Japan (days 8 – 10): Kyoto

From Hiroshima we took the fastest Shinkansen to to Japan’s former capital–Kyoto. We had free time the first night we arrived and I thought I would finally take the opportunity to look for some shoes. Having heard that it is hard to find large shoe sizes here I mistakenly thought it would be easier to find small sizes. No such luck! But we did find some T-Shirts with cool sayings written in Japanese Kanji. I’ve never payed upwards of $40 for a plain T, but I figured I may never return to Japan so what the heck!?!? We ventured out on a bus that night and then ran out of money paying for the fabulously overpriced T-shirts. So we did what we had come accustomed to doing in Japan–we searched for a 7-Eleven where we could take out money without extra charges. Unfortunately we came to find out that we were in the only place in the entire city where there wasn’t a 7-Eleven within a 10 minute walk. I think we must’ve walked for almost an hour before we found one. We were tired and hungry so we did the only logical thing to do. We decided to buy “Chu hi” a wine-cooler like beverage that you can buy in just about any convenience store. Then we got back on the bus to get closer to home before seeking out a restaurant for dinner. We got lost for a few minutes on the way back since the bus dropped us off in a different spot that we got on but at least we were able to make it back to the hotel. At that point we had no energy to go back out and ended up eating a very good yet expensive hotel meal.

Day 2 in Kyoto was rainy but we still were excited to head out on our optional tour to experience first hand Buddhist Zen meditation and see some of Kyoto’s most famous temples. The rain was ideal for our meditation practice. We did a 10 minute round and then a 15 minute one. It was hard for me to not give into my eczema but in the end I only moved a couple of times. The best part of this experience was when the monk who lead us told us about how he could help us concentrate better if we were having trouble. He then pulled out a huge piece of wood (imagine a rounded off 2×4). One of our guides demonstrated. We were to bow our heads, put our hands together as if we were praying in order to request his help. I thought for sure this piece of wood was going to be used to correct our posture but the monk, who was standing right in front of me, laid the wood on our guide’s back and before I knew it he flogged the man hard about 4 times as I recall. The sound was loud and it looked incredibly painful. I was in such disbelief that I started to laugh. Was this guy for real? Would anyone in our group actually ask for that? Wait. Would anyone ask for that in general?  But they did! I kept seeing his shadow behind me with the piece of wood and had to hold back laughter as I was actually a bit scared this guy was going to hit me even if I didn’t request it. Afterwards another one of our guides told us that he hit her even though she didn’t request it. “Maybe he think I not concentrate enough,” she told us. Wow…

 

After our “zen” experience we headed to two temples –Ginkaku ji (Silver Pavilion) and Kinkaku ji (Gold Pavilion). The second temple was particularly special because the outside was covered in 24 carat gold. Even on our overcast day this temple shined. The water and trees behind it only added to this beautiful scenery. It was hard to take pictures in the rain but I thoroughly enjoyed this site. Our temple viewing experience was followed by a traditional Japanese meal. We sat on the floor and everything. We received a variety of small plates of mostly sushi and the main course was tofu that we were to dip in soy sauce with some other herbs to flavor it. It was actually quite good.

Lunch was followed by a visit to the handicrafts center which consisted of two buildings full of Japanese souvenirs. Naomi and I were a bit disappointed as most everything was quite overpriced but we purchased a few gifts there anyway not knowing how much time we’d have to shop later. This visit concluded our tour but we were still pumped to see one more temple–the Fushimi Inari temple. This temple had orange gates one after another leading a pathway up to the top. We got there just before dusk and didn’t have the energy to make it all the way up. It was still very unique and very enjoyable though. Afterwards we ventured out to an izakaya near the hotel. An izakaya is a restaurant in Japan that serves drinks and small plates. The one we went to only had 3 or 4 tables and was full of locals besides us. The server spoke English pretty well and seemed very excited to serve us American tourists. We tried some interesting yakatori (skewered and barbequed meats). It was a great finish to another excellent day!

 

The next day was our last full day in Japan. We had a wrap-up meeting in the meeting to discuss our experiences as well as provide feedback to the sponsoring organizations and afterwards we were on our own. We decided to head back into town to do some more shopping at slightly more reasonable rates than the handicraft center in order to get the rest of the things we wanted to take back from Japan. It was a nice relaxed day. We even had one last chu hi. That night was our farewell dinner which was another very traditional Japanese meal. We had 90 minutes to consume all the beer and sake we could. I must of had a couple of beers and then 7-8 shots of sake. How I didn’t feel drunk I still do not know but I was still pretty sober when we headed out on the town for some Geisha sighting. One of the guides took us out but Naomi and I got separated from the group when we went into a shop to by a gift. We did manage to see a Geisha on our own…looking pretty raggedy I might add!

 

 

The next morning we only had time to eat breakfast and pack up before heading to the airport. Sayonara Japan. It has been the trip of a lifetime!