A place to reflect, ramble, and rofl at adventures from my study abroad in Nihon...
Honestly, there could be shenanigans.

29.3.10

Day 2: Lost, lost, lost...


Monday morning we were awakened by the dulcet tones of an advertisement car with loudspeakers, and the protests of a neighbor's dog. Its barking came out somewhere between screaming child tantrum and Tusken Raider battle cry. This wouldn't be the only morning we'd raise a sleepy brow, mumbling "Oh God, is something dying?" either. Very unsettling sound.

Jampan, however, is far more pleasant. Sweet bread with jam in the middle. Jam. Pan. (Or more literally, Janpan, but the sounds are indistinguishable in Japanese. Nice pun though.) I prefer the ichigo-flavored ones, but they also have ones with red bean paste in the middle. My experience with Japanese pastries is off to an excellent start.
 
Our second temple visit was Daitoku-ji, which was closest one; a short couple of blocks from the guesthouse in fact. Most of the sub-temples inside were actually closed to tourists, but many of the Japanese went inside past the no-entry signs anyway. I think they were actually paying their respects, as opposed to sightseeing, though...We still got to see most of the area, even some of the sub-temples closed off. There are a few beautiful gardens, a graveyard, and some tea houses, I think.



Koto-in, a smallish sub-temple we actually could enter, is a zen temple, with a tea house, a zen garden, several old art pieces (scrolls, paintings), and the gravesite of Lord Hosokawa and his wife, the patrons of this temple. One side of the temple was open to the outside, similar to a porch; a few small groups of people were sitting, snacking, having tea, or just meditating.





Speaking of meditating, we passed a group of older tourists, one of whom was trying to explain meditation to another, the latter who mulishly insisted "Well I didn't feel a thing!" when he had tried it. Kind of amusing. I got my second seal/signature in my nokyo-cho when the lady at admissions signed it as well.
 This stepping stone in the garden had an upside-down-face. Or maybe a downside-up face...

On the way back to the guesthouse we stopped by a couple of stores just outside Daitokuji. The first sold very expensive Japanese antiques, but there was a beautiful porcelain Kitsune statue, a fox-spirit curled up in a yukata. The second shop was much more amiable to our wallets, and the middle-aged ladies who ran it proved to have an exceptional sense of humor. When Robert tried on one of the happi coats, which was absolutely enormous on him, one held out the coat, looked him up and down, then joked "Please eat more? Like sumo." Had ourselves some good laughs out of that one. Robert bought a tiger (his chinese zodiac) netsuke from them, and I got a netsuke of a dragon with a tiger. When the ladies struggled with threading the cord through the netsuke, I had another tiny moment of satisfaction knowing how to tell them that it was ok and not to worry about it. (Neither of us are inclined to use these as cell-phone charms anyways, just trinkets.)
 Some beautifully faded soda advertisements on the way back to the guesthouse...
And a small shrine/temple we passed by as well...

The sign says it all.


That evening we were supposed to meet Ben at Kamigamo shrine, near the university. First, we headed towards the wrong university, mostly because I was silly enough to leave the correct directions at the guesthouse.
Our next mistake was not taking the bus once we'd asked someone for directions. The pain of walking hilly streets for three or four hours in 2-inch heels doesn't leave your feet for about three days. (I don't care how much Ben says Japan is all about the suffering and enduring, it is never normal for a woman to walk, straight walk, for so many hours in heels. You bring walking shoes for that sort of thing. But then I wasn't expecting to get lost for so long.)

 If only getting lost was always this scenic


We ran into another shrine along the way, but after a while we decided to turn back. We ended up walking all the way back to the guesthouse, too--
or I mostly walked and piggy-backed Robert a couple of times along the way. All the taxis that passed us just zoomed right past us before we had a chance to wave them over.




This, however was really the highlight of that misadventure, and it's definitely the strangest thing I have seen thus far in Japan.
 Yes, ladies and gents, it's a Hello Kitty gravestone for sale. (There were some other beloved cartoon character tombstones as well, but Hello Kitty really just stuck out. I can't imagine why...)

So, it turns out that we were actually almost at Kamigamo shrine when we turned around.
I didn't really want to walk. Ever. Again. But we decided to meet up with Ben for realsies, a went to a nice place downtown, where I tried a tasty beverage mixed with matcha. So, the night ended on a significantly better note than I had been expecting. Luckily, walking for so long in heels is truly the worst thing that's happened to me here yet. Which is great...
I think.