70: KYOTO

Nijo-jo gardens

Our goal for the day was to go to the castle in the morning, have lunch, and then go to two temples in the afternoon. We did the castle and lunch, but then we got sidetracked along the way to the temple with...MOCHI samples. There is a street in Kyoto called Sannen-Zaka with shops full of samples. They have samples of all kinds of mochi, and they even pour you tea to wash it all down. I was in mochi heaven.

We did eventually make it to one temple called Kiyomizu-dera.

I liked it because it was very interactive. We started off at the Tainai-meguri, which my guidebook kept recommending, but it also teased us with descriptions like, "We don’t want to tell you too much about this hall as it will take away from the experience. Suffice to say, by entering the hall, you are figuratively entering the womb of Daizuigu Bosatsu, a female Bodhisattva who has the power to grant any human wish." It was a fun and interesting descent into the womb!


Then there is the Jishu-jinja, "the Love Shrine", where you walk with your eyes closed between a pair of love stones which are set about 20 metres apart. If you miss the second stone, it means your desire for love will not be fulfilled. No one in the temple seemed to be doing this love exercise, but I decided to go for it. I closed my eyes, held my arms out in front of me, and repeatedly yelled out, "SUMIMASEN" ("Excuse me") so that the crowds of tourists would get out of my way. Here I am reaching the second rock successfully!

We never made it to the second temple because our food stops had delayed us by too much. We waited for the lights to turn on in the Higashiyama area at night, then it was off to curry udon dinner. We saw a real life geisha walking out of a temple tonight - I thought she was a fake one (most of the ones you see in Kyoto are tourists dressed up as geisha) so all I did was stare at her as she walked past me. But after she walked into a black unmarked car with several men, I found out that Andy had been told to move aside by the geisha's bodyguard. Turns out she was a real one!