Temple-Tastic

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  Kyoto, Kinki, Japan
Friday, April 17, 2009

Turns out we hadn't quite managed to beat the jet-lag, both waking up at 5.30am wide awake!!

7.30pm breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast (to use the term 'doorstop' doesn't do it justice) then off on our way. A route carefully planned out last night, aided by the Lonely Planet's 'Southern Higashiyama Walking Tour' we arrive at our first temple, Kiyomizu-dera, with its unmistakable Pagoda rising against the skyline. But first we were recommended to drop into a smaller side-temple Tainai-meguri. It was only 100Y (less than £1) so we duly removed our shoes, placed them in the small plastic bag and became enlightened as to what we were about to experience! We were going to enter the 'womb' of a Buddhist figure down the first flight of stairs, touch our hands on the stone, make a wish, then leave (become reborn) via the second set of stairs . Seemed simple (if not bizarre) enough.....but the 'womb' was completely pitch black and to navigate we had to follow a path of beads attached to the wall

Kiyomizu-dera Pagoda

. The experience wasn't helped by the fact the whole temple (and as it happened, all the places we would visit today) were swarming with hundreds of Japanese school children all on trips. So their shrieking was echoing around in the darkness, akin to someone being tortured in the eerie depths! Not the most settling sounds as you descend into the world of the blind and walk (read fumble) around for what seemed like hours. Not sure why they couldn't have made a direct route to the 'ovum stone' rather than making us go round the houses. Probably something to do with the spirituality of the whole situation, but we made it in the end, made our wish and were together, reborn! Nice to know that afterwards we had both wished for the same thing :-)

So after that bizarre but rather hilarious detour we went into the main temple, paid our 400Y and looked around. It was nice, up in the hills and all but the millions of school children almost made for more interesting viewing. Passing us by with giggles and stares. Sometimes all shouting at once 'Hello' as they teemed past, obviously practicing their newly-learnt English on the foreigners.

The guide then told us to walk down three seperate small streets, claiming that they were the most beautiful, quaint and charming streets in Kyoto. Which probably would have been the case, had any of the shops or coffee houses mentioned been open....darn our earliness! Nevertheless they were pretty streets all the same and we rather enjoyed seeing all the shop keepers going about their daily chores of cleaning out fish ponds or trimming plants in the calm before the hordes of people came through later in the day.

Next was up the numerous steps to Kodai-ji, by far our favorite temple of the day

Sannen-zaka

. Set up in the rolling hills in very Japanese-style gardens, the wooden buildings and tea-houses were worlds apart from the city which lay just a km or so below us.

Upon leaving the temple just down the road was Maruyama-koen park which had some lovely trees and (apparently) a wilting cherry blossom tree, which we think we saw but - as it was coming to the end of cherry-blossom season and most of the blossom was lost - we weren't so sure.

Then through to the last temple we saw which was Chion-in. A large building in the centre of an area of the park which, when we ventured inside found ourselves in the middle of a Buddhist service which was fascinating. The continuous chanting by the monks, the rituals of service and the gonging/clacking of wooden blocks all came together into what felt like something out of a film. And something I feel privileged to have seen.

We did go past another temple after this, but by this point we felt we'd seen enough, and the review (if I can call it that) in the LP didn't give us any desire to explore further and part with any more of our precious Yen.

So onto Kyoto Municipal Zoo!  With a quick stop in Japans answer to 7-11, (or Spar, to those who haven't ever come across the wonders of 7-11 abroad) for a drink and chunky Kit-Kat, we paid our fee and entered the zoo with much anticipation. Luckily the school children's itinerary did not include the zoo so we were left in peace to explore, bar a few locals with young children.

Kodai-ji temple

To be honest we didn't see anything completely out of the ordinary (no panda's or unusual Japanese wonders) but the usual zoo-stock was there to entertain us, including some especially cheeky rhesus monkeys, some squabbling black vultures (which were one of the most frightening creatures in the zoo!), a shy hippopotamus and a blue sheep/goat-type thing! A couple of hours in the zoo was enough to quench our appetite and allow us to get some brilliant photos, and we headed back via the bus stop, as we didn't fancy retracing the 5km+ of steps we'd already taken that morning.

Back at Kyoto station we took the outdoor escalators up to the 11th floor and found a nice ramen noodle joint in which t have a late lunch and a soothing beer, before heading back to the room for a sit down and relax. Although that was about 4 hours ago now and we don't appear to have made any hurried movements towards the door to go downtown as we had planned tonight. I think we both may have caught the sun a little, although it was very overcast today I feel we should take stronger heed of the sun in future, even when it seems chilly. I forget it's stronger almost everywhere else in the world except the UK! No major issues, just some pink noses and fuzzy heads. Must hunt down some comedy tourist-style hats in the future as you probably couldn't find a pair of worse suited skins!

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