Tokyo Trip: Day06
From www.ChopStork.com
(12/29/04)
DP: AJ and I woke up early (for us) around 8:00 am. We had to cram as much site seeing in as possible before we had to take the shinkansen back to Tokyo tonight. The last train left around 9:00 pm. We had 13 hours. After showering (and offering each other money to try the bidet, we both declined) we went downstairs for breakfast. Breakfasto was a fantastic all you can eat buffet of both Japanese and Western style food. There was scrambled eggs, there was sausage, there were chicken nuggets, rice, miso soup, fruit, noodles, and some crazy seafood stuff, that AJ will have to give you the names of.
A.J.: The crazy seafood stuff is called "fish."
DP: AJ and I ate until we were stuffed. While we are eating we had two interesting discussions/observations regarding eating rice in Japan. Rule #1, you can eat fish or other stuff on top of your rice, but you never want to say add soy sauce to flavor your rice. AJ was having trouble explaining the reason for this to me, but I think the basic gist is the rice is perfect as is, there is no reason to insult the rice, by needing to flavor the rice. The metaphor we used is that it’s like putting ketchup on a super nice filet mignon. You just don’t do it period. Rule #2, regarding eating rice in Japan, is when you are taking a break from your rice to place your chopsticks horizontally on the edge of your rice bowl. You never, ever want to dig your chopsticks into the rice vertically. Apparently this is something one would do at a funeral. Now on with our day.
A.J.: Another realization. Japan is proof that the low carb diet is a bunch of baloney. All Japanese eat is rice. Rice rice rice. And we've yet to see one fat Japanese. Not one. Low carb my oshiri.
DP: The plan for the day was simple. Since everything we wanted to see was in the mountains in the east, we would just start at the southern most temple Kiyomizu-dera, and keep walking north through Higashyama-ku to all the other temples: Chion-in, Shoren-in, Nanzen-Ji, and continue north up the so called philosopher’s walk passing more temples still: Eikan-do, Koun-ji, and the Shinto shrine Otoyo-Jinja. That was as far as we got. There were five more temples along the philosopher’s walk that we didn’t see: Reigan-ji, Anraku-ji, Honen-in, Miroku-in, and finally GinKaku-ji. They will have to wait until we are in Kyoto next time. Also FYI, Buddhist places of worship are temples while Shinto places of worship are shrines. The vast majority of the sites we saw in Kyoto were Buddhist temples with the sole exception (other than the two closed castles) of the Shinto shrine Otoyo-jinja. As you can see in the words of AJ “Kyoto is Temple town”. We had our work cut out for us today.
Clearly AJ and I had angered the gods today as it was pouring rain. Fortunately I had the foresight to bring my waterproof Patagonia rain jacket with me to Japan. Unfortunately I left it at AJ’s parent’s house in Tokyo. So I bought an umbrella from the umbrella dispenser at the hotel for 500 yen. Cool.
AJ and I figured since we had mastered the subway so easily we were up for a new challenge. We bought all day bus passes for 500 yen and hopped on. The bus dropped us off near Kiyomizu-dera along with a bunch of other tourists. We followed the masses up some more steep narrow roads until we reached the outer gate of the temple.
As the drizzle continued, AJ and I started taking pictures without abandon, which became a reccurring pattern for the day. Kiyomizu-dera had the required pagoda and subtemple buildings. What set it apart from the other temples and made it my personal favorite of the day was the incredible trusswork and joinery that made up the deck, which when combined with the hillside and view, made it spectacular. The deck with the view of Kyoto below was mobbed with tourists despite the rain. The deck was all made without nails. It was made my japanses craftsmen who used interlocking pieces of wood. It was really something special. Even more importantly, I suckered some Japanses girls to take a picture of us, but of course AJ's camera wasn't working then. Off in the distance you could see another smaller pagoda. Adjacent to the temple on the side of the hill there was a spring, which according to tradition keeps you healthy. We hiked over to the second pagoda for a closer look. After taking some pictures of the pagoda and the spring we were out of there. We had a schedule to keep.
We continued the forced march to the next temple north, Chion-in. We walked maybe a mile cutting through narrow streets, and weaving through rows and rows of shops. All sorts of stuff was for sale, from little wooden figures, to Disney characters speaking Japanese, to Hello Kitty items, to some sort of cartoon-like fat badger statues, which AJ will have to explain. We walked through Maruyama Park again, got yelled at by a police officer that some road was for cars only, and finally made it to Chion-in where we had seen the gigantic gate the day before. It was still pretty big. We climbed up the stairs behind it. After climbing about 3 stairs we realized these were not normal size. They too were huge. Each step was probably a foot and a half tall. We had to stop to breathe a couple times before we made it too the top, which is suprising since both AJ and I are known for our impeccable physical prowess. After we reached the top, and reading a map of the complex AJ informed me that we had just climbed the "Man stairs" and the "Woman Stairs were off to the right. After taking a look at the woman stairs we realized we had chosen poorly. Then we starting snapping away with the camera's at the large temple itself as well as the surrounding buildings. We were allowed to enter the main temple after removing our shoes at the main entrance. There we monks praying inside and all sorts of gold vases, and other apparently sacred objects placed prominately on the raised alter. Unfortutanely photos were not allowed inside. AJ and I deposited a few coins in the wooden coin box, knelt observing for a couple minutes, and exited quietly.
There was a traditional pond in the corner of the grounds with a classic arched bridge spanning across it. While AJ went to work on some artistic shots, I continued to document the rest of the buildings and alters with the digital camera. One of the more famous out-buildings in Chion-in was their huge bell, which sat on the side of one of the hills. This bell was enormous, probably 10 ft tall, requiring a full size tree trunk of wood to ring it. We were dying to hear what it sounded like, but we decided we probably shouldn't try any funny business. If only I had bought those swords.
A.J.: Peterman says "beautiful" too much.
DP: Then we kept hiking north, continuing on our trek. We decided to skip Shoren-in, because we really wanted to get to the philospher's walk. To keep up our strength and get warm (it was freezing, but the sun was starting to come out at least) we stopped for lunch. After finding a tiny Udon noodle shop, again there were only 4 tables in the whole restaurant, we were fully fueled. We both had Udon topped with Tempura. Walking another mile we discovered some sort of ancient factory, from what AJ could read it might have been a barrel making factory. It was right next to a large canal, with old railroad tracks leading up to it. There was still a train car with an old wooden boat on it, with the tracks leading right into the water. It was clear this is where they loaded whatever they made onto the train here. It was pretty interesting.
After walking a little farther we made it to Nanzen-ji. This temple too had a gigantic gate. This gate was also called Sanmon (third-gate). AJ and I decided two things with our detective like brains. For some reason it was always the 3rd gate that was massive, and the Buddhist Monks were in an ancient pissing match. It was go big or go home. A little gate just wouldn't impress the people anymore.
One of the unique feature of the Nanzen-ji temple was a European style red brick aqueduct, adjacent to the temple. The guidebook called it "incongruous." After discussing what incongruous meant for 5 minutes and deciding that it probably meant out-of-place, or not matching it's surroundings, we thought that was a pretty accurate description. AJ thought this was the beginning of the end for the pure Japanese culture. After that there was an intense interest in the "white-man" culture in Japan. I thought the aqueduct was pretty impressive from a purely engineering standpoint. You could climb up the hill next to it so we did. And we were suprised to discover that water was still flowing through the aqueduct, a lot of it. And the source wasn't fenced off so we decided to find the source by following the canal. We walked balancing on the edge of the hill for a short distance around the bend. We were greeted with a secluded walk in the woods. (A.J.: Uuuuuhhh... is there something I should know?) We also had a great view of Kyoto. We decided to come back before we got in trouble (or lost). We also noticed that a nearby pagoda had a door on the backside of it. (A.J.: He said backside.) We also noticed there was a super old rusted padlock on it that probably wan't working. After jiggling it I realized it was definately removable. AJ would not stick around for the disrespect that was sure to ensue. After looking around I quickly and quietly removed the lock and slid open the door. The piles of gold inside were mind boggling. Or non-existant. Supprisingly if you are ever interested in what's inside a pagoda the secret is: stairs. So now you know. And then were were off, headed for Eikan-do.
Eikan-do had a fee of 600 yen at the front gate. Being cheap bastards AJ and I discussed not going in. But seeing the ensuing darkness we thought we better go in this one because we might not make it to the next stop. We were well rewarded for that decision. Besides having a well manicured garden and grounds, with ponds, bridges and pagodas, Eikan-do let you inside the extensive temple complex. That is of course after you remove your shoes. I decided that this was probably more comfortable in the summer, considering it was around 40 degrees outside and we didn't have shoes on. But again we were well rewarded. In Japan old houses don't have internal hallways, all the "hallways" are outside the rooms, and covered but have no walls. At Eikan-do this temple/house was a maize of outside walkways with room after room with rice paper walls and beautiful artwork. The best I can do to decribe it was like a huge tree house as it continued to climb up the hill with one room after another seperated by stairs. Basically we were in an elegant Ewok village with a view of Kyoto in the valley below. And there were monks instead of Ewoks. But you get the idea.
We finally made it to the Shishgatani canal where the philospher's walk begins. We decided to skip Nyakuoji-jinja in order to make it to Otoyo-Jinja. We walked along the canal as the sun set. It was super quiet and peaceful. A number of graveyards dotted the hill to the east. Finally we made it to Otoyo-Jinja. It was an extremely small shrine compared to the massive temples we had just visited. There were stone lions guarding the entrance. Orange wooden gates were omnipresent, with a Shinto equivalent to a Gazebo in the center of the shrine. It was basically a covered raised floor just big enough for a tea ceremony. Due to it being pitch black we stayed only a moment. Then we began the journey back to our hotel to pick up our bags.
We had to get back to the train station before the last train left for Tokyo. We started walking west, down the hill and toward the center of town. We had bought an all day bus ticket, and damn it we were going to get our money's worth. After walking another mile or so we found a bus station that was headed in the proper direction. We hopped on, and headed south towards the train station. It was rush hour, and more and more people jammed onto the bus. Eventually we got to our destination, and got off. After retrieving our bags from the APA, we returned to the Kyoto station. Realizing we had plenty of time until the final train, we decided to eat in the subway station underneath the train station. Unlike the US, the subway station was gigantic, modern, and clean. It was basically a huge underground mall. We decided to eat Italian. Don't ask. After ordering dessert, we bought our train tickets. 6 minutes later we were traveling 150 miles/hour towards Tokyo. We both passed out on the train exhausted from our journey. We were glad to be headed home.
-DP
A.J.: While waiting for my dad to pick us up at Tokyo station, the gods of bowel were again angered. Sigh...Japanese style here too. I lived in in Japan for six years total, and have visited my family here for the last 7 years, and not once have I had to squat. Now this is 2 times in 2 days. But at least Tokyo station has toilet paper. Maybe I was tired from hiking Kyoto all day, or maybe I just took longer this time, but my legs were dying. I had to half stand up for my last couple wipes for fear of falling. Whew.
Ammendment to Kyoto Lesson #2: Try squatting on the toes, not flat footed. You're more agile this way.
