Kyoto

This is what happens when I don't update in a while. Things just pile and pile up. It was a whirlwind ten days last week. First a weekend trip to Kyoto, then Mid-Year Seminar in Kakegawa right after, one day at school, and then off to Korea for Thanksgiving.


Kyoto was nice. The weather wasn't on our side though.. It was cold and sometimes drizzly for most of the time we were there (which wasn't very long). And the place was crawling with tourists. Tons of them. Busloads of them. Wave upon wave of Japanese tour groups assaulted us on the bus and at the temples. It's peak autumn season and everyon in Japan has the same idea, which is to go on a pilgrimage see the leaves at the epicenter of Japanese history and culture. We were lucky to book a ryokan only a week in advance... I got about twenty "all booked" replies from most of the places I emailed. Anyway, I have to hand it to the Japanese. In Kyoto, I felt that I truly experienced suffering in silence. Shoulder to shoulder on the bus, squeezing through the crowded streets, getting pushed around by tourist obaa-san, I didn't hear anyone complaining (except me). If we were in America, there would have been a riot.


But the foliage was indeed beautiful, although just getting started really. The first place we went to was Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. It's hard not to take a good photo of that place, but it's actually quite tacky up close. We visited Ryonji, which has a famous rock garden and clay wall. We saw geisha in bright, bustling Gion district, and we also went to Kiyomizu-dera, the big wooden temple, which has a great view of the hills. And I bought pickles at the famous Nishiki covered street market.


Our last sight was my favorite though, Fushimi Inari Taisha. If any of you have seen "Memoirs of a Geisha" (which we watched the night before going to Kyoto, and whose merits and de-merits I won't go into here) you might remember a scene of young Chiyo running through a corridor made of orange torii (gates). That's Fushimi Inari. Hundreds and hundreds of bright orange gates only inches apart from each other wind up a big hill to the temple at the top, dotted with little shrines and cemetaries on the way. "Inari" means "fox," which is a respected creature with special powers in Japanese culture. There were statues of foxes everywhere, and merchants were selling abura-age tofu, which they say is the fox's favorite food. It's about a 4km hike to the top (Chiyo-chan probably didn't know what she was getting into), so you can imagine how many gates that is. They're all donated too, and replaced every three years. Damn that's a lotta gates! Anyway, it was also the one place that wasn't packed with tourists. We got there early Sunday afternoon, and it was already drizzling. We saw families with young children all decked out in their best kimono for Shichi-Go-San, the holiday where families with children ages 7, 5, and 3 go pray at shrines. I love this about Japan... beautiful surprises when you least expect it.


The rain and silence and un-crowdedness about the gates really had an impression on me. It probably would be glorious at sunset, with dramatic shadows and blazing orange, but there was something about that drizzly, gray day, hearing nothing but birds and rain on the leaves high above our heads, the gentle swish of branches, and sparse footsteps. And those great orange torii, set against the green, green forest.

Our stay in Kyoto was so brief, it was impossible to see everything in that amazing city. I hope I can go back someday.


So, I'm too tired to write about Korea right now, so stay tuned for the next update.

In other news, it's been getting increasingly chilly in these parts. I should be thankful that autumn came late this year, and it's relatively mild for almost December. The colors of the trees are deepening, and it's nice biking to school with a backdrop of colorful hills. But my house tends to retain the cold, just like it retained the heat in summer. I read somewhere that Japanese houses are designed to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. To that, I say bullshit. Japanese houses aren't built to insulate anything (unless if it's in all the wrong ways). I'm starting a dangerous habit of sitting myself under my kotatsu and... not doing anything else for the rest of the night. : (