After our bird tour, Bob and I headed to Kyoto via bullet train. This is when we first learned how helpful Japanese women can be. We knew we were close to the train station, but just couldn't figure out where the entrance was in the sea of shops. We used google translate to ask, and our heroine walked us to the Shinkansen entrance. Very kind. We were to receive the same helpful treatment over and over again. We are deeply grateful.
We spent ten days based in Kyoto, deciding it would be easier to ride trains, than ride trains and drag luggage around. And did we do anything extraordinary? No, Like so many others we visited the most often mentioned temples and shrines, and did add-ons near where we were. We also discovered that 30,000 steps on concrete and asphalt is a great deal more punishing than 30,000 steps in the forest.
Some of our highlights. We loved Fushimi Inari and Kinkakuji, the golden pagoda, just like every other tourist. We also really enjoyed Manshuin and Enkoji Temples in Kyoto. We day tripped to Hiroshima, the Peace museum was extraordinarily moving. Nara held a number of extremely interesting temples, and our guided Himeji Castle tour was a highlight. We also discovered the beauty of plum trees in flower, and dragon ceiling paintings.
I would love to be able to transmit the deep historic and religious significance of the temples and shrines we saw, alas, even with all my reading on the subject these things are beyond my ken. I will try to include some links, so you can do further deep dives. On to some of the things we saw.
Fushimi Inari. The ancient shrine was established in 711 AD and is the land of vermilion tori gates, foxes, and hordes of people. It is Disneyland at a Kyoto shrine. It is also definitely very very cool. The tori gates are all donated, and on one side is the name of the company and date. The foxes are the temple shrine animals, messengers for the Shinto god Inari. They are in charge of rice, business prosperity and who knows what else. So, as a business you definitely need to donate a big impressive gate so your business will be amazing. Hence, there are miles of gates. Huge ones down low, smaller ones up high, and then individual shrines with foxes and gates up very high. It was amazing and crazy. Link: Inari
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| Foxes |
After we headed to Mimurotoji for the umi or plum trees Link: Mimurotoji . Gardens with plum trees captured us and they tended to be more peaceful and relaxing. We also made it a point to visit any site with plum trees. While not as famous as cherry blossoms, they were nice, nice, nice.
We finished our first day with Byodoin. It is pure land architecture. Originally built in 998 it influenced later temples. If I am reading correctly the hall was built in 1053 and contains the Amida Buddha. Like many of the temples, indoor photography was prohibited, but they have a nice online presence here. The building is also on some of the Japanese money and as Bob is doing taking a picture of the money and building is a thing.
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| Phoenix were on the top of many temples |
We tried our hands at Nara next, a public transportation adventure. A bus, two trains, and another bus. The main Kyoto train station was filled with people in a big hurry. I took a random video as I was walking. On our last bus to Horyuji the bus driver got out of the bus to point us in the right direction to the temple as we looked like the hopeless tourists we are.
A word about bus drivers, they are awesome too. They deal with tourists, students running for buses, the elderly, and traffic, including pedestrians, in congested tight quarters while maintaining a schedule and politeness. We watched one run through the bus, flip up a seat, put out a handicapped ramp, put wheel blocks on the wheelchair, get the ramp back in place, and head out again in under two minutes. After riding one bus that made 26 stops in 46 minutes, we understood why so many of the students jumped on the bus and fell asleep. Back to our day.
Horyuji was impressive and basically empty considering its history of Buddhism in Japan and that it contains the oldest wooden building in the world Horyuji history. It was built in the 600s and has been refurbished many times, but still stands. Very impressive. We could take photos of the outside, but not of most of the artifacts, but a link to detailed photos is here. I answered one of the guides with hai, Japanese for yes, and he immediately wanted to know if I spoke Japanese. I had to burst his bubble and tell him, hai was my only Japanese word. He thought that was very funny. We would save the tourist hordes for the afternoon in our later stops.
Kasugataisha Shrine was where we had random peek a boo looks at a couple getting married and their photo shoot.
We came for the lanterns.
They have a lantern festival once a year when they light all 3000 lanterns, for those of us not that can't see it in person, they have a darkened room showing the effect. Impressive.
They are also located in the Nara deer park along with our next stop, Todaiji Temple. Hundreds of these little moochers try to get you to feed them. They have even been trained to bow their heads for a treat.
Todaiji Temple was pretty darn wowie. Established in 752 and burnt in various wars in the 1100 and 1500s it was refurbished in 1908. The Buddha inside is huge, 15 meters tall in one of the world’s largest wooden buildings. We were awestruck.
They have a fire festival that was going on while we were there. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy to me to do in an area of wooden buildings, but they have been doing it for 1500 years. They run with a huge lit branch through one of the out buildings and rain embers down on the believers to pray for peace. We considered staying, but the four hour wait in the wind and cold, and did I mention the biting wind, convinced us that we were non believers. So, we headed back to the hotel getting lost once again on the bus system. A link to fire video
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| A branch to be used later in the fire ceremony |
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| Wikipedia image of fire ceremony |
That will do for now, but there's lots more to come.
