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Time for (part 1 of) the long awaited Golden Week bloggage
Well, we get some nice national holidays here. Unfortunately Golden Week fell over a weekend here, so it wasn't a 'week' per say but rather a 4 day weekend (either one is nice the way I see it)...and so it was off to Kyoto, to take up floor space and do some sightseeing.
There are about 6 other teachers from my training group in Kyoto, and maybe 8 from other training groups, so it varied from 4-14 people on outings together. As you can imagine, this large pack of gaijin was a sight to see from some of the locals, but watching their expressions was kind of entertaining for us too.
Saturday
Tea for 20?
I went to a tea ceremony on the Saturday afternoon, and then was invited to have dinner with my helper's family at her house that night, so I didn't go to Kyoto until Sunday morning. There is a full blog of the Tea Ceremony, so i'll skip Saturday's events and move on to Kyoto fun.
Sunday
I left for Kyoto around 9am and
arrived there at maybe 11.30, because of train changes and waiting and not knowing how to buy a ticket once I arrived in Kyoto because the machines confused me. .. I ended up having to wake a very hungover boy to ask him for help hehehe. Thanks Markus!
Kyoto
I arrived in Uzumasa around 11.30, and was feeling very genki and upbeat...NOT the kind of personality 3 hungover males want around in the morning.... so I amped it up a little more. I especially loved the part when one of them said 'Shut Up! I don't speak morning!' hehehe classic! Anyways, we all got motivated to leave the house by 2pma nd so we headed for some speed sightseeing. It's basically sightseeing without all the ooh-ing and aah-ing...although it's easy to speed along when you're being herded like cattle around the sights. Choosing gloden week to go and see some of the most well known sights in Kyoto may not have been a good idea...but it was see it or laze around doing nothing, so we went.
Kinkakuji
Kinkakuji is a sight to see. We tried to put ourselves in the mind of people
200 or so years ago, coming across a golden temple sitting in the middle of a small lake...no mean feat considering the hoarde of tourists milling around trying to get a good vantage point for pictures (ourselves included). Such a HUGE display of wealth doesn't seem so out of place nowadays but back then it must really have shown the power and worth of the shogunate. I haven't read the pamphlet yet and will probably be able to add all sorts of tidbits of information later on, but for now you get the bare bones...and some lovely pictures so hush hush. ^_^
From Kinkakuji we decided to pay a visit to a well known Zen garden, and proceeded 'southwest' according to my lack of direction: 'well since THAT's west (pointing west) then THAT MUST be south (pointing north)....' In my defence, I can say that I DID say that OUT LOUD so it's not MY fault people didn't pick up on it.....I must just have sounded really convinced/convincing so props to me yay! We walked for about 2 minutes before anyone had doupts and asked a nearby traffic directing person...... and then turned around and walked in the opposite
direction for 20 minutes until we finally came to....
Ryoan-ji
This would be a fabulous place to visit in the early morning/evening, when it wasn;t so busy, but even so we managed to find some quiet spots to blaspheme (can you balsheme in buddhism?) by taking some very un-zen pictures and being the posers that WE are (it's not just me!). We even went in to see the rock garden with pathways raked in gravel, but again, it's a bit difficult to feel very zen with a hundred or so people buzzing around you. I would love to visit when it was less busy/empty and I could get a feel for the place, but ultimately it's what you make of it so I found a bit of peace by a small monument complete with purification water feature yay. AFter the trekking around and walking in the heat most people were a bit out of it, but myself and Joe went for a wanter in Kyoto central in order to find the 24hr post office bank to change some travellers cheques. Unfortunatedly the bank bit was closed (national holiday and all that jazz) but a lovely wonderful helpful
hotelier cashed the cheques for him even though he wasn't a paying guest. We did much bowing and scraping in gratitude...and later got some pictures of Kyoto tower (which we didn't go up).
Later that evening, there were 5 of us lazing around and Markus' apartment...trying to find the motivation to go out. WE finally made a move and went to meet some othe teachers at this little restaurant, where we drank much beer (see relevant photos). It was nice to meet some other people, and yet I felt very possessive of my own training crew friends for some reason. Probably that feeling of going through fire and brimstone and coming out the other end together....or something (ok so training wasn't that bad but why waste an analogy when you think of one right?).
...and that was Sunday...
more on Golden Week tomorrow.....
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