Kyoto…the cultural bit –

Of course...the culture and history was the real reason we made the trip to Kyoto. There are hundreds of shrines and temples to be found here with many being accompanied by fantastically cultivated, detailed Japanese gardens.

Our first ‘tour’ was a mapped out walking tour which took us first to Ginkaku-ji temple. This was reputedly one of the more popular places to visit with all tourists and was quite busy. Still, we were treated to a lake and some stunning surroundings as well as a perfectly kept temple. One of the slightly disappointing things about Kyoto’s history is the fact that it’s been marred by many battles / wars resulting in many fires. These fires have led to the destruction – many times over – of a lot of the temples. So, the structures you actually end up seeing are replicas (although, perfect replicas) and look brand new in some cases. This just made it slightly more difficult to get a sense of the history that we had done in India or Sri Lanka. However, on the plus side these sites are 100% better kept and in such perfect and ornate condition that you do feel privileged to be walking round… We also walked down the ‘path of philosophy’on the walking tour. So called because of the Japanese philosophers used to spend their prime thinking time walking down here along the narrow path next to the stream. It was very pleasant and picturesque.

We also visited the Nyakuoji Shrine and finished up at the Nanzen-Ji temple. Nanzen-ji was very beautiful. A viaduct was in the grounds and accompanied by a number of separate and detailed little gardens. Here, we saw a good example of the extremely well kept and designed small stone gardens that are raked everyday into simple patterns.

Another day we had our very own guide…a student that the tourist office had put us in touch with called Norie. In an effort to improve their English students offer to take you around sites for free - you just have to pay their admission and feed them ;-) Norie was very sweet and an excellent guide…she seemed to work very hard! Holding down two jobs and going to uni…and we felt very sorry for dragging her around Kyoto on an absolutely freezing day. It was here thought that we saw one of the most impressive temples, Kinkakuji…aptly nicknamed the ‘Golden Temple’as the top two levels were covered in gold leaf paint and lacquer. It’s reflection in the lake made the picture even more impressive. We also visited another temple before we gave into the cold and asked Norie to recommend somewhere for lunch. She took us to the tofu restaurant which most importantly was lovely and warm, where we decided to bung the site seeing for the rest of the day and do something a bit warmer. So, off we went shopping (Vanessa trying to find a kimono that we could use to decorate and hang on our wall when we finally get a pad in Oz- unfortunately, they were all around at least 70 quid which didn’t seem justifiable) and then onto, yes, karaoke. Norie treated us to our first live Japanese performance of karaoke and was pretty good as well! We were very grateful to Norie and it was nice to spend some time with a ‘local’.

Other places of note we visited were the Nishi-Honganji and Higashi-Honganji temples. These two were built by rival Buddhist schools virtually alongside each other. Higashi-Honganji included a display of the rope of human hair that had been used to pull some of the pillars up and transport them from the mountains when it had originally been built. To be honest, it looked a bit minging – but still quite amazing when you think about it.

We hired some bikes one day to visit another and probably the most impressive temple of Kiyomizu. Unlike many of the other sites this one had been maintained with much of it's original structure and materials hadn't been too effected by war. Up on the hillside it had spectacular views of the city and was actually mostly the original building. Also, up here was the magical love rocks. The story goes that if you could walk the 18 feet between them with your eyes closed and reach the other rock (in a straight line) your love would be guaranteed. Vanessa just hit it…I missed by a mile! Blaming some people that got in the way ;-)

It was as we were cycling around the Gion district of Kyoto that we saw our first Geishas! They almost walked past us unnoticed. We followed them though and managed to sneak a couple of pictures as they went off to whichever appointment they had booked. In quite a modern Japan it was great to see such traditional and authentic dress and wooden shoes as they walked shyly down the street.

As I'd raved about Japanese art previously and the block printing of Hokasai and the incredible detail that the artists achieved...it was also around the Gion area that we came upon the piece of work below. An extremely odd sculpture and the only one of it's kind that we'd seen on our trip. It only really reminded me of ET! (with boobs!)

Although our time in Japan was short (and expensive) it was definitely worth it and we had an amazing time. The country was a real contrast to the other destinations on our trip and a real eye-opener into actually how far the rest of us are behind – in some ways, but not all... Sayonara and arigato gazaimas Japan.