Kyoto Highlights

Hello!

So, from Monday afternoon until Thursday morning, I visited Kyoto with my friends Hollie and Amy. I've been to Kyoto twice before, but there are so many things to see there that I could go many more times without getting tired of it. This trip was longer than my previous ones, but we actually didn't see that many places. Our plans changed multiple times and I can't really remember everything we did, so I'll just give the highlights of the trip.

Part of the trouble we had was that all three of us were in various stages of recovering from nasty colds. Amy was pretty much entirely well, I was nearing the end of my cold, and Hollie was at the beginning of hers. Hollie and I both had very unpleasant sounding coughs. Because we were all sick to some degree or other, we had to revise our plans to allow for more resting time. Unfortunately, this meant that we ended up cutting out a number of sights, including Nijo-jo castle and Fushimi Inari shrine.

However, we still did manage to see a number of awesome things. One of the main things we had planned on was a visit to Kokedera, the Moss Temple. For that one, you have to get permission and an appointment ahead of time. I would never have known about that temple, but Amy did, and she arranged everything. It was also the most expensive thing we visited, at a cost of 3,000 yen. Honestly, the temple itself wasn't that impressive and wouldn't have merited the fee on its own, but it was also sort of an interactive experience. Part of our visit was that we went inside the temple and copied sutras. What this meant was that we were each given a piece of paper with sort of a chant or prayer written on it in kanji. We were each given a calligraphy brush and an ink stone, and instructed to trace over as many of the kanji as we could. They told us we didn't have to do all of it, but in the end we all finished the sheet. Partway into the writing time there was a ceremony. One of the monks started the chant and everyone joined in. It started out slowly, but sped up as another monk with a drum increased the tempo. I missed the start of it and could never figure out where they were, so I just listened quietly. I probably couldn't have read fast enough anyways; Amy wasn't able to keep up, and she's far better at Japanese than I am.

The room where all of this took place was very interesting. It was a reasonably large hall full of what looked like little lap desks. You knelt or sat at the desk while you traced the sutras. In an open space in the middle, there was an altar and some large metal lamps hanging like a chandelier. When I first got to my desk, I was very confused by the fact that my ink wasn't inky enough. It was basically just water. After some minor distress, I remembered what it looked like when people used ink stones in anime and tried doing it that way. What I had to do was rub the ink stick on the bottom of the ink tray to make the water more inky. I had never used a Japanese calligraphy brush, either, so I made a right mess out of my paper, but I wasn't too upset about that. The temple staff were kind enough to come over and translate their instructions into English for Hollie and me (since we look like foreigners, while Amy does not). Once we had traced as much of the sutra as we could, we were supposed to write our name, address, and a wish on the paper in our native language. I followed the instructions, then brought my paper up to the altar and tried to pray like the other people did. I threw a couple of coins in the donation box, as well. Bonus points if you can guess what I wished for ;)

One of my favorite sights was a public park. I think it was the area around the imperial palace, but I can't remember what it was called. We went there hoping to see some sakura (cherry blossoms) and weren't disappointed. We were a bit early for sakura, but there were a few of them blooming along with the apricot and plum trees. There were a lot of beautiful flowers, and walking around looking at them might have been my favorite part of the trip.

We spent a fair amount of time exploring the Gion area, which used to be known for geisha (and where there still are a few to be found), but now is a good place to buy traditional goods. We looked at things such as fans, hair ornaments made from folded chirimen fabric, and furoshiki (beautiful cloths used for carrying things). We did some shopping downtown as well. My purchases were limited to a few (rather impractical) items of clothing. I probably would've ended up spending more money had I been there on my own, but because Hollie and Amy weren't really looking for clothing, I didn't spend a ton of time in the shops. It's probably just as well.

We ate pretty well in Kyoto. There was sushi, nabe (hot pot), tempura, and a vegetarian omelet with rice that was particularly good. We also had some tasty desserts. My favorite restaurant was the Sunshine Cafe, which had a mostly vegetarian menu. That was where I had the omelet. It had vegetables and tofu in it. Delicious! With my meal I also had a muscat lemon sour, basically a sour soda-type drink. I enjoyed it a lot.

For our final morning, we explored the Heian shrine which was practically right across from our hotel. It was large, colorful and pretty impressive, but we didn't spend a ton of time there. We had set aside some time for extra shopping at the train station, which has sort of a mall built into it. We all needed to buy omiyage (souvenirs) for a variety of people, and there were other things we wanted to buy there. Hollie and Amy both wanted to get things at Lush, a sort of Bath and Body type shop. I wanted to get some eyeshadow at MAC. I actually could've used some more shopping time since there was a lot of stuff left to explore, but maybe it's better I didn't have the time to try on a bunch of clothing.

All in all, I enjoyed the trip to Kyoto and want to go back yet again. I still want to see the Fushimi Inari shrine, maybe explore a few more temples, and do more shopping downtown. It's pretty enjoyable just being in a city, especially an elegant one like Kyoto. People don't really stare at foreigners when you get into such urban areas, and there's a better selection of everything (food, shopping, sights to see). I don't know when I'll go back, but I'm sure I'll end up there again before I leave Japan for good.