Day 5: Apotheosis, Tengu, and Kodama

I just wanted to start by sharing this incredible hand-drawn map of the area surrounding the guesthouse. How awesome is it? Very awesome.

Originally, we had planned for Ben to take us up to Mt. Hiei (or Hiei-zan) Thursday, but we opted to try for Friday instead since the weather was still kind of crappy. All that rain we were getting in the valley--probably snow on Hiei-zan.

We did still go to the Kitano Tenman-guu shrine flea market that morning, another market that's held on a certain day of every month like the one at Tou-ji. Apparently there is a Kyoto saying that "Fair weather at the Touji market means rainy weather at the Tenjin market." This market had a little less in the way of traditional crafts, I think, but there were a couple of vendors selling second-hand, possibly vintage, kimono for 1000 yen each. (That's about $10.) You girls who have ever been to a vintage clothing store--kind of like that, but a booth, and with kimono and obi. None that I came across had any real damage, no holes or tears or anything, but they were all clearly second-hand. I picked up a couple that were really lovely. Now I'll have to find obi that match them at some point--adventure!

A lot of students come to Kitano Tenman-guu to pray for success, since the shrine is dedicated to a deified scholar, Sugawara no Michizane. The shrine has a nice little garden,
and is filled with images of cattle. (I'm not entirely sure why-- about the cattle.)
Robert and Ben bought these massive burgers, with probably everything anyone could ever want on a burger, and perhaps more than a person might want.


Not quite paradise, but double-decker, with cabbage, meat patty, bacon, egg, onions, and sauces (maybe ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise?)
One of the vendors on our way out actually gave us a few free slices of deliciously sweet oranges. I also made the mistake of buying ridiculously overpriced dried strawberries...I'm not really sure why. I did want the dried strawberries--the one I tried was very very good--but I should have asked for a smaller amount. Fruit tends to be a tad bit expensive here, since so much is imported...

The rest of the day was pretty much devoted to visiting temples. The first we visited was Kinkakuji, the famous Golden Pavilion. Kinkakuji is just a name for one of the main buildings of the Rokuonji temple. It was originally a villa, and much later it became a Zen temple. It exemplifies three different types of architectures: Shinden-zukuri or the palace style on the first floor, Buke-zukuri, the samurai house style, on the second floor, and finally the Zen temple style Karayou on the third floor. Kinkakuji was pretty crowded with tourists that day--but I think it's still worth at least one visit, even if it's a huge tourist attraction.

The second temple of the day was Ryouanji, the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon. It is most famous for its Zen rock garden, which isn't quite as big as it seems in the photographs, but also still worth consideration. There's a sitting area along one side of it on the porch of one of the main buildings.

I apparently missed an object of interest that I recently discovered on Wikipedia, an amazingly clever thing: the Ryouanji tsukubai stone basin. Check out the Ryouanji article on Wiki, but here's the gist: The hole in the basin is square-shaped, like the kanji 口 (kuchi/guchi=mouth.) Next to the four sides of the square on the basin are four kanji, which are random and meaningless unless you combine 口 with them: to the bottom of the topmost kanji, to the right of the left kanji, to the left of the right kanji, and to the top of the bottommost kanji. Then, going clockwise from the top the characters become:

吾 (ware is I),
唯 (tada is only),
足 (taru is plenty), and
知 (shiru is to know);
the message is literally
"I know only plenty."



















**Writer's note: Robert generously gave his consent for me to use his photos since my camera died halfway through the day. All the following pictures in this post are his.

A ryokan: traditional Japanese inn

The last temple visit required a train to find--Kuramadera is a bit up in the mountains, on Kurama-yama. (Also near an onsen. I'm trying not to drool.) It is also the mountain upon which the king of tengu, Soujoubou, resides, and where he reportedly taught Minomoto no Yoshitsune swordsmanship.

It was a long, long hike up many stairs winding up the side of the mountain to Kuramadera (especially when carrying 2 kimono), but the temple itself and the view at the top are very serene and beautiful. And climbing up made you really appreciate the precarious stairway down the other side of the mountain--although we had the aid of nifty walking sticks. You take them at the temple on top of the mountain, and leave them at the end of the path at the bottom of the mountain.

We see faces everywhere...here's an owl.

Personally, I think there was a kodama in this one tree. There were ropes called shimenawa wrapped around a few of the trees indicating kodama inhabited them, but not around this one...

The walk back down the road towards the train station was also rather nice, even though it was still pretty wet and humid outside. The road ran along a river, and on the other side of the road were many small waterfalls flowing into the stream.

We also came across a few hilarious caution signs: forest fires, and more importantly, monkeys.
(We think the monkey started the fire--he's kind of winking...)

After our long hike, Ben took us to his favorite bar somewhere between the Koukusaikan bus stop and the university...Well, it wasn't just a bar. We sat on pillows on tatami floors at a traditional low table and had dinner: for me, rice with chicken. The guys ordered warm sake and I had a couple of glasses of iced umeshuu, with a little plum at the bottom. The gentlemen who runs the place actually makes the umeshuu himself. He was rather nice--didn't know a lot of English--but I could understand some of what he was saying to Ben. Ben explained where we were from, what we did...They discussed the dinner Ben was going to bring Robert Saturday night, at which there would be a bunch of Judo guys; on of the gentleman's friends was a something-time world Judo champion. (The dinner/party was reportedly very fun, even though they were the only gaijin there. Robert was still feeling rather genki when he came back to the guesthouse Saturday night. One of the older Judo masters there had inherited some land in Mississippi and didn't know what to do with it, so he told them they could take care of it. He was also a bit drunk though....Who knows? Maybe he'll be emailing them next year expecting their help with managing the estate or something.)
XD

And to top it all off, here's what we saw going to and fro ze temples. (Again, compliments of Robert: thanks for the lovely photos from his shiny new camera!)

Day 4: "What was the last cargo we snuck past the Alliance to transport?""That was--""What was the cargo?""...They were dolls.""They were little geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled!""Hey, people LOVE those!"

Wednesday Ben was in the lead. In the morning he took us to see the Kyoto Budo Center, where various martial arts schools, groups, and circles go to practice, do demonstrations, or hold their tests/promotions. The grounds were quiet, but not empty--a couple of cars were going in and out. We didn't enter the building, but through the front doors we could see the enormous practice room inside. There was actually a group inside, women of various ages practicing naginatajutsu, a Japanese polearm martial art (which happens to be studied predominantly by women these days.)

On the way to the Kampo Museum (of calligraphy), we made several pit-stops. First was at the Kyoto Handicrafts Center, another building with 7 stories of awesomeness. It's almost as if a museum were made into a shop. One of the floors is "by reservation only"--it's actually a classroom, for groups to come and do workshops probably. Most of the floors have displays of various traditional Japanese and specifically Kyoto-based crafts: swords, fans, statuettes, damascene and cloisonne, wood block printing, sumi-e paintings, kimono, dolls, and ceramics. A couple of the shops also sold kitschy Japanese souvenirs, but even those were very fun.

Robert found his "ichiban" headband there--they also had "dragon" and "success for exams", or something of the like. I, uh, impulse-bought a solar maiko. It wasn't expensive or anything...and very kitch. Little sun-powered wobbly-headed apprentice geisha doll. The handicrafts center is a really fun place to go, even if it's just to look around and admire the work. And drool over the hideously expensive but devastatingly beautiful wedding and vintage kimono. Also, it's duty free when you bring your passport.

Just across and down the street from the Handicrafts Center is a martial arts supply and sword shop. They have some gi,  supplies for schools and groups, and some really expensive swords and samurai armor replicas. Robert bought a new top and hakama for Iaido. I wanted very badly to buy one of the umbrellas they were selling, but they were a little too expensive. Black umbrellas with katana tsuka as the handles are exceedingly geeky, but awesome at the same time. I'm just hoping to pick up a pretty umbrella somewhere in the range of 500-1000 yen though...Instead of 6000 yen.

We also passed and took a peek at the Heian-Jingu shrine on the way to the museum. It had begun to rain a little, so everyone visiting there had out umbrellas. Good thing we brought the ones we borrowed from the guesthouse, because it was raining harder by the time we reached the Kampo museum.

The museum has a great collection of Kampo Harada's calligraphy work, basically. Master Kampo founded the Japan Calligraphy Education Foundation, and so is very responsible for the preservation of calligraphy in today's Japanese education system. What's really interesting about Kampo is that he's considered a father of calligraphy, even though he's a modern figure (1912-1995.) It's also probably the reason this museum allows pictures: all the work was done in the last 50 years or so, and preservation isn't a huge concern yet. Although, they keep small glasses of water in the display cases to moderate humidity I think...Several of the pieces on the scrolls are actually replications of ancient Chinese calligraphy that was carved onto large stone slabs.

This was a really HUGE inkstone. For a REALLY big brush. Love the entwined dragon carvings.

A portrait of Master Kampo--it doesn't quite do his beard justice, though.

We actually stopped in at Heian-Jingu on the way back, and learned the how to properly cleanse one's spirit (and literally one's hand), at a shrine. The entire shrine is actually a two-thirds scale replica of the Imperial Court Palace from the Heian period, and was built to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto.


Afterwards we feasted at a ramen and friend chicken place. I ordered just the fried chicken, because Ben told us we had to eat everything, even though it was a big meal, because the server didn't think we could do it. Everything was delicious, but no one really needed to eat for the rest of the day...Yeah, that rumor that portions are smaller in Japan...It really does depend on where you go. Many of the restaurants and holes-in-the-wall places we ate at actually served decently-sized portions. Although you are expected to finish everything; there's no such thing as taking home leftovers in Japan. Also, eating large pieces of friend chicken with chopsticks is very awkward, but you don't really have a choice unless you bring your own napkins--Japan doesn't really do the napkin thing either. Just some restaurants will provide moist towelettes to wipe your hands before eating.

I think there was some serous mental preparation for this meal...

Gion, Take 2:
After that enormous meal, Gerry, Robert, and I took a bus to Yasaka-Jinja, the guardian shrine of Gion, to walk off all that fried goodness. Yasaka-Jinja was pretty busy as well, even with it raining on and off all day. Part of it, I suppose, besides the nearby shopping district, is Maruyama-kouen (koen being the suffix for "park".)

 Maruyama-kouen is a gorgeous place, with several sakura groves, stone paths, streams, and a carp pond. That day it wasn't too crowded--it can apparently get really packed during hanami season, but the sakura was only just beginning to bloom in some places. After a nice muddy wandering around, we headed back towards the guesthouse, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, and prayed for better weather for next few days. (Ok, part of the reason we left early was because the damp weather broke our souvenir bag and Robert was having to carry around quite a bit in his arms.) We also went to sleep pretty early that evening...I don't know whether to blame it on jet lag or the rain. Maybe both.

And this is the centerpiece shidarezakura, or weeping cherry tree