Blogs from Kyoto, Japan, Asia - page 7

Today we head to Kyoto. As we wait for our taxi, a group of five school children approach me, and read to me from a very carefully prepared script. They tell me that they are from the Niko Junior High School English Club, and want to know if it would be alright if they asked me a few questions about Japanese music. I sense that this might be quite a short conversation. They show me some laminated pictures of what I assume are Japanese pop stars, and then ask me the second question on their script, which is whether I know who these people are. I tell them that I don’t. They giggle, which I think is more in disbelief than anything else. They tell me that these people are all very famous. I start to ... read more

I am getting a bit of a fixation on the history of Japan, those shogun families and the castles and shrines that mark where they walked, lived and impacted the people of this country. Dangerous for blog writing, cause I can wax long and painfully deep into the weeds. And then find out I misunderstood something or other. Given Kyoto has over 1500 temples, shrines and some castles on top of that, I’m going to skip the endless historical tidbits that strike me as interesting, to save you the bore-factor. One bit that clicked into place for me here was the relationship between the Imperial emperors (established in the 4th century and still exist today living in the imperial palace in Tokyo) and the shogun crowd. In 1185, the first samurai government took over political power ... read more

KYOTO TO NARITA- Today is our last day in Kyoto. We met Makoon for our last temple visits. The first temple that we went to is very popular averaging 13,000 visitors a day and of course even more in high season. Fushari anari, or the Temple of 10,000 tori. We got there early and it was already quite busy. The guardian animal of this temple is the fox. So there are fox at every gate. After passing by the major temple where people can make wishes or make vows of things they are committed to doing, the path splits and starts climbing through the first Tori. The first line of Tori number about 100. Then there is a second split with another 100 on each side and on it goes climbing up the mountain until the ... read more

Today was a transfer day for Tokyo to Kyoto for Dennis and I, and to Osaka for John and Michael. We had scouted out all the information we could about the trains, so we left our wonderful hotel in Tokyo and went to the Tokyo Central Station, using the Yeasiu Entrance. We knew we had to find the 505 Hikari train to Osaka and Kyoto. We looked at the boards until they came up in English and found that we needed Track 16. We knew from our tickets that we were in Car 10 Seats 2c and 2d. We found Track 16 and John and I stood on the #10 sign indicating that's where Car 10 would stop and load. While John stood with the suitcases, Michael and I got some bento boxes for the trip. ... read more

5 April 2018 Hakone - Kyoto Today we were advised to take a bag with 2 days cloths and other requirements. Our big bags were going directly to Osaka and we would get it there only. We were to go by bullet train to Kyoto. The bus dropped us at station. Here they call Shinkan to bullet train. Our number was 10 to 12 in compartment 13/14. We were very worried that what if we can't get in train in time. But the authorities had made arrangements to see that all can get in. We got down at Kyoto. Other bus was waiting there. Today was visit to Golden Pavilion Temple. Then lunch and after lunch visit to Kiyomizu Temple. From Google : Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) is a Zen temple in northern Kyoto whose top two ... read more