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April 29: Third day in Kyoto
May. 1st, 2012 05:49 pmThe only real disappointment at Yonbanchi is that they don’t offer a Japanese breakfast. The continental breakfast they provide is tasty enough, with really nice fresh fruit each day, but it’s nothing we couldn’t get easily at home, so we would have preferred a Japanese breakfast like the kind we’d had at Sosuke. Alas, it wasn’t in the cards. I suppose we were also feeling a bit walked out, and not inclined to go in search of a restaurant before setting off on our day of walking.
We had a pleasant chat over breakfast with an Italian couple, who had very good English, enough so that we could converse. That’s a reminder that when we go to Italy (possibly for our annual vacation next spring), I’ll need to start earlier on my language lessons. Our breakfast companions were amused by the fact that even though every tourist in the world seems to read the Lonely Planet guide or its equivalent, and Yonbanchi is listed in these guides, there’s still somehow space available. Why doesn’t everyone try to reserve the same rooms at the same recommended place? I suspect this is because we were visiting before the main tourist season begins. (By summer, Yasuko told us, rooms can be very hard to find.) During the conversation, we discovered that we’d eaten at the same resto (Goya) that they visited the previous night. Sure enough, they’d sat across the restaurant from us—which explains why they looked so familiar.
Today’s goal was to focus on a walk through some of the older and nicer streets of southeastern Kyoto, a long walk south from our minshuku. We started out by passing through the Kurodani shrine, where a morning ceremony was going on. One of the monks or priests was kneeling at the front of the temple, drumming and chanting. We watched for a while but again, without a guide to explain things, it was interesting but not meaningful.
Continuing south, we stumbled across the Kyoto Budo Center purely by chance. (It wasn’t marked on any of our maps, and we thought it was just another temple that would provide a pleasant alternative to the busy city streets for our walk.) This is one of Japan’s premier centers for the study of martial arts. To my delight, the main hall was hosting what I immediately recognized as an aikido “belt test”. Aikido is like a subtler and more powerful version of judo, with more finesse and speed. I studied aikido for about 3 years while in university, and topped out at the 4th belt (green). During the test, you run through the various kata you’ve learned at a given level of study before a judge (at higher levels, before a panel of judges) to prove that you’ve mastered those skills. We watched for half an hour as dozens of people showed off their skills, and some were downright amazing. I’m not an expert, but I recognized many of the throws and knew enough to understand just how well some were being performed. It made me long to study aikido again, but with my shoulder injury, that’s not in the cards. (The injury was a dislocation that caused ligament damage about 15 years ago; the doctor who investigated it told me they could’t do anything about it because of the awkward location of the damage, which is inside a very tight joint.)
We continued our walk past the Heian shrine, which is large and impressive despite being only a 2/3-scale model of the original. Many of the oldest temples have burned down at various points, whether through mischance caused by the infelicitous combination of wood architecture and rice paper walls with the use of open fire or whether through acts of war or civil disturbance. The important ones have often been reconstructed at least once; one assumes the unimportant ones weren’t rebuilt, and were replaced. Because we were suffering from shrine fatigue, we just spent a few moments enjoying the outside and the grounds before moving along. We passed through the fringes of Maruyama park, which would be a lovely place to bring a picnic lunch and just chill for a few hours. Many young women were being photographed in kimonos, and many young couples were wandering together in kimono (her) and yukata (him), since you can rent or buy this garb from many merchants in this area. If it’s really a hot date, you also hire a rickshaw to take you around the area, stopping at all of the high points.
After a pleasant walk, we reached the old area of town that we were seeking. Sanenzaka and Ninnenzaka streets lie just south of Maruyama park, and run up and down the hill on which the park sits. The two streets are lined by old wooden houses, lovingly restored to create a tourist-friendly impression of “old Kyoto”. We did lots of window-shopping (seeking a few last-minute souvenirs) and people-watching, not to mention trying many samples. The main categories of samples are sweets, including “mochi” (a rice paste with a texture similar to jello, filled with tasty stuff like sweet red beans, fruit jelly, and even chocolate), pickles (all kinds of vegetables in either salty or sweet pickling solution), and various forms of rice cracker. Favorite sample: some really hot pepper on a rice cracker, advertised with a cartoon showing two geishas weeping and hollering because of the heat). I tend to get my lunch by grazing, which involves wandering until you see something tasty. Ou build a meal over an hour or so by buying small mouthfuls of various things. Highlight: a new type of bun, fried instead of steamed, that was filled with a savory vegetable curry. Honorable mention: green tea ice cream, since it was a hot day. Shoshanna’s more picky, but eventually settled on a restaurant meal of udon noodles and duck. Needless to say, I helped out with the onerous task of disposing of the tasty meal.
The most unusual temple experience of the day was at the Kiyomizu-dera temple. Lonely Planet advises that there’s a special treat, not signposted in English, just to the left of the first pagoda that marks the start of the temple complex. (Note that if you go, they mean the first *pagoda*, not the first archway.) You hand over 100 yen (a little more than a dollar), then walk downstairs into the pitch darkness of the Tainai-meguri shrine. You hold your shoes in a plastic bag in one hand, and grasping a rope beaded with large wooden beads (about the size of a bar of soap) in the other hand, you walk precariously through the dark. Having hit my head enough times already on roof beams sized for medieval Japanese, I walked with the shoes held before my face. The shrine is said to recapitulate the journey through the womb of a particular bodhisatva into daylight, and midway through you come across a faintly illuminated rotating stone that you can spin to make a wish. You then return into the dark until you eventually reach the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s definitely an experience unlike anything I’ve encountered before.
We ended our day at the Kama River, which is a restful place to relax after such a long walk. The noise of the flowing water is relaxing, and there’s much birdwatching and people-watching to be had. This day was an unusually busy one for the birds. There were what seemed like a couple dozen ravens, all waiting for snacks to be snatched from tourists, and we got to watch a hawk snatch some choice morsel from the water, right out of the beaks of the ravens. The hawks are clearly the more skilfull flyers, and this one ate its snack in mid-flight, periodically bending its beak to snatch a morsel from its claws, all the while gracefully evading bombing runs by the ravens who were trying to get it to drop its meal. On the walk back to Yonbanchi, we got to watch several grey herons fishing, and finally saw the fish they were seeking.
Dinner was at a small local restaurant named Daigin, which served a variety of noodle dishes. We sat under the dining room’s large TV, which was showing a fairly typical samurai costume drama that had the other diners riveted. Nothing special to report about dinner: just good, satisfying Japanese fare.
We had a pleasant chat over breakfast with an Italian couple, who had very good English, enough so that we could converse. That’s a reminder that when we go to Italy (possibly for our annual vacation next spring), I’ll need to start earlier on my language lessons. Our breakfast companions were amused by the fact that even though every tourist in the world seems to read the Lonely Planet guide or its equivalent, and Yonbanchi is listed in these guides, there’s still somehow space available. Why doesn’t everyone try to reserve the same rooms at the same recommended place? I suspect this is because we were visiting before the main tourist season begins. (By summer, Yasuko told us, rooms can be very hard to find.) During the conversation, we discovered that we’d eaten at the same resto (Goya) that they visited the previous night. Sure enough, they’d sat across the restaurant from us—which explains why they looked so familiar.
Today’s goal was to focus on a walk through some of the older and nicer streets of southeastern Kyoto, a long walk south from our minshuku. We started out by passing through the Kurodani shrine, where a morning ceremony was going on. One of the monks or priests was kneeling at the front of the temple, drumming and chanting. We watched for a while but again, without a guide to explain things, it was interesting but not meaningful.
Continuing south, we stumbled across the Kyoto Budo Center purely by chance. (It wasn’t marked on any of our maps, and we thought it was just another temple that would provide a pleasant alternative to the busy city streets for our walk.) This is one of Japan’s premier centers for the study of martial arts. To my delight, the main hall was hosting what I immediately recognized as an aikido “belt test”. Aikido is like a subtler and more powerful version of judo, with more finesse and speed. I studied aikido for about 3 years while in university, and topped out at the 4th belt (green). During the test, you run through the various kata you’ve learned at a given level of study before a judge (at higher levels, before a panel of judges) to prove that you’ve mastered those skills. We watched for half an hour as dozens of people showed off their skills, and some were downright amazing. I’m not an expert, but I recognized many of the throws and knew enough to understand just how well some were being performed. It made me long to study aikido again, but with my shoulder injury, that’s not in the cards. (The injury was a dislocation that caused ligament damage about 15 years ago; the doctor who investigated it told me they could’t do anything about it because of the awkward location of the damage, which is inside a very tight joint.)
We continued our walk past the Heian shrine, which is large and impressive despite being only a 2/3-scale model of the original. Many of the oldest temples have burned down at various points, whether through mischance caused by the infelicitous combination of wood architecture and rice paper walls with the use of open fire or whether through acts of war or civil disturbance. The important ones have often been reconstructed at least once; one assumes the unimportant ones weren’t rebuilt, and were replaced. Because we were suffering from shrine fatigue, we just spent a few moments enjoying the outside and the grounds before moving along. We passed through the fringes of Maruyama park, which would be a lovely place to bring a picnic lunch and just chill for a few hours. Many young women were being photographed in kimonos, and many young couples were wandering together in kimono (her) and yukata (him), since you can rent or buy this garb from many merchants in this area. If it’s really a hot date, you also hire a rickshaw to take you around the area, stopping at all of the high points.
After a pleasant walk, we reached the old area of town that we were seeking. Sanenzaka and Ninnenzaka streets lie just south of Maruyama park, and run up and down the hill on which the park sits. The two streets are lined by old wooden houses, lovingly restored to create a tourist-friendly impression of “old Kyoto”. We did lots of window-shopping (seeking a few last-minute souvenirs) and people-watching, not to mention trying many samples. The main categories of samples are sweets, including “mochi” (a rice paste with a texture similar to jello, filled with tasty stuff like sweet red beans, fruit jelly, and even chocolate), pickles (all kinds of vegetables in either salty or sweet pickling solution), and various forms of rice cracker. Favorite sample: some really hot pepper on a rice cracker, advertised with a cartoon showing two geishas weeping and hollering because of the heat). I tend to get my lunch by grazing, which involves wandering until you see something tasty. Ou build a meal over an hour or so by buying small mouthfuls of various things. Highlight: a new type of bun, fried instead of steamed, that was filled with a savory vegetable curry. Honorable mention: green tea ice cream, since it was a hot day. Shoshanna’s more picky, but eventually settled on a restaurant meal of udon noodles and duck. Needless to say, I helped out with the onerous task of disposing of the tasty meal.
The most unusual temple experience of the day was at the Kiyomizu-dera temple. Lonely Planet advises that there’s a special treat, not signposted in English, just to the left of the first pagoda that marks the start of the temple complex. (Note that if you go, they mean the first *pagoda*, not the first archway.) You hand over 100 yen (a little more than a dollar), then walk downstairs into the pitch darkness of the Tainai-meguri shrine. You hold your shoes in a plastic bag in one hand, and grasping a rope beaded with large wooden beads (about the size of a bar of soap) in the other hand, you walk precariously through the dark. Having hit my head enough times already on roof beams sized for medieval Japanese, I walked with the shoes held before my face. The shrine is said to recapitulate the journey through the womb of a particular bodhisatva into daylight, and midway through you come across a faintly illuminated rotating stone that you can spin to make a wish. You then return into the dark until you eventually reach the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s definitely an experience unlike anything I’ve encountered before.
We ended our day at the Kama River, which is a restful place to relax after such a long walk. The noise of the flowing water is relaxing, and there’s much birdwatching and people-watching to be had. This day was an unusually busy one for the birds. There were what seemed like a couple dozen ravens, all waiting for snacks to be snatched from tourists, and we got to watch a hawk snatch some choice morsel from the water, right out of the beaks of the ravens. The hawks are clearly the more skilfull flyers, and this one ate its snack in mid-flight, periodically bending its beak to snatch a morsel from its claws, all the while gracefully evading bombing runs by the ravens who were trying to get it to drop its meal. On the walk back to Yonbanchi, we got to watch several grey herons fishing, and finally saw the fish they were seeking.
Dinner was at a small local restaurant named Daigin, which served a variety of noodle dishes. We sat under the dining room’s large TV, which was showing a fairly typical samurai costume drama that had the other diners riveted. Nothing special to report about dinner: just good, satisfying Japanese fare.