Wednesday, March 10, 2010
I arrived in Kyoto yesterday late morning on a bullet train from Tokyo. Over 500Km in less than 3 hours on a comfortable seat! What a way to travel! I booked a ryokan within walking distance from the train station...thankfully, due to the rain and weather. I am so grateful I bought all those warm jackets, thermal underwear, gloves and hats in Sapa because boy have I needed them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to read a map while walking under an umbrella? It's a bitch.
The train station here, by the way, is so amazing and a sight in and of itself. I don't even know how to describe it. I will take photos tomorrow and post them on my next blog. It's kind of a massive twisty metal see-through dome that goes up 12 floors and they all open up to the middle...on the top is an observation deck with aerial views of the city and roof-top food courts. The escalators climb up in huge rows and you can see up in front of you escalator after escalator taking you to the summit. It was super cool.
I only have limited time here and there is so much to see so I immediately bundled up and ventured out to see the city. I went to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple first. The owners of my ryokan recommended it and I was not disappointed. It was spectacular. Kyoto is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and most of the temples and shrines lay in the foothills. This one was beautiful and gave stunning bird's eye views of the city...in payment for the steep climb up to it's peak. It name comes from the waterfall it was built into that flows behind it sending water into a sacred spring. It is said that drinking this water gives you wisdom, health and longevity. I didn't actually drink any because everyone drinking from it was using the same metal ladle and I figured it could only bring me a nasty case of mono instead of it's promised health effects. The main hall of the temple itself is a huge beautiful wooden structure that was built without the use of a single nail. The main hall juts out over the hillside. A popular Japanese saying and their version of "to take a plunge" is "to jump of the stage at Kiyomizu. This Temple was stunning and was actually one of the finalists in the new 7 wonders of the world.
The weirdest thing I did here was pay 100yen to go down into this dark room under the temple...you follow this beaded wooden rope thing with your hand as it is pitch black. It was supposed to duplicated the mother's womb! It was a twisty path deep into the bowels of this building and at the end was a stone...you were supposed to touch it and make a wish. Everyone was giggling, even the Japanese, at the ridiculousness of it! It was fun though. I felt like I was in a fun house at Halloween and was waiting for something to jump out at me.
CHARMING OLD ALLEYS IN HIGASHIYAMA DISTRICT EAST OF GION... REMINISCENT OF OLD KYOTO WITH ITS TEA HOUSES AND TINY AMAZINGLY SCULPTURED GARDENS.
I did a lot of walking yesterday...my feet were killing me! I walked from the Kiyomizu temple up through all these beautiful old Kyoto streets and into Gion (Geisha spotting..none unfortunately, I guess they are hard to spot!)and back around to my Ryokan....where I collapsed and stuffed myself with sushi and sashimi I bought at a supermarket(the cheapest way to eat here!) on the way home. I was drenched with rain, despite my umbrella, and ready for bed.
Today I just got back from a day trip to Hiroshima. Again, the magic of the bullet train. I will blog about that tomorrow. I'm running out of steam and ready for bed. I leave Kyoto at 16:45 tomorrow night for Tokyo and still have lots to see so an early day tomorrow.
