Monkeys, Cod Milt, and Singing Floors
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2008
1
61
188
Trip End
Jun 28, 2009
Kyoto,
Kinki,
Japan
Monday, November 3, 2008
Here is what we saw in just one day in Kyoto:
* The Golden Pavillon, a Buddhist temple where we learned lots of ceremonies
* Monkey Mountain, where we saw more monkeys than I have seen in one place in my life, including lots of babies
* Nijo Castle, where we heard the singing floors
* A tea ceremony, where we learned how they make and serve green tea
* A dinner at a ryokan, where we had own room and ate lots of things I have never heard of before
Daddy monkey
!Let me tell you about them one by one:
The Golden Pavillon is a also called the Rukuon-ji Temple. It was built as a house in the 1220's for Kintsune Saionji, who was a retired Shogun. A shogun was a military ruler in old Japan, and all the warlords answered to him and he was supposed to answer to the Emperor. Yoshimitsu, the third Shogun of Ashikaga tried to make the villa as beautiful as possible, like paradise. He built a three story building that is covered in gold - this is the Golden Pavillon. A Chinese phoenix, the symbol of Buddhism, sits on the roof. He built a pond by the pavillon that has stone turtles for long life, and other things.
At the temple, I learned a lot of different ceremonies and did some of them:
* I rang the ceremonial bell, which was cool.
* I gave coins as offerings at a few shrines.
* I burned incense to ward off evil spirits.
* I I lit a candle at the temple that is supposed to get me into a higher school. My mom lit one for her hearts desires, Lu lit one for safe travel, and Dad lit one for finding employment!
* I learned that if you get a bad fortune, you can tie it to a string or tree and it will be taken away from you, but you can keep a good fortune.
Lu feeding the monkeys
Next we went to the Monkey Mountain, which is also called Mt. Hiei. It is right beside a cool river, where there are lots of boats. We hiked up to the top where we saw lots and lots and lots of Japanese monkeys! Every monkey there is given a name when it is born because they have scientists there who study them. When we were almost to the top, we first saw two monkeys in a tree, but when we got to top we saw tons of monkeys. We got to go inside a special room where we could feed monkeys sweet potatoes, chesnuts, and apples from our hands. That was very fun - the monkey's hands look just like ours do! Some of the monkeys tried to fight over pieces of food - they made loud barking noises when they started fighting. Outside, we saw baby monkeys, who were very tiny and who were so cute! They rode on their mother's backs, tried to climb bushes, and ropes, and had a good time! This was maybe my favorite thing we have done so far - it was really fun! We went down a giant slide on the way down the mountain. You should definitely check it out if you go to Kyoto - I am very glad Stefan and Tyler told me about it.
We had green tea ice cream and lunch at a tofu restaurant, then went to see Nijo Castle. The castle was first built in 1603 and it took about 30 years to build it. It was built for the Shogun Ieyasu. There were a lot of cool things about the castle and lot of them had to do with the surveillance system that the Shogun created to protect himself. Some of these were:
* A singing floor, that sounds like nightingales when you walk on it. This was to hear if anyone came into the castle - they did it by putting nails underneath the boards.
On top of Monkey Mountain
It really did sound like birds singing, especially when you walked on it barefoot. (You have to take your shoes off to go inside the castle* All the visiting warlords had to wear extra long pants and shirts with extra long sleeves. This meant that if they tried to walk, they had to use both hands to hold up their pants, so they could not use their swords.
* No warlords could talk to or look at the shogun. They had to talk to a minister who then told the shogun what they said.
* The shogun had bodyguards who sat behind a door next to the meeting rooms. They had a jar of water in front of them and if the water got ripples, then they would jump out because it meant someone moved.
* The page boy, who was under 15 years old, got to sit near the shogun and help him with his robes and things. That sounded like a fun job.
* The maids (there were about 2000 of them) were also trained to be bodyguards.
* There were about 100,000 soldiers in the castle when the shogun was there.
* There were two moats around the castle, an outside and an inside moat.
Lu at the Golden Pavillon
The palace was made of cypress wood and had rice paper walls and a thatched roof - it there was a fire it could burn down easily.
I also interviewed a boy at the castle named Hiroki Saito. He was visiting the castle with his friends for a school trip and they were all very nice. The interview is later.
Last, we went to a place where we had a traditional tea ceremony. We had to take off our shoes and wash our hands (left hand first, then right hand, then the handle of the spoon), then we went through a small door to the tea room. There were tatami mats on the floor made of straw. A lady in a kimono first washed all the utensils, then she made green tea with tea powder and served us the tea. It was cool to watch.
Tonight, we went to a very special dinner at a ryokan, which is like a small hotel and restaurant. We took off our shoes at the door and they gave us special slippers to wear. We took the slippers off when we got to another room. In the room, there was a low table and these cool chairs on the floor. The room looked out at a garden. Our waiter was a lady named Chie, who served us fourteen courses of food!!! I did not know what any of the food was, but I tried some of them until I fell asleep and Chie made us a futon to sleep on. She was so nice. Here are some of the foods she served us:
* Sea urchin
* Deep-fried ear of rice plant
* Japanese spiny lobster
* Japanese mackerel with soy sauce (I liked this one!)
* Fermented sea cucumber belly
* Shark fin (I ate this but I did not like it!)
* Sticky kudzu sauce
* Cod milt (this looked like brains but it was actually the stomach of a cod fish)
* Hornwart (I have no idea what this was!)
* Persimmon for dessert
I actually miss peas after this dinner
Lu eating Japanese ice cream
! But it was fun to see all the different foods and they all looked very beautiful (except for the cod milt!). Japan has been a very interesting place and I like lots of things about it. I hope we can come back again sometime because there is so much we did not get to see and do. Tomorrow we go to India, where I don't know what I will eat!
INTERVIEW WITH HIROKI SAITO, 12 years old
Kyoto, Japan
Where do you live? Near Nagoya, Japan
Who do you live with? My mother, father, and two younger sisters
Where do you go to school and what grade are you in? Ko Elementary School and sixth grade
What is your favorite subject? Science and Gymnasium
What do you do for fun? Running
What do you want to be when you grow up? I have not decided yet.
What is your favorite food? Curry and rice
What are you most afraid of? Bungee jumping!
What message would you tell the children of the world? Peace for the World!
