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Published: April 5th 2006
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There is way too much to see in Kyoto for me to even attempt writing about. We've been here for 5 days now, and we both feel like we've hardly scratched the surface of this place.
Unfortunatly due to being unorganised travellers that we are we have had to change hotels quite a few times now as this place is packed full of both local and international tourists right now. The cherry blossom season has just started and Kyoto is the place to be for "Hanemi" (cherry blossom season).
Our first day here we went for a fairly aimless walk in Kyoto's most popular temple district. (The Higashiyama Area) The truth is there are temples, shrines, castles,and gardens just about everywhere in this place. There are a few main areas on the outskirts of the city which have most of the grandest and popular ones.
The Higashiyama area has 3 major temples, but we walked around all day and only ended up getting to 2 of them as there was so much to see. The first one we went to was Kiyomizu Temple. The approach to the temple is a beautiful walk up cobblestone streets - filled with
tourists and souveiner stores, but still quite charming.
The temple itself was really special. It stands on the edge of a hill, so the building itself it quite a large pavillion structure. There were SO many people there that day. Inside is a small shrine of golden buddahs and all around the building are smaller shrine and prayer statues. Some things are written in english, but most is not - so the exact signifigance of many of the shrines was somewhat lost on me.
The next temple we visited was a smaller one that had a beautiful garden attached. I think it was called Kodaiji temple and was a really nice walk through various buildings and gardens. On the way, there was a shrine that had a giant sitting buddah on the roof. It is a fairly new shrine as it has been dedicated to the people who lost their lives in world war 2 - in particular the people from other countries who died on japanese territory. Interesting and profound that a nation should build a shrine to its fallen enemies.
For the rest of the day we wandered around the main garden sampling japanese festival
food and enjoying the hanemi atmosphere. The cherry blossoms still are not fully out yet, but that didn't stop people from enjoying their traditional merry picnics in the park underneath the cherry trees.
Japanese festival food is a huge novelty for me. During the evening I sampled Takoyaki (fried dumpling with a squid centre), green tea ice cream, charcoaled squid on a stick, dried baked river fish on a stick, boiled bamboo shoots on a stick, and some sort of strange rice dough balls on a stick. (As you can tell you can get just about anything on a stick.)
On our way back to our accomodation that evening we walked through Gion which was the traditional Geisha district. The guidebook says that to actually spot a real geisha you have to be at a certain spot in Gion at around sunset. And sure enough, as we were walking through there was a crowd of people with their cameras out waiting for the geisha to appear. We waited with them for 5 minutes and were indeed lucky enough to see a geisha and her escort walking to another building down the street. But I can't tell the real
geisha from the ones who are just wearing the clothes. So I guess I'll never know if she really was one or not. Oh, yes aparently real geisha exsist but there are only about 80 (i think) in japan and you will never meet one.
The next day it poured with rain, so we went to an antique market that our friend Rob had told us about. It was really fascinating - I could have spent hours and thousands of dollars there but fortunatly I restrained myself. Slightly... Andy was very taken by the Samuri swords. To own a real one you need to have a permit and the decent ones start at about AU$15,000. Some of them were really beautiful.
I was taken by the japanese scrolls, and I bought one of a Rhu dragon - which is the peaceful dragon.
The rest of the day we spent at the Nishi food markets and boy was there some strange stuff there! Very exciting wandering through all the stalls trying this and that. (Fish cakes on sticks) Eventually we had lunch at a vegetarion restaurant which served some delicious food. Some of it unidentifiable but still tasty.
I was able to finally replace my lost beanie, and was therefore set to continue having more adventures in Kyoto.
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matt
non-member comment
wow
hi guys great place kyoto that temple area is amazing- did you find the place where if you are looking for your true love you can make a wish and it will happpen?