We started our adventure of the day by heading into the center of town to a Starbucks. The purpose of this was to have Margaret experience the local and seasonal flavoring of sakura. So, we each had a scone and frappachino. Despite Margaret being confident that it would taste lake cherry, she was finally convinced that it didn't and agreed that it was good. With that I hope to be done with my time at Starbucks for the trip.
Anyway, Kyoto is known a bit as a walking city, and its designed on a grid, so navigation is pretty easy, though street names are close to impossible... anyway, we headed north for a few kilometers. En route, we passed and stopped by the Higashi-Honganji Temple. It was nice to have something to see so early in the walk but it was not that impressive. That said, it was still pretty but we continued northwards.
Our first real stop was Nijojo Castle. It was pretty cool and not at all what I expected. That said, all I expected was that it would look different then both european castles and the disney castle. So... I suppose it was what I expected. Anyway, it was a square/rectangular, walled in grounds with a moat full of colorful fish. We entered and it was quite gorgeous. It had decently high stone walls surrounding the grounds, but what I first noticed was how ordered it was and how open it was. All of the walkways were massively large gravel paths, and every building and every wall was made with right angles. We first stopped by a large enclosure, which I believe was the shogun's home/living building. We were able to tour it, and it too was very neat. That said, it was dark, the reason being we could look into all the rooms and see the original artwork.
At this point I made some four observations. First of all, in the days that all the doors stood open, it would have been magnificent. As far as I could tell, you could open every door, and have basically a roof and no walls. So nice! Next, i've been told that japanese art tries to focus on simplicity, and I've noticed bits and pieces of that elsewhere. Here it stood out. Both in the architecture of the buildings and the openness of the gardens, but also the paintings. They were just trees, or mountains, or birds. That's it. Maybe a cloud. But they were so simple and yet stunning to look at. Lastly, I wondered how much animals were used to represent specific themes. I noticed this when the only room I saw with pairings of birds of prey was the room for the shogun's arms. There there were hawks...
Anyway, the grounds in general were great too. All the gardens were very open and very manicured. What I liked even more were the tiny rivers and streams, all just subtle, but seemed like the most soothing places to just sit and relax. We then found our way up a set of stairs to an elevated square that felt more like a fort. High walls, elevated ground, good views, massive doors... a fort... I liked the castle.
After that we had 2 quick stops. First we had lunch. This was at another place where you place your order by vending machine. That is fun every time I do it and I've come to enjoy the "hit a random button" game. Anyway, Margaret enjoyed it quite a lot as it was her first one. After that we stopped by the Kyoto International Manga Museum, which Margaret had someone recommend to her. For anyone who doesn't know, manta is the form of illustrated japanese art most commonly associated with japanese comics. Many modern cartoons know as anime are the animated versions of these illustrations. The 2 comics I read are examples. Anyway, I thought as a museum it was unimpressive. However, as a library was another matter. They had shelves and shelves of different comics in different languages, all accessible to the public to just pick up and read. It was cool.
From there we continued our walk north. Before long we reached a pretty massive wall... the border to the imperial palace grounds. So, we headed in. For reference, the grounds overall are like a giant park, and the palace itself is walled again further inside. So, we walked around the park and saw a number of gardens as we headed towards the palace. There we were met by yet another wall, also long and impressive and with magnificent arches at the entrances. Unfortunately... those arches were closed to us... but at least we were there.
We then continued north and a bit west to the last stop of the day. It started to get a bit colder, so we grabbed some hot coffee from a vending machine, another first for Margaret and another thing I continue to find awesome. Anyway, this walk was slightly longer, but we did finally arrive at Kinkakuji Temple, also known as the Golden Pavilion. And yes, it is golden, but I'll get to that. The entrance led through a pretty, slightly wooded path, and it branched left and right. We knew it was a loop so stayed at ground Keven and went left. We rounded a bend to approach a pond. Perfectly still, no waves what-so-ever. In the middle of the still water stood a temple, and rising from the waters surface was what seemed to be walls and roofs of solid gold. While they were plated... it just looked like such a fairy tale picture. It was stunningly beautiful and my favorite of the day. Sadly I feel at the biggest lack for words to describe it...
We took the path around the pond and got more views at different angles, each as stunning as the next. We then climbed the stairs to see a number of wishing wells/stones in the ground off the path and a few smaller buildings for prayer. Each level up we took also revealed another site or the golden temple and each time I loved it...
After this, it was getting colder and getting late and we'd done a lot of walking. So, we hopped on a bus and took it all the way back to Kyoto's central station. There, we went back into Kyoto Tower for a dinner I've wanted for quite some time. It's an udon (noodle) dish, where you get noodles and raw veggies and raw meat and a pot of boiling broth. You dip everything raw in the broth to cook, and then dip it in a raw egg for flavor and eat it. Better yet, by the end you have flavored soup ans scrambled eggs. It was really good and a lot of fun! It also came with a scoop of sorbet for dessert. I love dessert...
After that we headed back for the night and a well earned bed...
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7
No comments:
Post a Comment