Our next stop in Japan was Kyoto.
In Kyoto, we stayed in a Ryokan; a traditional Japanese inn. In a Ryokan, we slept on mats on the floor and normally, we would shower in public baths (but we booked a room with a private bath = P) The service was impeccable and the experience was definitely a requirement when visiting Kyoto.
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| Our mats all ready for sleeping |
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| The bathrobes they provided |
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| =) |
We arrived Wednesday early afternoon in Kyoto and took things easy. We walked around and explored the city a little bit on our own, then took a walking tour with an English speaking guide in Gion; an area of town primarily inhibited by Geishas. In that tour, we learned a lot of different facts about the history of a Geisha and their role in modern day society. Also, in Kyoto, they prefer to be called Geikos. A young Geiko is known as a Mieko....she is basically a Geiko in training and in modern times, as young as 15 years old. Back 100 years ago, young girls as young as 9 years old could be a Mieko.
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| View when crossing the river. The mountains really like like the paintings. |
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| Night walk in Gion |
The next day was our busy day in Kyoto. We went all over different parts of Kyoto to visit different sites. The first stop was Kinkaku-ji; the Golden Pavillion Temple. Although it was snowing, cold and crowded, the Golden Pavillion was definitely a site to see. Built in the late 1300's, Kinkaku was destroyed by fire in 1950. After being reconstructed, a more extravagant temple was designed. Today, the top two levels of the pavillion are covered in gold-leaf and is said to house relics of buddha.
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| Kinkaku-ji |
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| little waterfall in the gardens |
Next, we walked about half an hour down the road to visit another temple. This temple housed a five-story pagoda! But first, we toured the temple where we had to take off our shoes and walk on the raised wooden platforms (just like the palaces in old chinese movies!)
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| Dragon fountain in front of the temple |
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| Rock garden in front of the temple |
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| Look at the details of the paintings! |
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| The garden |
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| the pagoda |
Next stop was the Bamboo garden path. But before we made it out to the path, we got hungry. We were outside the center of Kyoto, so finding food was not neccessarily easy....especially since in Kyoto it was already difficult due to the fact that most menus did not have pictures and were all in Japanese! But luckily, we stumbled across a little hole in the wall with somewhat of an english menu. And boy are we glad we stopped!
It was a small little restuarant owned by a couple and there were two things on the menu and like 3 different things you can add to each. So we both ordered the stirfried noodles with pork. The man would cook everything at his station (which was viewable by the clients) and when everything was cooked down, they would put it on a metal shovel and put it on the warm slab in front of us....it was yummy.
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| Sizzling hot! |
Afterwards, we made our way to the Bamboo gardens. It was impressive to see, but less than I imagined. Perhaps it's played out by expectation since it's on like every guidebook cover.
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| Still pretty impressive tho |
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| Look how tall they are! |
Next stop is to the other side of town to visit Fushimi Inari. It is a very large temple which is dedicated to the fox (considered the god of rice and recently, the god of business) We first walked around the immediate area around the temple; there were many smaller shrines and many statues of foxes. Then we made our way up the mountain through the tunnel of red gates. We found out later via wikipedia that each gate is donated from a business to the temple....in hopes that the gods will smile upon them. So we made our way up and we walked uphill for a good 40 minutes or so.....only to find that we've moved like an inch on the map. It was getting dark and the hike uphill was not an easy one....so we did not go all the way up the mountain. =P
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| At the gate of the temple |
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| Wishes and prayers at the temple |
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| The lots and lots of gates |
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| The view downhill of the gates, they each have an inscription on them |
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| Uphill, I think we walked this one then stopped =p |
The next day for breakfast, we ordered the traditional Japanese breakfast at the Ryokan. It was worth to pay for the experience; plus, it was a lot of food!
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| Not even sure about everything we ate, but there's the sweet egg, steamed tofu, miso soup, veggies, pickled vegetables, something that was like fishballs, rice and tea. |
We started our last day in Kyoto by visiting the Shogun Palace. Not very impressive on the outside, but quite ornated on the inside.
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| outside gates |
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| details of the gate |
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| fancy huh? |
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| Look at that view! |
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| Pretty lanterns by a shrine |
Next we walked around the Imperial Palace garden. It was lovely since some flowers were starting to bloom. We were too early to see any cherry blossoms, but instead, we were able to see the plum blossoms. They're not as full as cherry blossom trees, but the individual flowers are just as pretty!
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| A little stream |
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| ^_^ |
Our final site of the day was the Yasaka Shrine in Gion. There we walked around and took in the Kyoto atmosphere until our next activity.
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| Look at all the Lanterns! |
One of our last activities in Kyoto was to see the show of Japanese traditions and Geisha presentation. Within the shower, we saw the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, traditional flower arrangement, a Japanese comedy, traditional Japanese instruments, and of course, a Geisha dance done by current Miekos. We even got to take a picture with them afterwards!
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| Tea ceremony.....boy it took a long time! |
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| Flower arrangement |
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| Instruments |
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| Japanese court music |
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| Comedy |
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| Miekos dancing |
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| Us ^_^ |
And our last meal in Kyoto was tempura. Germain was craving it for a while, but we couldn't seem to find one. Luckily, we found an advertisement for "tempura" but everything was in Japanese! So how did we order? Luckily, there was one waitress who spoke english and she helped us with ordering. It was delish!
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| yumyum! |
So that's Kyoto! Very interesting to see the old culture so intertwined with the modern. People were really polite and very helpful. It definitely puts our Western customer service to shame....and they don't even work for tips!
Our trip in Japan is almost over, but before that: Osaka with Gaje!
