KYOTO
(Dec 30th to Jan 2nd)
First we took a 3 hour bus ride to Kyoto. After checking in and eating we went to a shrine famous for its torii gates. A torii gate is usually found at the entrance to a Shinto Shrine in Japan. Well, this shrine was special and popular because it has a 'few' more torii gates than usual. I guess back in the old days, the guy that kept the gates decided to dig in the closet and dust off a couple extras and put them up at this shrine. Below is the entrance to this torii gate path.
We followed this path of toriis for at least 20 minutes and only got half way down the path before turning around due to lack of light and honestly, there's only so much torii one sane individual can take in a day. FYI, I haven't seen Memoirs of a Geisha, but apparently this is the shrine where she's running through all the torii gates in the movie.
The next day we visited Kinkakuji Temple. This is a temple covered entirely in pure gold leaf. It was really neat but personally I could think of better things to do with gold (hint hint, plasma TV and a power hitter for the Dodger's lineup). I guess Buddhists aren't Dodger fans.
After that we went to a rock garden. This is the kind of garden I want at my house. Why? Lets put it this way. How often have you had to water a rock or rake up it's leaves?
Then we visited a bamboo forest. No flying people fighting in this bamboo. You have to go to China for that.
For New Years Eve night we visited Kiyomizu-dera Temple. This is the most popular temple in Kyoto. Japanese tradition is to go to a temple when the year changes. Therefore, there were a lot of people. The turning of the new year was pretty anti-climatic. It consisted of a few random groups of people counting down at different times/intervals and the monk would ring the temple's bell at 1-2 minute intervals. And that was about it. Would've been much better if Dick Clark was the Buddhist monk ringing the bell. After that we went to a bar and met some Japanese people that taught me lots of dirty Japanese words.
New Years Day! Little did we know that 7/8 of the city shuts down on New Years Day. So we walked around for awhile looking for a place that was open to eat at. After that we went to the ATM to get some funds. When I said 7/8 of the city shuts down, the ATM's are part of the 7/8ths. My guess is the little guy in the machine that pushes the money out of the machine needs the day off too. We honestly had no clue why they didn't operate on New Years Day. After that we went to a shrine which is Japanese tradition on New Years Day. There were LOTS of people there. It kind of felt like a peaceful mosh pit.
And that rounds up the Kyoto part of the trip. Stay tuned for the sequel: Takayama or Bust.
1 comment:
Hey, it's meeeee!
Kyoto: I didn't make it to the multi torii shrine place, but I did see Memoirs of a Geisha on NY eve.
Also fun to hear your comments on the gold leaf temple, the rock garden spot and the bamboo forest. I went to the first two places and probably the third as well. loved the bamboo! You have nice photos, and you are very funny. i loved the photograph with the river, leaves and swans?
i just saw Last Sumarai. They show and tell where the monastaries are where the filming took place. loved that scenery, too.
have you made it to hiroshima yet?
auntie kim
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