Day 6: Pounding the Pavement in Kyoto

We learned pretty quickly that our hotel in Kyoto was not nearly as quiet as the one in Tokyo. We woke up several times during the night to people shouting in the hall. And just for fun, at 6am a group of Japanese businessmen checked out with all the grace and courtesy of a trampling herd of elephants.

Wearily, we munched some baked goods for breakfast in the room, and then departed for the subway station.

Today we were determined to explore the east side of Kyoto, rain or shine. We caught the subway to the main station, and then decided to take our legs for a spin and walk the rest of the way. On the way, we took a gander at the Kyoto Tower. It looked like a giant lighthouse.

A few minutes later and we were approaching the Sanjusangen-do shrine. The current buildings at this historical landmark date from 1266. It's famous for many reasons, but the most striking of these are the statues it contains: 1,001 gold-plated statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, along with 28 statues of guardian deities. These aren't miniatures, either--the main hall is absolutely huge. So big, in fact, that historically it has been the site of indoor archery contests.

After viewing the statues and wandering the pretty gardens, we left Sanjusangen-do and wandered to the nearby street of Chawan-zaka. This narrow, straight lane is lined on both sides with merchants selling local crafts. Kyoto is famous for its pottery and paper fans (among other things), and both of these arts were very well represented. Mary and Laura had a great time browsing the shops. Exhaustively. I don't think there was a single vendor on the street that didn't have a visit from these two insatiable bargain hunters. Mary also tried some sakura (cherry blossom) ice cream, which was very interesting--a hint of cherry, but not too sweet.

Lets all pray for this guy.

At the head of Chawan-zaka is the Kiyomizu shrine. Located on the slopes of Mount Higashiyama, the temple itself is currently under renovation, but the surrounding area still offered some absolutely stunning views of the city from the wooded hills. Unfortunately, it was also packed. I'm not sure exactly why--while this is a famous temple, there didn't seem to be much religious activity that we saw, other than leaving highly entertaining prayers on little blocks of wood.

From here we went down the temple market street on the other side of Chawan-zaka. Named after the shrine, the broad avenue (Kiyomizu-zaka) was packed with shoppers and full of more interesting shops. I had a blast with these, mostly because several of them specialized in local foods: pickled vegetables, and mochi sweets.

We'd tried different types of traditional Japanese sweets in Tokyo (everything from sweet rice balls in soybean flour to "bean balls"), but in my opinion none of them came close to Kyoto's local treat--a kind of mochi called "Yatsuhashi". Basically, think "mochi ravioli" with a sweet center of bean paste with some additional flavoring. Absolutely delicious, and the confectionary shops lining Kiyomizu-zaka were not stingy with the free samples. We tried all different flavors, and eventually came back to the States with a couple boxes to share.

The other local specialty we eventually saw everywhere (but first tried on Kiyomizu-zaka) were Kyoto pickles. Basically, if it grows in the ground, someone in Kyoto is going to pickle it somehow. And they aren't screwing around here--there are your standard sweet pickles like our gherkins, there are all sorts of interesting dill relishes, and then there are whole categories of pickles that'll grab your nuts and twist. Free samples were also liberally handed out, but once I learned the hard way that pink did NOT mean "strawberry" I, uh, moderated my intake somewhat.

One other food of note we tried here: "savory" ice cream. This is not something you will find at your local 31 flavors shop (although I've seen it at several specialty ice cream stores). We'd already tried Sakura, and here Laura tried Sesame ice cream, which she must have really liked--she looked for it the rest of the trip.

Looking down Ninen-zakka.

Halfway down the market street we looped onto a narrow alley
(Sannen-zaka) that took us through some of the oldest sections of Kyoto. This took us directly to our final target for the day: the Kodaiji temple.

This must take some serious Zen.

Founded in 1605 and located in probably the best preserved area of Kyoto, this shrine consists of several small buildings set amidst a mossy garden. We were handed a pamphlet and immediately shepherded through the buildings by some positively militant old women (some of which spoke English, which was handy), but far and away the most interesting aspect of Kodaiji was its landscaping. Here we first saw some of the Zen gardening we'd read about previously: gravel raked with astounding precision into various shapes and whorls. The gardeners must spend an extraordinary amount of effort maintaining this. Also interesting was how the paths here were part of the gardens--they wound through the moss, often presenting different views of the same pond, a particularly interesting tree, etc.

A theme I saw throughout my time in Kyoto was the use of moss in the ground cover in Japanese gardens. I don't think I ever saw a lawn. Instead it was all different shades of moss softly draping the undergrowth in blues, grays, and greens. I think its fantastic. It makes a whole garden seem much more earthly and alive, while somehow softening it. Look at the pictures--my technical writing background just can't do the experience of wandering this artform justice.

The temple gongs were ringing the evening out while we walked down out of eastern hills and back to central Kyoto. We wandered down Nishiki market looking for a recommended vegetarian restaurant, but couldn't find it and instead ended up eating soba noodles in a small homey place in an underground mall.

By now we'd been on our feet for about 12 hours straight, and our tails were dragging on the ground. Literally. Full and sleepy, we staggered back to the hotel and crashed.

By now we'd fairly thoroughly wandered a couple Japanese cities. Amazing fun. Here are some of the observations I jotted down after pounding the pavement:

- One of the best parts of wandering Japan overall has been seeing some of the crazy English t-shirts people are wearing around here. In Kyoto we saw one old lady sporting a pink polo with a team logo for the "Non-Alcoholics". Not much later we ran into a man wearing a shirt proclaiming "it's only funny when the sun sets." I wish I could take pictures of these people!

Needless to say, I followed directions EVERY TIME.

This slayed me.

- Many (well, most) of the Japanese restrooms I've been in have no way to dry your hands after washing them. A quick web search shows that I'm not the only one noticing this. I wonder why this is. Do most Japanese men carry handkerchiefs? Also, the signs in the bathrooms? Hilarious.

- Trash cans for public use in Japan are few and far between. These people take "no dumping" to a whole new level. Since space is at a premium, I guess I understand. However, there is almost no litter anywhere.

- Being polite is almost a religion here. Even the AMBULANCES here are polite. A couple times we saw emergency vehicles tearing along on a call only to stop at a crosswalk while people blithely walked in front of them. The driver got on the megaphone and asked politely for them to move, and--this is the kicker--then THANKED them afterward. Meanwhile, somewhere, people might be dying?

- While folks in general are polite, it is not hard to see that some are easily frustrated by foreigners and generally dismissive of non-Japanese. We got treated pretty poorly in several restaurants due (I'm guessing) to the difficulty in communicating with us. Interestingly enough, we never had this problem with other patrons in restaurants or with merchants.