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Out for a Sunday stroll
Kimono rental is big business. These young women have gone the whole way with white face make up - a Maiko (trainee geisha) make-over SC writes: When we first came to Kyoto nearly 5 years ago, on an Exodus trip, we rattled round and I always felt we missed lot, through being jet lagged and disoriented. The plan this time was to cover Kyoto thoroughly, revisiting some places but focusing on the new. Kyoto is a large city and it can take 30 minutes to get across town by bus, and you need buses because the city is poorly covered by Japan Rail (JR) lines, where our passes are good.
Yesterday we bussed out to the East of the city for a long walk around numerous temples, exotic old Edo period shopping streets and ended at the garden for one of the temples. The walk was good and interesting but it soon got really rather hot. In the end we made it into the centre of town for a gyoza and beer lunch. After thar we explored / rediscovered the famous and 1 km long shopping arcades. One is classy with with high end shops and one is full of tourist tat. I bought a fine dragon print for my dragon collection and Cathy bought a posh print. I managed to resist buying another
wonderful Japanese knife.......Our evening meal was... a bit of a disappointment..chicken but not as we know it. I’ll let Cathy take up the story of today..
(Cj writes) Another day, another garden ... several gardens today, actually, all within a large Zen temple complex: the Daitoku-ji temple, which includes no fewer than 22 sub-temples, each with its own garden. Four sub-temples were open, and we saw the lot - all very different from what we’ve seen before. Whereas previous gardens, whether the large ‘strolling’ gardens such as Kenroku-en, or the smaller gardens we’ve described more recently, have all majored on the arrangement of plants and structures for their impact, these Zen gardens consisted largely of rocks (some small, many massive) with raked gravel around each. There are plants, in most cases (not all), but they’re most likely to be luxuriant moss, a few ferns and perhaps a small tree, plus a clipped azalea or two. (I haven’t seen a cloud-pruned tree in a public garden for days). Rocks and gravel don’t sound much like a garden, I grant you - but oh! their impact was huge. Zen gardens, if you know how to read them (confession: their deeper meanings
are a mystery to me without the helpful guidance notes) consider the life internal, and one’s progress towards maturity in spirit (completely unconnected with physical maturity), and they are deeply rooted in Buddhist teachings and traditions - although there was one garden that celebrated the arrival of Christianity ... and noted the 200 year ban that followed relatively soon after. Raked gravel gardens are not an easy option: one garden, first laid out in the 1300s, has been raked into the same pattern EVERY DAY since then. And how they coped in autumn before leaf blowers were invented I don’t know. We saw four of these Zen gardens, each one subtly different from the rest, all inspiring. One, somewhat annoyingly, has banned photos...so the pix are from the first three.
SC again: Then we engaged in yet more shopping, including used CDs for Steve, some fabric for CJ, and some bits and bobs as souvenirs. Finally, a tour of Nishiki Dori, a very famous food street. We tried all sorts of food samples and I tackled a small octopus, stuffed with a quail’s egg, on a stick! Bought some tasty spices and tiny tiny sardines..... must try to use
them!
After another long but not quite so hot day we decided to repeat an evening experience from 2 years ago. We had a picnic in our room while we repacked. It feels like we’re nearing the end now but one more big garden to do tomorrow. One last night in the Onsen.
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