Temples and falafels

Tensions were still running high as we made our way to Kyoto.  It was a very long journey by bus, cable car, subway, train, and subway again to get to our hostel.  Once we arrived all I wanted to do was sleep for days.

It didn't help when I was asked to produce my passport and couldn't find my passport.  I realized that I must have left it at the temple.  The Monk who checked us in photocopied our passports and must have forgotten mine in the photocopier.  I asked if I could give her my gaijin card instead and she said that was no problem.  My gaijin card is my proof that I am allowed to be in the country and I am required to carry it on me at all times in case I am stopped by the police, etc.  I got out my wallet only to discover that I didn't have my gaijin card either.  This could be a problem.  If I happened to be stopped for any reason or questioned by police and I was unable to provide at least one of these I would be detained in prison until it could be produced.  A bit worrying.  I had the woman at the hostel call the temple and tried to get it sent up to the hostel.  They said it was too important to mail and I would have to return to Wakayama.  The journey there and back would take at least one full day and ruin my trip.  They said the other option was that I could fax them my gaijin card and they would mail it to the address on the card.  I was very angry at the stupidity of this all and decided to wait until I got back to Kofu (where hopefully I would find my gaijin card) to deal with it.

It was late in the day and my parents went to get a meal across the store and wander around the city.  I went to sleep and only got up hours later out of sheer hunger.  I walked to the grocery store down the street to get some Inari.  I found absolutely no ready-to-eat vegan food in the whole huge place (except for a very few bags of potato chips).  I wandered to every combini in the area (Japanese slang for a convenience store) and found not one tray of kanpyo sushi or inari at all.  Eventually I found some inari at one far from the hostel.  Excited I bought two trays and headed back the hostel.  I settled in the hostel lounge with a tall glass of juice and my coveted inari.  I took one bite and noticed it tasted funny and had bits of something in it.  I spit it out and looked at the ingredients.  Fish.  Who puts fish in inari?  Apparently the crazy people of Kyoto.  I put it away and went bad to bed still hungry.

After that first night things got a bit better.  We were in Kyoto for several days so I won't do a play by play or anything. We saw a lot of temples and gardens and a few shrines.  We went to the Golden Pavillion which is a temple that is covered in gold leaf.  I thought it was tacky but apparently it is the highlight for foreigners.  We went to a huge rock garden where there were leagues of people sitting and staring, waiting for something to be revealed.  Of course we joined them, as sheep do, but found nothing in the rocks.  We went to a vegetarian restaurant (see review) and a great falafel shop that almost rivals Tarek's...almost.  We did the philosopher's walk--a path that is lined with cherry trees and is spectacular when all the blossoms are out.  They were about 1/2 out when I was there.  My parents went back again just before they left Kyoto and said it was amazing in full bloom.  We visited the Kiyomizu temple which has been nominated as a candidate for the new 7 wonders of the world.  It really wasn't that impressive but apparently it holds of cultural value for Japanese people.

We also tried to get a glimpse of some geishas.  We went to Gion, the oldest part of Kyoto where the buildings still look like the setting of Memoirs of a Geisha and where you are most likely to see real, live geishas walking around.  The hostel had told us about a geisha dancing show that was starting that day.  The tickets were a bit pricy for partial view seats and we didn't really want to see them dancing anyway so we decided to just go hang around and see if we could see anyone in the area.  We saw two small girls dressed up the nines in authentic geisha style (these must have been trainees).  But no adult geishas.  We decided to see if we could find the back entrance for the theatre and we did!  We saw several geishas walking into the back of the theatre from their detached dressing rooms but when I tried to take a picture we were told, very sternly, to leave.  I was a bit worried since I had no ID and we left quickly.  It was later that same day that we went to Kiyomizu temple and there were a few geishas just walking around looking for photo ops so we got some good shots then.  Of course we lost them all but that will come later.

I left Kyoto on the Sunday to get back in time for my new classes (the new school year started April 2) Monday afternoon.  My parents stayed one extra night and returned to Kofu on Monday night.