the cultural capital of Japan

Day one - second half

After arriving back in Kyoto we made a quick pit stop at the hostel to recharge our batteries a little, and then walked the ten minutes to Sanjusangendo. Sanjusangendo is a famous temple that houses some 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. Unfortunately no photos were allowed in the main hall, which is a real shame as the sight was stunning, with the statues being much larger than I had thought they would be. I guess you will just have to visit to see with your own eyes then, aye?!

...that doesn't say takoyaki...

With time bearing down on us before the temples shut up shop for the day we had one last place to visit, so we grabbed a taxi and navigated our way to Kiyomizudera (Pure Water temple). Kiyomizudera is one of the most famous temples in Japan, and that's saying something because this is a land FULL of temples, and "famous" things (every town has something "famous" they boast about).

Kiyomizudera was definitely good, don't get me wrong, but none of us thought it was that spectacular. Maybe it was all the shops and tourists everywhere, maybe it was the fact it was summer and so neither cherry blossom nor autumn leaves were out, or maybe it was just the fact the "waterfall" was supremely average. Still, it was worth the trip, and definitely should be on everyone's to see list. It's just the people who put up the, "vote Kiyomizudera as one of the new 7 wonders of the world" flags, must be dreaming!

There was a little blow out with a Maiko dress up place that Karen had made a 6pm booking with. She had booked both herself and Banks a dress up and photo shoot session, however, the place closed at 5pm, which makes a 6 o'clock session rather hard to fit in! So, they made a new booking for Sunday and then we set off to find some food, hoping we would have better luck than the night before.

Again we found ourselves walking in circles, not seeming to be able to find anything we could settle on. Finally we found a cheapish Japanese style dinner and made our choices from the picture menu. It was a huge blow out meal though, as the food arrived and we found the three plates of nasu (egg plant) was in fact three plates of eggplant laced in mince! Three plates for me to eat. Then there was the takoyaki (octopus balls) that Banks had ordered. When they arrived Karen tried to inform Banks they didn't look much like takoyaki and I started reading the menu she had seen the picture on. Just as I was telling her, "...that doesn't say takoyaki..." she had put on in her mouth, only to quickly spit out half a meatball! So yeah, not the best meal for three vegetarians, but we all had a bit of a laugh and then hit the streets again for another night of wandering round Gion.

Luck wasn't on our side in terms of great photos of Maiko, but we did see a bunch of them popping from one place to the next, or rolling past in the back of taxis. After a while, when we were sure the photos were not worth snapping, and the girls wouldn't stop, no matter what form of "polite" Japanese I threw at them, we decided to instead just enjoy the 'sightings' with our eyes, not lenses.

Day two

We made an earlier start than Saturday in order to make the most of the day, and our bus passes. We opted for the all day pass which only costs 500yen and allows visitors to get around most of the major sights.

We rode a very full bus all the way across town and then unloaded with all the students outside a university. From there we had a little walk up a hill to a place called Ryoanji. Ryoanji has some famous tea ceremony rooms, and an even more famous stone garden. The stone zen garden at Ryoanji is perhaps the most famous of all the zen gardens in Japan and consists of 15 rocks spread out over a sea of raked stones. The sea is fenced in by an earth bank wall and on one side has a large viewing platform for people to sit and ponder the unknown meaning behind it all. While I personally think there should be a "no talking" sign up to ensure peace and quite, we were there early enough to avoid the large, no doubt noisy, crowds.

In addition to the awesome stone garden was another very impressive moss garden that gave of an enchanted, tranquil and calming vibe. The four of us thought it was perhaps even more impressive than its more famous big brother 'stone sea'.

A twenty minute walk away was another super famous temple. Kinkakuji is commonly known as 'The Golden Pavilion', and just one look at it tells you why. Yep, it's plated in gold! Coupled with the fact it's set next to a beautiful lake, makes for quite a spectacular photo opportunity (especially on a calm day when the reflection is no doubt flawless). Entry to Kinkakuji involves a walk past the Golden Pavilion as well as some other nice gardens and structures.

Our third stop for the day was Nanzenji, which took a bit of coordinating with the bus schedule, but all worked out nicely. Nanzenji is one of Japan's most important Zen temples. Inside there are a number of different gardens to view (always at a cost though). I went to the upper grass/moss garden, while Karen checked out the lower garden which after seeing her pictures seemed better and would be my pick of the two. We didn't have too long to stay at Nanzenji as we had to make our way across town to the Maiko appointment for the girls, but I did manage to run up the hill and check out the "waterfall" lonely planet mentioned. There "waterfall" was little more than a hose trickle over the side of a ledge, a bit more lonely planet 'talking things up' I think!

We made it to the Maiko makeup appointment just on time, and the girls were quickly taken away to get changed and have a bucket of makeup applied to their faces, leaving Ali and I with an hour to kill. After wandering the streets and stopping off for cold tasty treats along the way, we made our way back to the girls where we were taken out back to an alley and told we had 10 minutes in which we were allowed to take as many of our own photos of them as we wanted. Needless to say, I went a bit mental and instantly stepped into "professional photographer" mode, taking glamour shot after shot of the beautiful Japanese Karen. Actually, both Karen and Banks looked pretty weird in all the gear and with faces whiter than freshly fallen snow! I'm pretty sure the main reason Karen looked so strange was because of her "western" eyes. I haven't really seen any pictures of maiko / geisha with western eyes before, and it was a little freaky!!

A little while later the girls were changed, and their make up was off, leaving red raw skin in it's place! With time ticking by we made our way to the backpackers for Karen to get her things ready as she had to catch the shinkansen back to Takeo for school the next day and she didn't want a super late night as she was still feeling the effects of her recent pneumonia. Then it was time for Karen to say goodbye to Ali and Banks as they would be making their way north, to Tokyo, the next day.

After I returned from dropping off Karen at the station I picked up a couple of cans of chu-hai and beer and met Ali and Banks at the hostel for some cards and a few quites on the deck. After we had established that Banks was indeed the ultimate "asshole" at, funny enough, the card game 'asshole', we grabbed our things and made our way across town towards Gion for dinner. We literally went in the first restaurant we found after stepping off the bus, and were happy to see the menu was perfect. So we sat down cross legged on the tatami and set about ordering. Banks and Ali were loving their udon and tenpura sets, and the fact we were in another proper "Japanese" type of place. No mince laced eggplant, or meatballs this time!!

After dinner we did the compulsory walk around Gion for our last chance of maiko spotting (we just never got sick of the place) and then grabbed a couple of drinks each from a conbini and went in search of a Karaoke building. Karaoke in a Japanese city is easier to find than an ATM, so it wasn't long before we were riding an elevator to the fifth floor and walking down a hallway to our room. It turned out to be a great place, with awesome "disco" lights, a flat screen tv, spotted white and black Dalmatian couches, and great view to the busy road below. The three of us destroyed everything good about singing, banging out awful renditions of Oasis, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Live, Pearl Jam, and, my personal favourite, Boyz II men!!

An hour and a half later it all came to an end as our time ran out and we had to make our way down and out onto the wet street below. Luckily we finished when we did though, as we had perfect timing to catch the last bus back towards Kyoto station and home to bed.

Day three

Our final day in Kyoto was a relaxed half day with only one place on the 'menu'. We decided to catch the JR train two stops out of town to check out the Fushimi Inari Shrine. I had seen a few of my friends pictures of this shrine, or more specifically, of the hundreds of torii (giant red gateways), and had thought we better pay it a visit. While our expectations weren't too high, we figured it would hopefully provide a couple of nice photos, and give a chance for Ali and Banks to see an Inari style shrine. However, what we actually found when we got there was a very cool walkway through thousands of awesome torii ranging in size and age, past countless shrines and temples and so much red and orange. I definitely recommend Fushimi Inari to anyone visiting Kyoto. There are so many statues of foxes (good luck symbols for Inari shrines) and so many donated torii with 'good luck wishes' written all over them. There is a very cool uphill path that winds its way up through the torii and past many, many decent photo spots.

After a great morning at the Inari shrine, the three of us made it back to the station to have our last lunch together and do a little more shopping at the international food shop (gotta love salt and vinegar crisps after six months without any!!).

Then it was time to say goodbye to Banks and then to Alister. Saying bye to my big brother is always so shit, but something we keep finding ourselves having to do. I had such a blast with him visiting, and love being able to spend so much time with him and experience some new places together. I can't wait till our paths are able to cross again in the near future.