from all over Japan come to see if they will be fortunate enough to
fall in love. The legend goes, if a person can walk from one large boulder to
the other (about 20 feet apart) with their eyes closed, that person will find
their one true love. The legend also states, that you may allow people to help
you navigate the stones with your eyes closed but this means finding your true
love will require a go between. All in good fun, I closed my eyes and completed
the challenge. If you’d like to read more about the love shrine and Kyomizu-dera
check this out-> (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera)
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| good luck fountain and huge crowd of students |
In the crowd at the temple we lost
Mr. Johnston, but with the sun setting and being about an hour from the station
we decided we should head back to the station and prepare to get on our train
home. My parting memory of Kyoto is of Myself, Joe, and Mandy running down the
hill from Kyomizu-dera near dusk with the last wisps of daylight cracking
through the nearby buildings and the prominent Kyoto tower piercing the
skyline. I can only hope that Mr. Johnston found his way without our help.
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| parting memorites(running down the hill the Kyoto skyline) |
Thanks for reading this incredibly long installment, I hope you enjoyed reading
it and learning a little about the history of the places I visited. My next post
will cover my trip to Tokyo in December and then of course I should be on track
with starting weekly posts for the New Year. Until next time, I hope everyone
enjoyed the holiday season and has a Happy New Year!
