Golden Temple, Rock Gardens, Alleyway Restaurants

  Kyoto, Japan
Thursday, December 28, 2006

Today was the first day where I slept in. Because I'm a bit older now, the clubbing/drinking scene doesn't interest me as much and as a result, I typically go to bed around midnight and get up early in the morning. Today was a good leisurely morning where I took my time. I got ready and watched CNN. I typically find the international edition of CNN to be much better than the US domestic version. The international edition deals more with world news and none of the stupid topics (i.e. Britney Spears or other celeb crap) or the boring local stuff. I don't really care if Wal-Mart is headed to small town Texas. I don't care if there is a snow storm in Iowa. I'm much more interested in what's going on in the world.

Road to Kinkakuji Temple (Golden Temple)

Kyoto Bus

The first thing that I am going to visit today is the Golden Temple along with the surrounding areas of the Golden temple. The trip to Kinkakuji is by bus. After a day of wandering around, I realized that in Kyoto, the bus system is much more organized and much easier to navigate than the subway system. The trip to Kinkakuji Temple is by the Bus 101 which takes us from the Kyoto station to the doorsteps of Kinkakuji.

Because Kinkakuji is a major tourist destination, I meet my first set of English speakers ever since I got here. The first people I meet is a young couple from Philadelphia, a family from Fresno and some Brits. I probably spoke more in that hour bus ride than I've had so far in Kyoto. I didn't really like the Philly couple. The woman dominated the pair and I could tell that she was an attention whore. The man was friendly enough and chatted about his experience in Japan so far. The problem is that his annoying girlfriend kept interrupting ever 2 minutes because she wasn't getting the attention. I get the feeling that she thought I was ruining her vacation because he wasn't waiting on her hand and foot. WHATEVER...

Kinkakuji Temple

Golden Temple 1

We reach the Kinkakuji in about an hour. As we get off, I started to converse with the Fresno family. The father was an orthopedic surgeon and his family was visiting their daughter who was teaching English in Japan. The mother was a teacher and her daughter had followed in the Mom's footstep as a teacher. The two sons were in college. The elder one was at George Washington University and I forget where the younger one went to college. They were a lovely family and spoke at length with the father. He really started warm up when I mentioned that my sister went to MD school at Georgetown (a renowned place for orthopedic surgery) and was doing her residency in surgery at Tufts in Boston. We had an interesting conversation about how he might not do medicine again if he knew what he knew today. Apparently he's very dissatisfied with the US medical system. He hates how the US was moving towards corporate medicine.

We had another interesting conversation about Japanese culture. The dad read some books prior to this trip and he mentioned that the Japanese seemed to borrow heavily from other cultures. Specifically he mentioned how major advances in Japanese history was due to the adoption of technology and culture from the dominate power of the time (i.e. the Ming Dynasty of China for ancient Japan and the US in more recent history). I agreed with him to an extent. It seemed that while the Japan borrowed heavily they also made much progress in improving what they borrowed.

Ryoanji Temple

Ryoanji Garden 1

I left the family and walked about a mile to Ryoanji Temple. Ryoanji was family for its rock gardens. Apparently the rock garden originated from 3 monks hundreds of years ago. They placed rocks in finely combed sand. This represented something that I forget but it was a breakthrough in Zen thought. Check out the other pictures of Ryoanji in the album associated with this entry.

Naneji Temple

Some Temple 1

From Ryoanji, I walked to Naneji temple which was a converted palace. The emperor had converted his palace to this temple for some reason that I forget. Anyways Naneji had beautiful gardens. It had rock gardens just like Ryoanji. I should probably go back to the US and read more about the combed sand because it seemed to show up in many of the temples during that era. The great thing about Naneji temple is that Bus 26 stops right at the entrance. Bus 26 takes us right back to Kyoto station where my hotel was located.

It's interesting how you meet so many interesting people on these excursions that you will never see again. It's like ships passing in the night. You share a few moments with each other only to go your separate ways. On the way back, I met a couple from the Czech Republic. We spoke at lengths about our experiences so far in Japan and we exchanged suggestions on where else to go. I told them that when they went back to Tokyo to check out Kamakura.

Niski food Market
I went to the Niski food market in the evening to check it out. I had thought the Niski market would be like one of those dirty food markets in Chinatown. I should have known better. It was probably the cleanest food market I have ever scene...probably cleaner than many of the supermarkets back home. I spent most of my time just wandering around and trying different types of food. Half of the time I have no idea what I was eating but it was pretty good whatever it was.

Alleyway Restaurants
After the Niski food market I randomly wandered to the restaurant row of Kyoto. Another interesting quirk of Kyoto was that the high end restaurants are hidden in alleyways. As a tourist, you'd never find these places because it's unmarked on the maps and you'd probably never wander into these alleyways. I was lucky to find this area. I got lost after the Niski market and just randomly stumbled onto a high end restaurant row.

Random Thought #1: Taxes/Tips

Lunch

The one thing I really like about Japan is that taxes/tip is already included in the price of meals. There is none of this 20% extra in tax/tip like in the US. What you see is what you get. An $8 lunch is just that...an $8 lunch. It's much more efficient and less complicated. If you take this fact about tax/tip, you'll find that food is actually slightly cheaper than things in California.

Random Thought #2: Buses in Japan
Another interesting difference in Japan is the way you pay for buses. Instead of prepaying for the ride, you enter the bus from the rear and pay as you exit from the front. It's the exact opposite from the US. This implies an interesting fact about Japan. The Japanese trust that you will pay for the bus. This is why they allow you ride to the destination before asking you to pay. The system works quite well and people never take off without paying. In the US, they don't trust you hence they ask for the fare first. Maybe it's because public transportation is a way of life in Japan whereas in the US public transportation is only for the poor. Who knows?

Random Thought #3: Lack of Trash Cans
One of the things you will notice in Japan is that there are no trash cans on the streets yet the streets are ridiculously clean. Apparently all the trash cans were removed after the Shin Arum terrorist attack. For those of you who don't know about the Shin Arum, it is a cult in Japan that placed Sarin gas in trash cans. Because of this attack, the government banned trash cans from public locations. What's interesting is that the people subsequently learned to hold onto their trash until they found one. This is in start contrast to the US where there is an abundance of trash cans and yet still people litter everywhere.