Welcome back! Sorry there has been such a delay between parts of this edition, but my so called vacation require some extensive recovery time.
 |
| Sydney's family in Japan. From left to right and top to bottom: Katsumi, Shannon, Donavon, Julia, Sydney, Naoe, Conner and Liam. |
Sydney has and aunt, Shannon, and an uncle, Donavon, who both live in Nagoya. They each moved out here years ago, and both are married and have families here. Shannon married Katsumi, and they have a daughter named Julia. Donavon married his lovely wife Naoe, and they have two sons, Conner and Liam. These are the folks that I spent Christmas Day with this year. Both families live in Nagoya, and while at Christmas dinner, we decided that it would be fun to meet in Kyoto for a few days of sightseeing and family time. So, after our very Japanese breakfast at Sansuien Onsen, Sydney and I hopped on a train bound for Kyoto. We arrive in Kyoto a little earlier than we anticipated, so we had some time to kill before Shannon, Donavon and the gang arrived to meet us. Being that we were in one of the most interesting and beautiful cities in the world, we decided to kill our time at Starbucks. After a nice cup of coffee, we meet the gang and embarked on our journey to see as much of Kyoto as possible in two days.
Our first stop was Kinkakuji, which in Japanese means the golden pavilion. Apparently, some very wealthy Japanese guy a long time ago decided that he wanted to build a golden house. Most people would have thought that and dismiss it as a wild fantasy, but this guy didn't give up that easily. He built a pavilion, and completely covered the whole think in gold leaf. Just having a gold house wasn't good enough though. He then decided to surround the whole thing with a magnificent garden, a small shrine, and pond. The man definitely didn't lack ambition. Apart from simply staring in awe at a gold house, we also got our new year's fortunes at the shrine. It was a pretty simple task, we just dropped our two hundred yen in a slot and a piece of paper popped out with our fortunes. Sydney, Katsumi and I were both very fortunate. We all received Dai Kichi fortunes, which means excellent! I don't normally give these sort of things a lot of credence, but Shannon's fortune definite made me stop and reconsider for a moment. Her fortune was less than lucky. It said she would have bad luck that would be difficult to shake. The next place we visited, Shannon was trying to take a picture of a garden, and she dropped her camera in the lake! Talk about bad luck!
Shannon's camera disaster happened at Ryoan-ji. Ryoan-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple that features a very famous rock garden. The garden was really interesting. The first time I visited a rock garden was at Nanzen-ji in the height of the fall color season. Around that time of year, Kyoto seemingly doubles in population, and the normally serene temples begin to resemble the streets of downtown Tokyo. So, my first experience was less than relaxing. This visit, however, took place in the heart of a Kyoto winter. The garden was much calmer than in my first visit, and we had a chance to take some pictures that didn't feature the tops of people's heads. We also had the chance to actually stop and think. Zen rock gardens are definitely one of my favorite experiences in Japan. Surrounding the rock garden was a more traditional, wet garden with trees, flowers and a beautiful pond.
After Ryoan-ji, we walked to a really cool little print shop near the garden. The shop sold all kinds of beautiful Japanese style woodblock prints. All of the originals were very expensive, but I bought a few postcards featuring some of the art. They also had a little stand with a pre-carved woodblock that you could ink up and print yourself. It was a great way to entertain the little boys who were definitely getting tired after a full afternoon of walking around gardens.
Our last stop for the day was at our hotel. We stayed at a very nice place called the Westin Hotel Kyoto. Our rooms were very nice, and the view was great. The first picture at the top of this page was taken outside of our rooms. The hotel had its own garden. After we checked into our rooms, we went out in search of dinner. The place we found was an okonomiyaki restaurant near the hotel. Okonomiyaki is a little difficult to explain, but this website does a pretty good job: http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e100.html. It sounds a little weird, but it is definitely delicious. Mine was a beef and shrimp combo, and Sydney got Mochi cheese. Mochi is a sort of sweet rice paste that also sounds weird but tastes delicious.
After dinner, we called it a night.
They next day started bright and early with a wonderful breakfast. I am a sucker for American breakfasts, and the Westin did not disappoint. It featured a worldwide array of food. I feasted on pancakes, an omelet and some delicious kiwi yogurt. After breakfast, we headed to the Haien-jingu, or Haien temple. This was on monday, January 9th, which is a national holiday in Japan. The holiday is called 'Adult Day' and it marks the day when twenty-year-old Japanese kids become adults. This was a perfect day to be sightseeing in Kyoto, because all of the new adults were visiting the temples dressed in their kimonos! So we were lucky enough to see beautiful places full of beautifully dressed people. Sydney and Julia spent a large portion of the day taking surreptitious pictures of girls in kimono because they were too shy to ask them for pictures. 
Our next stop was at the Kyoto Handicrafts center, which is essentially four floors of souvenirs for tourists! It was fantastic. I saw so many things that I wanted to give to people, but my eyes were definitely bigger than my wallet. So sorry mom, you won't be getting a 150 dollar tea set in the mail, and Cindy, that 300 hundred dollar tapestry stayed firmly on the shelf. And most of all, sorry to Marcus who won't be getting his full samurai sword set that I know he wanted this year. I imagine that this is a lot like what hell would be for Santa. All the gifts in the world and no way to give them. 
Anyway, after the souvenir store, we walked past a pagoda on our way to Kyomizu-dera. The pagoda's name escapes me at the moment, but it was very cool. I learned later that every pagoda is a symbol of the Buddha's tomb. Our walk took us through another Kyoto shopping district for tourists. Sydney and I went a bit overboard on the sugar by buying ice cream and then sampling almost every sweet that was offered. One of my favorite foods in Japan is Matcha ice cream. Matche is green tea flavored! Delcious. After surviving the shopping streets, we made our way to Kyomizu-dera. Kyomizu is famous for its fresh water springs that are supposed to either make you more clever or beautiful or healthy, depending on which of the springs you drink from. Kyomizu-dera is a truly beautiful place in every season. Winter is, in theory, the least beautiful time to see it, and it still blows my mind.
After Kiyomizu, Sydney and I parted ways with Shannon and Co. They drove us to Kyoto station, and managed to catch a limited express train back to Tsu.
I think that is enough for tonight. Check back soon for a report on Sydney's experience guest-teaching English for a couple of days!
No comments:
Post a Comment