Day 22: Back to Kyoto

Saturday I took another trip to Kyoto with the school.  This wasn't officially part of the program I'm in, but it was part of the foreign exchange student program for those people who are staying for full semesters, and we were invited to join in.  Only two other people from my group came along.

We visited another temple, Byoudouin, and saw the Phoenix Hall from the outside.  We would have had to buy separate tickets to go inside, and the group sizes are limited, so it would have been hard to get in anyway.  Also, I've kind of seen enough temples and shrines by now, they're starting to all get mixed up in my head.  This particular one is famous as being the image on the back of the 10-yen coins.

It was raining on and off all day, but nothing too bad until late at night, when I was already home.  I did get some use out of my umbrella, though.

A shot of the Phoenix Hall as a group is starting to enter for the tour.

Probably my favorite angle of the building.

A more frontal view.

I don't actually know these people, except the one on the far left, but they were in the exchange student group that we joined in on.

I like the look with the lillypads, too.

This was on the temple grounds.  Some sort of trellis with trees growing up underneath and all the branches collected on top.  It looked pretty interesting.

After that, we walked through the museum section, which had a lot of the typical style of ancient statues and scrolls and things.  Since I can't read the details about most of them, they all end up looking basically the same to me, no matter which temple or shrine I visit.  Still, kind of interesting.

When we finished there, we left the temple area and went out in search of lunch, but found none.  Instead, I got some pictures of the surrounding scenery.

A flock of birds perched on a tree near the river.

The calm river.  It was hardly moving at all.  This was taken from atop the bridge.  I'm pretty sure they designed this river specifically for the reflection.

The clouds/fog in the mountains looked pretty impressive.  I had to get a shot of it.  It was probably like that because of the rain.

A shot of the second river, which was basically rapids.  The water was moving way too fast to be safe, and they had big signs saying (in Japanese only) not to enter the water, because it moves too fast and is dangerous.  I could actually understand the whole sign, kanji and all, which was nice.

When we toured as much of the area as we cared to, we headed back to the bus and waited to go to the next stop, which was the center of Kyoto city itself.  We did a lot of walking here, roughly 25 minutes from the bus drop off point to the first stop, then another 20 minutes backtracking to the shops.  Along the way back, my friend and I grabbed some bread from a Family Mart for lunch.  I bought three things, but ended up getting full after one and a half.  I saved the rest for later.  Bread is always good because it's so cheap and filling.

Our first stop.  Another temple.  This one was packed with visitors as well, but seemed to cover a pretty large area.  We looked around inside the grounds for a while, but didn't see anything particularly impressive, so we headed back.  If you want more pictures anyway, I do have them.

This was the main shopping arcade where we spent most of the time.  It was really long, taking probably a good 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other, and there were two full streets of it, next to each other.

One shop was nothing but crane games, where nearly all the prizes were anime figures, pillows, pictures, clocks, or other goods.  Most of them looked completely unwinnable, without even accounting for the pre-programmed failure rate of these things.  And if you did manage to pick up a figure and drop it down the chute, it would probably break.  Needless to say, I didn't try any.

I also found another shop that had a ton of anime figures, posters, wall scrolls, etc., which was where I spent most of my time.  There were a few 3D pictures there from different series, but the most impressive thing about them was that...

...not only were the images 3D, but there were 3 images on each poster.

I ended up buying this one.  It's just too cool.

I also bought a couple of small, cheap stick posters (vertical-hanging wall scrolls, about 8 inches wide by maybe 20 inches long).  Those had a couple Touhou characters on them.

After shopping, we went to one of the shops, where we learned how to make a type of candy called yatsuhashi.  This was part of the group's planned activities.  Everyone got to try their hand at it, and make 16 pieces of candy.  In the end, they gave us each 33 pieces of candy (32 in a bag, and 1 freshly made) and a can to carry them home in.  The candy itself is sort of cinnamony, and very stiff and crunchy.  It wasn't spectacular, but it was pretty good.

We had to wear the aprons, gloves, and hair nets while we worked there.  I'm pretty sure they ended up selling all the candy we made to random other people.

At any given time, there are 8 pieces under each board, and one or two extra sets at the end, for a total of 48 or 56 pieces.  You put on a new set, then rotate the board on the far right (left in the image) to the second uncovered set, remove the pieces that were under it before you moved it, and press them into the curved shapes with the metal dowels.  Each of the other boards has a specific action you have to do to the pieces under it as you go, sliding them all one space to the right each time.

Receiving my gift of candy after having finished my two rounds.

After all that was done, we headed back to the bus and came home.  It was raining again by then, so I had to use my umbrella.  I'd walked to school instead of biking that day so I wouldn't have to worry about biking in the rain.

Another thing: despite the rain all day, it was still really warm.  Not as hot as it has been, but uncomfortably warm all day anyway.  It's not as hot as it is back home, though, and probably roughly as humid.  The real problem is the lack of AC.  Except in rare cases, the temperature inside and outside are basically the same.  There's no comfortable place to cool off, so I just sweat all day long.  That's not very fun.

Only one more week of school left, and then I'm off to Yokkaichi and Tokyo with my friend for another week.  Then back home.  Time has passed really quickly.

Day 12: Kyoto

Yesterday, rather than classes, everyone went on a trip to Kyoto.  We got to school about an hour early and took a bus to a couple of famous places.  The first stop was at the Golden Pavilion.

One of the first small shrines we saw as we approached.  There were a lot of similar style buildings like this.

Another building as we approached the ticket booth/entrance.

The Golden Pavilion itself.

It sits on the edge of a fairly decent-sized lake, with several small islands with trees and other plants growing on them.

This is the closest you're allowed to get.

The reverse side of the pavilion, and a tree that I couldn't really get out of the picture.

More of the lake and its islands.

After the main building, we continued down the path and saw several other noteworthy... things.  There was a little wooden stand like this next to each thing, but even the Japanese student who came along with us could only sort of understand them.  So yeah, some cool narrow stairs.

Throwing in coins for good luck.  There was one other place essentially like this.  You're supposed to land the coin in either the stone bowl or the darker ceramic one in front of it.

An interesting stone structure on another island off the path a way.

Here you can see the top of one building, on the left, which has an Oni face carved into it, much like the gargoyles of Western Gothic architecture.  On the right is the Golden Pavilion, with the phoenix on top.  I wanted to try to juxtapose the two, but it was kind of hard to get a picture that worked.

Another building on the premises, along with a glimpse of just how many people were there.  It was like this everywhere; it's just that the other pictures are all from the edge of the path looking out, so you don't see many people.

One of the last, biggest shrines in the area.  People were going up, tossing in money, ringing the gongs three times, and praying.

That stop only lasted about an hour, but we saw everything there, if perhaps a bit quickly.  Next we moved on to Kiyomizudera, or the Kiyomizu Temple, or the Pure Water Temple.  First, some interesting pictures along the way.

A giant stone torii, flanked by guardian lions.  This was taken as the bus drove by.

It's looking at me.

I didn't manage to get a non-blurry picture, but at least you can read it.  Now the question is can you understand it?

When we arrived, we all got out into the blazing heat, hiked up a narrow, overcrowded street lined with shops, got our tickets, and went back down for lunch.

On our way up the hill.  The hill sloped probably close to 30 degrees the whole way up, and it was pretty long.

At the top of the hill, the first temple sights.

Looking back down from the top.  There were a lot of school groups, mostly middle and elementary, it looked like.  They come from all over the country to both of these stops regularly.

More steps and temples.

Looking up at a building.

Back down the hill on the way to lunch, we ran into some Geisha.  There were several other groups of girls going around in kimonos.  They must have been extremely hot.  It was not fun even in jeans and a t-shirt.

My lunch, oyako donburi (chicken and egg donburi).  It didn't taste very good.  I think they put raw egg on top, and it just kind of got cooked off the heat of the rest of the food.  I thought it would be solid scrambled egg bits (since it said scrambled on the menu).

My friend's lunch.  Some huge soba meal.

Back up the hill, in front of one of the lion statues.

People would wash their hands with the water from the dragon's mouth before entering the temple.  I didn't, and lots of other people didn't, but if you're doing the whole ritual, then that's what you're supposed to do.

A look inside the temple.  I didn't actually go into the main part.  That would have required taking off my shoes and we didn't have much time, and we could basically see everything from right outside anyway.

Looking over the offertory box into the temple proper.

A statue in the temple.

From inside the temple, looking off the balcony.  It had a pretty good view.

Lots of emas hanging up everywhere.  You're supposed to write your wish on a wooden plaque like these, and hang them from one of the ema walls (there were a few different locations).  Then, every month, the head priest prays to have the wishes granted/prayers answered.

Looking at the temple balcony from a distance.

There was a hill nearby with a lot of wooden posts with kanji carved into them.  Like, hundreds of them.  I'm not sure exactly what they were, but I'm sure a little research would answer that.  There were also occasional flower gardens on the hill.

A view of basically the full length of the temple.

Nearby, just off the trail.  Stone carvings wearing... something.

People lined up for quite a ways to drink from the spouts.  I think they're supposed to grant different wishes or something.  Japan is big into that sort of stuff.  I considered joining, since I was pretty thirsty at this point, but I didn't have time.

Another view of the spouts.

A pretty flower bush garden almost back to the entrance.

At this point I went back down the hill and looked through the shops, but didn't find anything really interesting. And they all had signs everywhere saying no photos.

I did buy some ice cream from a vending machine. The package lies. It wasn't "coolish." It was completely frozen for two minutes before I managed to get any out of that little spout on top. Still, it was delicious.

On our way back. The sign says "Dangerous - Bicycle hide and seek".

A massive set of train tracks we passed over on a bridge. It was pretty impressive.

Eventually we got back to the school, around 5:30 pm, and I biked home (already exhausted). The rest of the day was spent lazing around my room because I was too tired to do anything else.