Kyoto

Hi all, I'm on an unexpected break at work. A student canceled and now I have an extra hour and a half to fiddle around with. So, I'll try and finish my blogs about the vacation. On to Kyoto...

Before coming to Japan, I really wanted to see Kyoto. Why? Well, a kind of stupid reason but I had read "Memoirs of a Geisha" and then later, "Geisha of Gion" (do you see a trend here?) and I wanted to see where all these things took place. That and Kyoto is reputed to be a place of historical and natural beauty so there you go.

The drive from Himeji to Kyoto took about half a day. Kyoto roads weren't quite as congested as I'd thought they'd be. It took some maneuvering on small alley roads but we eventually found the ryokan where we'd made a reservation to stay. A ryokan is a Japanese style inn. I found it to be like a Japanese style hostel with more room space and amenities. The washrooms are shared as is the shower/bath. The bath is the fun part. They prepare it for you and call when it's ready. Always soap and rinse yourself off thoroughly before stepping into a Japanese bath. It's not meant for scrubbing. But I'm getting off topic.

The lady was very welcoming and showed us to our room then served us tea and a snack afterwards. After drinking, eating and examining the bath robes that were laid on the futons for our use, we headed out to explore Kyoto at night. Basically we had dinner and tooled around this enormous shopping area. My city-starved self was overwhelmed at all the consumer goods. I wanted to buy everything.

Highlights of Kyoto for me included seeing Gion (the setting of the aforementioned books) and the Golden Pavilion. Gion is part modern night-life and part traditional tea-house. The north side of Gion sports expensive coffee shops, neon lights promoting bars and a lot of well dressed people milling around. The south side is much darker though not creepily so. The streets where the more traditional ochaya (teahouses) are are much less busy than modern Gion. Apparently, you can't even get into a teahouse unless invited by an already established customer. A night in a teahouse includes entertainment by geisha or geikos and usually a very expensive sumptuous meal. From what I've read these parties can cost well in excess of 2000 dollars. A bit too pricey for fun in my opinion. Give me ramen and an 18 dollar movie and I'm happy.

I spotted who I thought was a geisha while roaming around the teahouses. Her hair was done up in a traditonal style and she wore a kimono under her long winter cloak. What did I do after spotting said geisha? The intelligent foreigner thing to do of course, I stalked her, dragging my companions along with me. We could only follow so far as she ducked into a teahouse where we were unable to go. That was my excitement in Gion.

The following day, we took our little Minica and went to Kinkakuji which literally translates to "Golden Temple" but is better known to English speakers as the Golden Pavilion. The entry fee was 400 yen and worth every penny in my opinion. The temple is situated on a very peaceful zen-like pond with very lush trees surrounding it. The temple itself is...GOLD. Not entirely gold but a good portion of it is modeled in gold. After taking various shots of the temple you could walk on the path up to a small but pretty waterfall. Further still you could fall prey to the souvenir stands selling all sorts of knick-knacks. This I did quite gleefully, having been rather prudent with my cash up till then.

The remainder of the trip involved a lot of driving (back to Shikoku) and falling asleep only to be startled into wakefulness by Will's voice saying: "Uh, I need to know where I'm going now." (I was the navigator, being the passenger) We celebrated the New Year quietly at home which was nice since we hadn't been able to be together the year before.

Talk to you all soon, cheers.