Kyoto, Day One

The day after our visit to Hikone, on 4/2, we headed to Kyoto.  Our destination: the incredibly famous Fushimi Inari shrine, featured in movies like Memoirs of a Geisha.  For kilometers upon kilometers of mountain terrain, vivid vermilion torii gates stand, donated by thousands of people and organizations.  It is a magnificent sight.  The actual shrine at the bottom of the mountain is used for services - in fact, there was a service going on when we arrived, and I thought it must be irritating for those people who would like to worship being ogled at by tourists - and the gates through the mountains are placed on a route through various dedication sites and shrines to Gods and Goddesses.  

   

The small shrine to the right is for the God of White Precious Stone, or White Jade.  People will buy small torii, write messages on them, and climb to a particular shrine, and leave the torii.  Thousands of small gates adorned the multitudes of shrines we saw on our walk.  Small vendors make a killing selling the gates, too.  The cheapest we saw were 1,000 yen, or around $10.  The larger ones in this picture probably cost closer to 3,500 yen, or $35.  Because the paths curve, split off, dead-end, and go straight up a mountain, there are new vendors about every 5 minutes.

Here we are being a bunch of irreverent a-holes.  We are surrounded by shrines and worshipers, and this is the group shot I happen to snap.


No, we couldn't stop being children: to the right, Krista's approximation of a decked-out American tourist.  She stole Steve's cowboy hat for the photo, and insisted on getting out a few cameras.  Sometimes there's just so much pressure to be the typical gaijin (foreigners) that we can't help it.  It takes over!


Stairs are always sobering.  Our sanity returned, we began this enormous climb.  On the way up we met a very interesting Japanese man who led us to a wide view of Kyoto at the end of our hike (Kyoto skyline not pictured as it was unimpressive and very cloudy that day).  For the latter third of our hike, the Japanese man chatted with Matt and took various pictures of us, which he promised to post on his photo website thing.  So far, he hasn't.  Interesting person to meet, in any case, although why he wants so many pictures of foreigners I really can't say.

 

One of my favorite worship sites of the afternoon.  

I like the many fox guardians among the candles and incense.  

 Our silly group shot, taken by our Japanese guide.  

We all look a little suspicious of the situation, or maybe we're just beat. 

 

After our hike, we went to the nearby temple Sanjuusangen-dou.  The name means "the hall of thirty-three intervals" in direct translation.  It is a giant hall, the outside of which is pictured to the right, filled with 1001 Buddhist statues of the Goddess Kannon.  The statues are of cypress and 124 of them were made in the 12th century along with the first version of the temple.  The remaining 876 were made in the 13th century when the temple was renovated.  In front of the Kannon statues are twenty-eight guardian deities.  Many of these deities have their origins in Indian Buddhism, although at either end of the hall stand statues of the Thunder God and Wind God, which are Japanese creations.  We were not allowed to take pictures in the hall, but I found the one below online.  I hope it demonstrates a little of the majesty of the site.  

The gardens outside were also beautiful.  It had been a very cold spring, so the blossoms on the trees did not want to open.  Here, however, we got to see a bit more color and bloom.  On the left is a pink ume tree (plum) and on the right is a white sakura tree (cherry).

After the temple, we were a bit hungry, so we split up (because Kyoto doesn't know the meaning of gluten-free).  Matt and I walked up towards our next destination, the Kiyomizu dera, or pure water temple, in the hopes of finding some food I could eat.  We found dessert, pictured to the left.  Everything on that plate is made with rice flour!  I ate green tea cake, yatsuhashi (hard cookies), jelly mochi, and yummy brown sugar azuki bean treats.

Kiyomizu dera was extremely beautiful even though the cherry blossoms that were supposed to be in full bloom had barely sprouted due to the cold.  The night illumination is supposed to showcase the beauty of the blossoms, so while we didn't get that part, we did see many lanterns, a spectacular city view, and an incredible temple.

Above is a view of the temple I pulled from the internet.  It gives a sense of the beauty of the place with so many blossoms, as well as the awe-inspiring construction.  The wooden lattice work goes down onto the mountain the temple is built on, and it is incredibly impressive to see.  Beside the temple sits a three-story pagoda, pictured to the left. 
  

As we rushed to the station at the end of the day, feet throbbing from walking many mountains, cameras full of pictures of ancient sights I never thought I'd see, I snapped a picture of Kyoto tower.  It looks a little like a bowling pin, but I like it.  Kyoto is a city that is built out rather than up, so what is high is very very high.