Kyoto temple mania!!

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Today we tackled the east side of Kyoto - temple land! Sanjusangen-do temple was our first stop and it was incredible. It is a massive building and inside there are 1001 life-sized statues of the thousand-armed Kannon (the Buddhist goddess of mercy who actually has 42 arms). I am usually pretty good about respecting the no picture rule, but I couldn’t resist snapping an illegal photo of this one, it was so overwhelming. The statues just kept going and going, and each had unique facial features and was holding different things. Apparently visitors like to try to find one who resembles family members.
Afterwards we went to the National Museum and saw some beautiful art objects. My favorite was several beautiful boxes for calligraphy sets. They were very intricate. Steve liked some of the paintings. They also had some old kimonos that were pretty. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, so unfortunately we can’t show you what they looked like.

Next we headed to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. We got a bit lost walking from the bus stop but had a wonderful walk nonetheless. The streets had old-fashioned looking shops with all sorts of handicrafts and food. We tried some yatsuhashi - a type of dumpling filled with bean paste, and bought some banana flavoured ones (they were really good). We had lunch at a little restaurant where we sat on the floor, and we really enjoyed that. I even saw two girls dressed as geishas (I don’t think they really were geisha’s, I think they have a program where you can dress like a geisha for a day) but they let me take their picture which was neat. We got accosted by some school kids on a field trip (all wearing matching bright yellow hats) who had an assignment to accost tourist and ask them questions to practice their English. They were funny. They pointed us in the right direction to get to the temple.
The temple itself is huge and nestled on a hillside. The views were incredible, it is obvious why this temple is so crowded with tourists. It was first built in 798, but was reconstructed in the sixteen hundreds. I got to drink from the Otawa waterfall (I especially liked the name) that is supposed to have therapeutic properties. I had to wait in line for a while and then you can use a cup on the end of a long handle. Then you return the cup to its little UV chamber so it is sterilized for the next person. Kinda high tech! We really enjoyed this temple, despite the crowds.
We walked some more of the side street until we reached Maruyama-koen Park, where we stopped for ice cream. I got vanilla and Steve thought he would try the green tea. He was shocked to discover there is actually a food he doesn’t like! I let him share my vanilla and we sat and rested in the park for awhile.

Our last stop was the Kodai-ji Temple. This temple was built in honour of a famous ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi by his wife after he had died. It was smaller and quieter than the last temple, and I managed to take some photos of the statues of Toyotomi and his wife before someone told me not to take photos (there were no signs in English so I didn’t know!). We walked around the grounds a bit, and then had a late dinner at this really great restaurant, sharing several dishes including an awesome salad, deep fried squid and octopus, meat skewers and chinease noodles. It was tasty, and they were playing jazz music in the background. Exhausted from our walking, we went to bed early.

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