Kyoto

Pictures are here.

A shinkansen ride later, we were in Kyoto. Immediately we noticed a ton of Kimono clad women. After check in, the famed Philosopher’s walk was a few minutes away by walk and the whole town seemed to be out and about enjoying the lovely sunny day and entire streets lined with cherry blossom trees. Philosopher’s walk is a couple of miles long with shrines practically every couple of blocks. We stopped in at Nanzenji temple but not for long. There were several others we wanted to see so we ambled along. We did spend some time at the Eikando Zenrin-Ji temple with the backward looking Buddha (there is a whole story about why he is looking back, google it). We went up the pagoda and took pictures of the view of Kyoto all around. We definitely wanted to goto Ginkakuji (silver pavilion which was at the other end of the walk) before it closed at 5ish, so we walked as fast as we could amongst the sea of people and made it just in time. Kyoto, in general was one of the few places as crowded as it was and Ginkakuji had long lines of people streaming along the single path around the gardens. There was a beautiful zen sand garden. The idea behind a sand garden is that it resembles life, always changing and shifting. How typically Zen! After Ginkakuji we simply needed a break and we sat down to tea and also tried amazake, a fermented rice drink with pieces of rice swimming in it.

We then went to Gion geisha quarters, to see the Geisha and Miyako Odori, the traditional spring dance by the geishas (Anu had researched this beforehand and said it was a must see). The geiko (geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) of the Gion district, which is the most famous thanks to Memoirs of Geisha, perform in this show. We didn’t get tickets right away but got the timings of the shows and when the box office opened so we could come back the next day. We then walked up and down the Geisha quarters hoping to spot a geisha and generally looking up menus of restaurants lining the street (all rather pricey). We stopped at a place and had some meat on skewers with beer. As I stepped out of the restaurant, I saw a Geisha step out of a taxi and dart quickly into a house. It all happened very quickly and I didn’t have time to fish my camera out. Given the shape of their kimonos they cant take very long steps, but they sure can walk quickly if they want to! Anu was disappointed she missed the sighting, though we were to be rewarded the next day.

The next day brought breakfast at the hotel with the first good cup of coffee I had had in Japan (I think it’s their half-half that tastes weird and ruins the coffee). We started at Heian Shrine which was a stone’s throw away. We went on to Imperial palace which was sold out for several days! We were just not destined to see any palaces, were we? We visited Kinkakuji (golden pavilion) which was a marvelous gold painted shrine in the middle of the pond, (there is no access to get inside), the gardens around it were lovely. Its hard to describe the beauty of Japanese gardens, they are just sooo… perfectly manicured, everything is either deliberately arranged in perfection or accidentally falls perfectly in place to create an effect so that what beholds your eyes could not possible be prettier. We had tea ceremony here and afterwards stopped by a million stalls selling daifuku (mochi) with every possible filling (chocolate, white sesame, gold sesame, sweet bean, brown sugar, cinnamon etc. etc) We also visited Fushimi-Nari shrine that has over 10,000 tori gates of varying sizes. There is walk that lets you walk through all of them, couple of kilometers long. They are bright orange and walking under them is an amazing experience.

We had earlier gone back to the Gion theatre for the Miyako Odori show and after some English-Japanese language confusion at the ticket counter, got excellent orchestra seats close to stage for the show. We also paid for a tea ceremony which was a rather touristy experience I must say. There was one pretty geisha stirring tea with an expressionless face and another (with an equally expressionless and pretty face) who came over to the audience serve tea to a handful of (I assume special) guests. Anu and I clamored to take pictures as the geisha (actually I think she was maiko) walked back and forth from her seat like automaton. The show itself was spectacular, I was struck by the explicit lack of emotion on their faces and yet if you pay attention you can probably tell what feeling they are communicating. That lift of the brow or something changing in the eyes, so subtle you might miss it if you were not 100% in the moment. There were 8 scenes, with a different cast in each and at the end all 60 performers came on stage for a grand finale. Being close to the stage made all the difference! We happened to be sitting next to a Geisha accompanying an older man and ofcourse we simply had to request her to take pictures with us.

Anu and I we ended the day back in Gion looking for a place to dress up as geishas but got there after studios had closed, which was a bummer! We found solace in a yummy green tea parfait and called it a night. It had been quite a day! Eugene had skipped Gion in the evening and had gone to check out Noji shrine after dark.


Food pattern and experience:

Our eating pattern had basically become this: grab boxes of food and drinks from grocery stores and eat in the train to somewhere in the mornings (except when breakfast was covered by hotel/ryokan). Breakfast in Japan is essentially the same as lunch or dinner, rice, meat/fish, pickled something etc.. Lunch would be on the go or also on the train. Once in a while we would buy something from the train purser who would come by with their food cart. The store food in Japan is quite fresh (even sushi) and the packaging is very attractive. Their vending machines have mostly cold drinks of a gazillion kinds though they also serve (luke)warm coffee and tea in thick plastic bottles that can stay at the same temperature as you buy them for hours. I didn’t like the luke warm state, let my drink either be steaming hot or cold, anything in between confuses me.

Several train stations also have soba stands where you buy your meal in a machine outside the stand, go in with the ticket, hand over to the cook and he serves you piping hot soba or udon that you can have sitting on a bar stool or standing up. Very efficient, no mess no fuss method. As the mornings were cool to cold, the hot interiors of the soba stand were very welcoming. Dinners were either in the ryokan, a restaurant or street food on the go (once dinner was the Green tea parfait desert in Gion). Food (everything in fact) is rather expensive, even a grocery store purchase would come to about 1000yen (over $10 at 90 yen per dollar). Ordering in restaurants was simple enough, just point at pictures, everything was written in Japanese anyway and the few pictures they showed were good enough.

The morning to Osaka, I had noticed a small 8 oz sake bottle (for 100yen) in one of the stores and was curious, I bought it just for the hec of it. Later in the train to Osaka, Anu and I started the Indian song game of Antakshari, we had the sake with jalapeno almonds and had the time of our lives. Eugene was sitting a couple of rows away and a good thing that, he would have been too embarrassed sitting with us (as he perhaps was later, we restarted the game in most train/bus rides, we continued for several days till the end of the trip. Its now Anu’s turn to sing with ‘aa’)

My wow moments with food came with the tofu of various kinds and Hida beef in Takayama (more on both later). While the sushi and sake were great, I did not think they are earth shattering. I think you get pretty fresh sushi and good sake in the north east. I was rather bored of the Takoyaki by end of trip, but no so much of the mochi.