Day 80 – Kyoto

Nov 16th

Todaji + Buddha
Despite the rain, we decided to spend the morning in Nara to see the impressive Todaji Temple and Great Buddha. After a breakfast spread that consisted of tuna inside rica balls, Coco Puffs, yogurt, fruit, hot tea and assorted pastries, we borrowed umbrellas from reception and started our day. Upon Sara’s request, we took a nice walk through what looked like Harry Potter’s enchanted forest to get a closer look at some of the “friendly” beasts (deer). We got tons of spooky pictures with them, before heading on to the main event: the Todaji Temple. The temple was built in the Nara Period (710- 794 AD) under the rule of Emperor Shomu, but the current structure has undergone repair making it 2/3rds its original size. Regardless it is still one of the largest wooden structures in the world. The statue of the Virocana Buddha was made of cast iron and plated in gold in the 8th century. Amazingly, it stands 53 feet high (and weights 500 tons) leaving just enough room under the ceiling of the magnificent vaulted Hall of the Great Buddha. The whole place had a wonderful smell of “rich mahogany” as Ron Burgundy would say in Anchorman. We spent a good deal of time aligning ourselves with the peacefulness of the place before heading back through the rain to our hotel for check out. On the way out, we noticed the deer finally got up from their comfortable resting places to stand directly in the middle of the walkway. Tourists had to weave in, around and between these guys just to get through the park. Very nice strategy for getting food though.

JR to Kyoto
After checking out and hoping on the JR railway to Kyoto, we passed the time sharing tunes on our playlists and watching more and more Asians fall asleep. Miraculously, they always sprung awake when it was their stop. We couldn’t really figure it out. The train ride also gave us a nice view of Japan’s countryside that was covered by more and more of the same traditional, clean and square houses. Once in Kyoto, which was the ancient capital of Japan from 794 until 1868, we stopped for lunch at an unmarked Japanese restaurant where you could even sit on pillows on the floor. Even though they didn’t speak any English, Falyn knew enough about Japanese food to communicate that we wanted chicken. I got chicken katsu, which is essentially cooked chicken in a sweet teriyaki sauce, pickled cucumbers, white rice, miso soup and green tea. It was a wonderful meal.

Kyoto
As the center of Japanese culture, the city has 14 UNESCO World Heritage sites, so it was particularly hard to get to see all the important temples and shrines in the area. But then again, everywhere you look you see something beautiful and architectural. Since the city attractions were more widely spread out (it was a city not a town, like Nara) we had to pick and choose our priorities. So, we hoped a cab to the Higashiyama Youth Hostel where we would be staying for the night. From there, we wandered North to find the Chion-in Temple.

Chion-in Temple
The temple complex is clearly marked by a colossal main gate, called the San-mon Gatewas, which was built in 1619 and is the largest surviving structure of its kind in Japan. Although the original temple was built in 1234 by Hōnen's disciple, it burnt down in 1633 and was entirely rebuilt by the third Tokugawa Shogun Iemitsu with the structures that stand today. The Chion-in garden is dotted by large and small guest houses in a style called Ohojo and Kohojo. One interesting feature is the umbrella found stashed in the rafters outside the main temple. One of the architects who helped rebuild the temple placed the umbrella in the rafters to help bring rain (and thereby ward off fire). Additionally, the wooden boards on the floor where actually intentionally built to squeak when walked on, so that the Tokugawa family could hear unwanted intruders at night. After exploring the bamboo jungle and fish ponds, we tour ourselves away from the beauty of it all to continue walking to the Maruyama Park.

Maruyama Park
Just outside the park, we found street stalls that strung up offering tastes of various sweets. We split a stick of these white gooey balls roasted and coated in sugary soy sauce. After, we taste teseted some free mochi samples and rice chocolate bars. Before heading into the bright yellow and red park (from the autum leaves), we grabbed some green tea ice cream. After finding a nice spot near a magician street performer, we settled in to enjoy the scenery (and our ice cream). We met some really cute dogs, and admired the beauty of Japan in autum, before heading back to our hostel to check in.

Gei-shas! Gei-shas!
We checked in after 4PM, to find out that our hostel was low-and-behold had a 10:30 curfew. We asked the warden about 6 times whether this meant we had to be home by 10:30, and he kept reassuring us that it just meant we couldn’t leave after 10:30. Pacified, we went upstairs to claim bunk beds, drop our things and went off to see the city. We weaved our way through the Kyoto city streets to familiarize ourselves with the area and get to know more of Kyoto culture. The city was lively and bustling with people, even though the streets were a little smaller than other cities we had seen. There were shops and eateries everywhere filled with everything from Chinese to Italian. We took a brief tour of the Gion district, which is most exclusive and well-known geisha district in Japan. During our walking tour, we played a game of “spot the Geisha” and had some success. The area consisted of narrow, dark alleys made up of closed restaurants, residences and guesthouses. Every once in a while you could find a Geisha popping out of a building and shuffling into another.

Gion Corner
After a 45 min nap back at the hostel, we headed to the Gion Corner Theatre to get seats for the night’s performance. The theatre holds a nightly performance of traditional Japanese arts, including flower arranging, tea ceremony, geisha dance, 13-string harp music, puppet show, comic performance and royal samari dance. When they asked for a tea ceremony participant, I gladly volunteered. They took me to a table off to the side of the main stage where a woman would serve me prepared matcha, which is powdered green tea leaves. I had a little instruction card to read the proper etiquette for the ceremony, but I think I still looked like a deer in headlights. When the hostess began cleaning and inspecting the utensils, I was allowed to start eating the sweet tea cakes placed in front of me. She then proceeded to ladle hot water over the matcha in a bowl the size of a soup bowl. With a whisk in hand, she beat the mixture together into a frothy and bright-green drink. Then I was brought the bowl, bowed in acceptance and drank the milky spinach with the bowl cupped between my hands. I actually really enjoyed the taste even though it was very different from the sweet teas you find at home. Once the hostess stood, I was allowed to return to my seat and enjoy the rest of the performance. One of my favorite parts was the geisha dance that made up one of the acts. They were remarkably beautiful even if they looked like human dolls.

Nighttme
After the performance, we wandered across the bridge to Kyoto Central for dinner. We found a quaint little restaurant called Kathuya down an alley near the main road. They placed a flavorful sauce on our table, and encouraged us to buy as many sticks of cooked meat as we wanted. Goldie and I split a selection of chicken, beef, sausage, asparagus and gyoza. Each piece was enjoyed with a pleasant dunk in the sweet-salty sauce on our table, and washed down with some warm sake. Afterward, we wandered down the streets of Kyoto to find a more developed and colorful side of the city. We found the gambling center where they play with silver balls that drop through machines. I really didn’t understand how dropping balls down a machine was gambling, but apparently it is really popular there. We found more karaoke spots, before coming across Round 1 Bowling! With nothing else to do, we enthusiastically walked in for a game. While Sara, Brit and Falyn figured out how to pay, Goldie and I snuck away to take full advantage of the Japanese purikura phenomenon. Purikura, which means print club, is a photo booth that can be seen all over Japan. You go into the booth with a friend and pose for the camera. That pastes colorful designs in the background. After retrieving our souvenir from the machine, we met up with the others to excitedly show them the results of our impromptu photo shoot. Then we headed up stairs to our lane, grabbed some beers and began to bowl. After finding a bowling pin outfit lying around, I checked no one was watching, slipped it on and headed back to the group. While dancing around the lanes in my new suit, a staff member approached me… and to our surprise offered us all free key chains. He said he liked that I enjoyed wearing the suit, and even asked to get a picture of all of us. In the end, my bowling was not as exciting. I scored a 69 (no joke) out of 100, and Sara came in last after me. While we were walking back, we came across the Karafunya Café. We wouldn’t have stopped, but we saw this enormous $100 sundae in the window and had to check the place out. The entrance was covered with a selection of sundaes in every different color, flavor and size. Without hesitation, we asked for a table upstairs to be seated. We grabbed a table next to a group of Japanese students, who looked our age. Falyn, who had somehow acquired a giant blow-up bowling pin placed it on the extra chair. Somehow we caught the students attention and began chatting with them about Kyoto and school, among other things. We split two sundaes that we selected under three requirements: bananas, waffle pieces and ice cream. After a while of sitting around indulging and chatting with our new friends, we headed outside to grab a taxi to our hostel.

Taxi + Hostel
Seeing as there were five of us, we had to give it a few tries before finding a taxi that would take us all without making us split into two cabs. Of course, it took Sara’s suggestion that Falyn deflate her enormous bowling pin before we were at all successful. When we finally made it back to the hostel at around 12:30AM, we found (to our disappointment) the doors were locked and no one was answering the doorbell. Apparently, the warden did not understand what we were asking about the 10:30 curfew before. Being the annoying foreign tourists that we were, we kept knocking on the door and ringing the door bell until an extremely grumpy Grandma opened the door and started yelling at us in Japanese. We just ducked our heads, removed our shoes and sprinted upstairs to fall asleep.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was transforming myself into an American Geisha after the Gion Corner performance. My “low” was seeing what an angry Japanese Grandma looks like.