Kyoto has had a lot of fires and earthquakes over the centuries but it was spared during WWII because of it's cultural and historical significance. So there are an unusual number of pre-war buildings still standing including a bajillion temples and shrines. From my perspective, it seemed like wood is used more for buildings there. There wasn't quite as much concrete. The skyline was much lower than Tokyo. And the city seemed to be surrounded by perpetually misty mountains.
Typically when we travel we stay in large chain hotels so we know what to expect but for this trip I convinced Chad to stay in a small boutique hotel in the Gion district. Gion is famous and familiar for being where geisha (or geiko, as they call themselves) have lived and worked for decades.
I really wanted to get photos of one but they are hard to catch as they aren't really there for tourists and tend to actually avoid people. They work in the extremely exclusive and expensive teahouses as entertainers, making tea, singing and playing instruments. I read the book Memoirs of a Geisha years ago and while I now very much doubt it's accuracy (geisha are not prostitutes) I enjoyed it very much at the time.
Anyway, we did see one right as we were leaving but, of course, I didn't have any camera nearby and we were speeding by in a taxi. So you'll just have to take my word for it. She was wearing a beautiful peach and white flowered kimono, the complete head-gear and full white makeup. She was standing on a street-corner waiting to cross, looking like she did it every day.
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| our hotel |
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| the lively Shijo Street at night |
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| side of the 300-year old Ichiriki teahouse (worth reading about at the link) |
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| houses on a river in Gion |
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| Gion stone street |
The experience demonstrates perfectly why we are a little cautious about walking into Japanese restaurants. The restaurant had a "set menu" which pretty much means you don't order, you just eat whatever they bring you. See, the thing is, once we get in a Japanese restaurant and sit down, we commit and do our best to not act like clueless foreigners. I would probably do really well on Fear Factor if all the creepy-crawlies were brought to me by a sweet little old Japanese lady who I didn't want to offend.
We started the meal off with what appeared to be a fried spider (pretty sure it was some kind of shrimp and it tasted like a pork rind). We ate eel, sea urchin, mussels, lotus root, jellied fish broth, jellied egg custard and the ubiquitous octopus. We had a salad which I initially thought had fried onions on it. Then I realized that the "onions" had eyeballs. Deep-fried baby minnows. Dessert was soybean goo. For the record, we did have some good fried shrimp (normal and headless, miraculously) and some delicious fried scallops. We tried everything and ate most of it. We were almost the only customers and were being observed by the very nice chef because we were eating at the bar and he was enjoying practicing his English on us.
(Incidentally, the baby was not amused by all this and retaliated with a particularly vicious case of heartburn.)
The next day we decided to go to the famous Kinkakuji, which is also known as the Golden Pavilion because it's covered in gold foil. The pavilion, which is part of the Rokuon-ji Temple complex, was built in 1397 by a shogun. It burned down (arson) in the 50's but was rebuilt immediately. It isn't an operational temple anymore (no priests) but is instead a tourist trap and a nice place to take photos.
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| crowded |
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| belfry on the way in |
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| with the reflection in the lake |
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| on the backside (you can actually walk really close to it) |
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| several of these were set up around the grounds....those are coins. if you get your coin in the little pot you cheer and jump up and down..... perhaps because your wish was granted? |
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| surrounding lake and gardens |
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