Day 7: Of Nightengale Floors and Geishas

Today Laura decided to wander a bit by herself. So, Mary and I got up and headed out early while she took it a bit easy.

We started by walking over to Nijo-jo, a walled area of gardens containing the Ninomaru palace. In short: well worth seeing. I will leave precise descriptions to the tour books, but here is what I found most interesting:

- The "nightingale floors". The shoguns were not trusting folk--I gather that a careless shogun was generally a dead shogun rather quickly. They had their floors especially engineered to squeak in a specific way when any weight is put on it. This was briefly explained in a picture--basically, there are metal wedges driven at an angle between two layers of planks making up the floor, separating them slightly. When stepped on, the planks are pushed together, making noises. Simple and I'm sure ridiculously effective. I'm also sure that the guards would be going crazy with false alarms--these babies were SENSITIVE.

- The painted screens were amazing. While I've been to museums all over Europe, I'm pretty ignorant of the great Japanese artists. However even to my peasant's eye, there was some masterful work done decorating the walls of this castle. These alone are worth the trip to see Nijo-jo.

After walking through the castle, we spent some time wandering the gardens. Pretty, not enough to keep us long once it started to rain.

While huddled outside the gates reading directions from the guidebook, we were approached by a flock of schoolchildren--about 10 years old--herded along by an elderly male schoolteacher in a crisp business suit. After much urging, a young girl nervously stepped forward and started reading to us from her workbook in broken English.

"Hello, may I. . .please talk. . . to you a moment?"

We smiled. "Sure."

"Where are you. . .from?"

"San Francisco, in America." This prompted some whispering, which the teacher quickly shushed.

"What is. . .purpose of. . visit?" Wow, a little government official in training. We already passed customs, kid. "Vacation."

"May I take. . picture with you?" The kids all gathered around while the teacher, beaming, snapped a photo of us all.

"Could you please sign?" Bemused, Mary and I dutifully wrote our names in her little book. The girl stepped back, all smiles and literally melting from relief. Then the next student stepped up. And the next. And the one after that. Mary and I looked at each other--they couldn't seriously expect us to go through this a dozen times? Luckily, the teacher had pity on us, and all the other students just asked us to sign their books. After a flurry of bows with our new friends, we escaped into a nearby subway station.

After a brief lunch of random Japanese pastries from an underground bakery (there are more malls underground than aboveground in Japan), we spent the next couple hours wandering through the riverfront shopping arcades of Kyoto. Mary was on a mission: to locate a Japanese day robe for wearing around her apartment.

For some reason I really enjoy Japanese outdoor markets.

On the plus side, while looking for her robe we got to peruse the colorful and pungent Nishiki-koji street market. Locals have been buying groceries in this narrow covered alley since the seventeenth century, and absent the whizzing motorbikes and electric lights I imagine it looked almost the same back then. Stall after stall offered variations of either pickles (the previously mentioned local specialty) or fish (surprise!) to curious onlookers. Several offered samples, although by now I'd wised up to eating pickles in Kyoto, free or otherwise. Nothing like a free sample that literally knocks you on your ass and then stomps on your face.

After only a few hours of shopping we'd successfully tagged and bagged one pink robe for Mary. Leaving the arcades behind, we headed over to East Kyoto for some of the shrines we'd missed the day before.

The immaculate gardens of Shorin-in Temple

A short subway ride and walk later and we stood before Shorin-in temple. Again, I'll leave details to the tour books. What made seeing this shrine worthwhile for us was not the building itself, but the amazing gardens surrounding it. I freely admit to being a very untutored connoisseur of Japanese art, but these gardens caught and held even my simpleton's fancy. Carefully arranged plants surrounded the temple building and up the hill behind it. It looked like every shade of brown and green possible was captured within moss, gnarled trees, ponds, and bamboo. In short, this shrine was very much worth the visit.

Shorin-in: sacred, but Shaq-sized.

From Shorin-in we walked a short way south to see another temple, Chion-in. This shrine didn't amaze so much by its beauty as its sheer scale--the place is built for folks like Yao-Ming. The steps were about two normal steps tall. The main gate dwarfed us. The temple structure itself made me wonder who got stuck with the heating bills. I'm not sure why it was built this way, but it sure made for an interesting sight.

After Chion-in we had some time to kill before dinner, so we continued south to the Gion region. This area is the descendant of the pleasure quarters of old Kyoto. Tourists were everywhere on the narrow streets, which were overlooked by antique wooden facades fronting restaurant and teahouses. Gion also turned out to be a local hotspot for Geisha-spotting--more on that in a moment.

Dinner was at "Imobo Hirano-ya Honten", a three-hundred-year-old restaurant in nearby Maruyama park. Their specialty is "imobo", a type of deconstructed dried cod stew. We both got the "imobo gazen" (set), a small grouping of dishes featuring the dish. Check out my review entry for the scoop on how this went down.

After dinner we walked back to Gion. We thought we'd just get a taste of what it's like in the evening. Instead, we ran smack into Kyoto's prime-time sport: Geisha Hunting.

Geisha Alert!

In the early evenings, the local Kyoto Geisha and Geisha-in-training leave their cloistered houses to travel to their nightly engagements--private parties and the like. Many of these gatherings are held in the traditional teahouses lining the streets of Gion. As a result, hordes of tourists and Japanese alike line the streets of Gion every night, peering into taxis and chasing after the few unlucky Geisha that get caught outside. Mary got excited immediately and managed to chase down a few pictures. I was lucky enough to see a Geisha sneak into the back door of a teahouse while leaning in a doorway waiting for her--maybe they take turns being decoys? The young lady looked just like the pictures in books and the film "Memoirs of a Geisha"--white painted face, exquisite hair and kimono, the works. She looked at me, I looked at her, and then she ducked inside. I understand that a Geisha's job is to be on display, but on the tourist paparazzi has to be annoying.

After the excitement of Gion, Mary and I headed back to base. Tomorrow is our last day in Japan.