Author: himawari

Yesterday we did the walking tour with Johnnie Hillwalker. It was an excellent day. The tour wends its way through back street of Kyoto (and past our ryokan, incidentally) to tour the less-well-known historic spots of the city.

We visited a Buddhist temple that is actually used for practical Buddhism, several Shinto shrines, and numerous small merchants in the area. We saw the building where Nintendo began its days as a playing card company, sampled some Inari zushi and had Japanese sweets. The tour took about 5 hours altogether.

Afterwards, we visited Kiyomizudera temple. It was nice. One of those must-see attractions that is much too busy to be properly enjoyed. The serenity of the temple in its moutain setting is lost amid swarms of sight-seers and tour groups.

The streets on the way to the temple were packed with merchants. Pottery was the big attraction.

Weird moment of the day.

After visiting one of the temples in the Gion quarter, Jennifer and I were hungry and decided to stop for lunch. The cafe that we chose turned out to be a house. The residents installed a diner on the bottom floor and lived on the upper levels. The house was older than the country of my birth.

I had the omelet rice and Jenn had the curry rice. She cooked the whole meal right in front of us.

As we were finishing up the meal, another couple walked into the restaurant. They were french, had little english and absolutely no Japanese. After a brief struggle, I ended up interpreting the broken english of the french into broken japanese. It was surreal.

We awoke early this morning and walked the 3 kilometers to the Imperial Villa. We toured the grounds for a while, then staked out an excellent viewing spot for the Aoi Matsuri. We were not really certain what to expect. It turned out to be a parade of people in old costumes. The people of Kyoto have been doing this parade for a very, very long time.

The entire procession took about an hour to pass our vantage spot. The participants had a five hour trek ahead of them under a hot afternoon sun, decked in layer upon layer of heavy fabrics, with stops for special ceremonies at two shrines. We went for ice cream. It was cool and refreshing.

Afterwards we headed over to Kinkakuji – the Golden Pavilion. It was very gold. And busy. While the gold leaf on the temple was impressive to behold, the moss gardens around the palace were much more enjoyable.

And you can always tell when you have reached the end of the tour, because a gift shop and ice cream kiosk awaits. We bought some souvenirs from the Golden Pavilion kiosk – not one of which had anything to do with a golden pavilion – then ventured off to Ryoanji temple.

Ryoanji temple is famous for its rock garden. And I must admit, the rocks were really impressive. They remained still for our pictures with the austere gravity and dignity that only a rock can muster. The gravel around the rocks was superbly raked. The entire experience was tranquil. We headed on.

Our third stop proved impossible to get to by transit. After some struggles with the bus system, we finally gave up on visiting Power Ranger world at the Toei movie park. Kyoto theatre was doing a presentation of Osamu Tezuka world (remember Osamu Tezuka? this is a paragraph about Osamu Tezuka) and we decided to travel there instead. Sadly, the presentation was not really a presentation so much as a gift store. With tears in our eyes and an expensive Astro Boy key chain in my pocket, we headed off into the sunset to find a computer and write our blogs.

We rolled into Kyoto a day ahead of the Aoi Matsuri. We booked rooms at an inexpensive ryokan called the Higaiwa. It is a lot more quaint that the previous ryokan we visited and with none of the frills.

After examining the travel maps of Kyoto, we realized the city was far to spread out to explore properly on foot. The city sprawls through the mountains over several kilometers and hidden amongst skyscrapers and business parks are thousand year old temples and vast green spaces.

We decided to rent bicycles to explore the city. Not as fast as traveling by transit, but a more intimate way to investigate the city. The bikes were very affordable.

We set off west, traveling lazily through the Gion quarter. The streets were narrow and slightly crooked, each building boasting tremendous gravity and history. We stopped to visit a couple temples. Since the Gion district is somewhat elevated from the rest of Kyoto, the temples afforded some beautiful vistas of the city.

When we finally tired of our exploration, we returned to the ryokan to sate ourselves on senbei and Pocky.

Our trip to Himeji yesterday was damp. We awoke to brilliant sunshine and heat and weather forecasts of clear skies. We intended to rent bikes in Himeji, tour the castle and park, then hike up Mt Hiromine to visit the Hiromine shrine.

We arrived early, began our tour of the castle grounds under cloudy sky, and by the time we entered the castle it was raining. It is somewhat pleasing to know that the Japanese are as poor at forecasting weather as the English.

The rain was rather light, so we continued the tour of the KoKoen traditional gardens. Very beautiful spot to tour. If I had two acres and a full time staff of twenty gardeners, this is precisely what I’d do in my back yard. Three foot long, eighty year old Koi and all.

As we left the garden, the rain stepped up its tempo from ‘light, refreshing and warm’ to ‘Welcome back to Vancouver’. Within seconds I was soaked head to toe. This seemed an opportune time to visit the covered shopping arcade. After dabbing myself dry with a 4″ x 4″ handkerchief, we watched the water cascade down from the heavens for a while.

We decided two things: that our three hour hike to Hiromine would not be very pleasant in this weather, and; it did not appear likely the rain was going to stop. We got Chinese take out instead.

And so we bid farewell to Osaka. At the end of our journey, we will try to sneak back to a few places and visit some shrines and sites we didn’t get opportunity to see. But for now, we’re beginning the Kyoto leg of our journey.

Probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of Japan has been sampling different foods. Almost every night I am able, I will stroll into a convenience store and purchase several foods and beverages. Selection is made on the basis of the packaging’s appeal.

With the exception of the takoyaki, the food here has been fantastic. If the Japanese do anything well, it’s making convenient and tasty snack foods. On the beverage side of things…

See, with the food, you have a rough idea of what to expect. Most packages have an appealing image of the actual food item contained inside. Or the packing is clear and you can see the food item. The actual flavour or texture may catch you off guard at times. Generally speaking, you can do alright.

Beverages, on the other hand, could be anything. Most come in cans. The images emblazoned on the side could be anything. Even if you are fortunate enough to see the liquid through a clear container…it is a liquid! The best you can surmise is the colour!

You should note that this is not actually daunting in the slightlest! On the contrary, it adds an element of suspense and surprise into re-hydration that is quite refreshing.

Since I think it’s about Sunday back home…Happy Mother’s Day, momma! I promise not to get hurt by the deer in Nara.

P.S. – I did fantastic on my Stats final!

Since the weather was mostly drizzle in the morning, Jennifer and I decided we would spend more time in Osaka today. We hopped on the subway and headed to the Osaka Aquarium. It was awesome.

The Osaka aquarium is a multi-story complex built around several large tanks. Each floor spirals around the tanks on several levels, allowing you to view the interaction of marine life from various vantage points. The theme of the aquarium is the Ring of Fire, the volcanic ring of the Pacific Ocean. Each tank presents a cut away of a particular eco-system and the life indigenous to that region.

The show has the usual culprits: fish galore, seals, otters, octopusses (octopai?), sharks and rays. Some more unusual specimens included flamingos and spider monkeys, ducks, and penguins. The star of the show is an enormous whale shark that lazily swims circles in the enormous central tank. Smaller schools of fish billow like clouds around this leviathan. I managed to get some excellent video footage of the scene.

Altogether, Jennifer and I probably shot over 600 photos at the aquarium and took at least four or five videos. I look forward to posting the pictures once we return to Canada.

For lunch we went to an Australian restaurant. I am entirely unsure what was Australian about it, but it made certain we were aware of its affiliation with the outback. I ate beef schnitzel;
a fine Australian delicacy.

After the aquarium, we toured the nearby shopping complex. Bizarrity abounds! There was a secret ninja tour, an authentic samurai armour store (9,000,000 yen! That`s a steal at only $90,000 CDN) a petting zoo (with beagles and cats!), an adventure playground, the magic show, the mystery tunnel (it was a mystery!), and an underground labyrinth food court.

There was also a Studio Ghibli store. It was full of awesome Studio Ghibli merchandise, such as lighters and playing cards and wall hangings. By far my favorite item was little statuary of the wood spirits from Princess Mononoke. I suspect they may even glow in the dark. Unfortunately, they are small and breakable and poor traveling companions. But we shall stop here again before we return home.

In the evening, we set out for the HEP 5 entertainment plaza. It is an 8 story mall with a ferris wheel on the roof. It is almost entirely filled with clothing stores, except the upper two levels are an arcade and the second basement is a gambling parlour.

Oh yeah, takoyaki.

I admit I could be slightly biased because the damn thing nearly immolated my esophagus. The soft outer-dough shell was rather cool, so I figured it safe to pop one in my mouth. As I began to chew, the EXTREMELY HOT filling began to scorch my tongue.

As I desperately tried to salivate, I considered my options. I could spit it out. Good, except the only place to spit it was back onto the tray with the remaining takoyaki. Not helpful, since that was lunch. I still held onto the hope that I could enjoy eating the remaining takoyaki. I decided to wait and let it cool enough to chew. Instead, it seemed to grow more unbearable. It was probably about this point that I decided that swallowing something that was too hot for my tongue was a good idea. It wasn’t.

Bitterly wounded, but still hungry, I tried to eat the second takoyaki more carefully. I would let this one cool before I ate it. I bit the pastry-casing to expose the inner contents to the air; a tentacle waved thanks at me, grateful to be freed from its doughy prison.

And that was the last I will eat of takoyaki.

On the train ride from Kurashiki to Takarazuka, via Osaka, I finally found the time to drink my whiskey in a can. Jennifer scoffed that it was too early for alcohol until I reminded her that it was probably about 10 o’clock at night, back home. It was a perfect time to drink Whiskey. Besides which, I burned my throat eating takoyaki and needed something soothing.

The whiskey was actually whiskey and water. I’m not a big fan of watered down whiskey, but it was surprisingly decent stuff. It reminded me a little of Chivas Regal with the slightly dilluted flavour. I would drink it again.

Consider this particular adventure a success!