Day 1 - Kyoto, Japan (March 22, 2016)

Reading Length: Afternoon Cuppa Tea

Davin Reporting!
   
Today we’re planning to see a bunch of temples in Kyoto.  We started out the day by walking about 20 minutes from our hotel, past the river, to Sanjuusangendou Temple (“Hall with thirty three spaces between columns”).  This temple was a long wooden building, surrounded by the usual temple walls.  If I recall correctly, it is the longest free standing wooden building in Japan.  However, from the outside it honestly wasn’t very impressive, and I was asking myself why we were here!

[Kristin Interjection: Picture taking was strictly forbidden in this temple. The signs posted against it were so vehement that they claimed that if you took your camera out it would be confiscated and searched for images, and all images would need to be destroyed before you could have your camera back. They also claimed they had eyes everywhere! So, I decided not to risk it, but in the end it didn’t look to us as if anyone was really paying attention.]

We got some nice exterior pictures though!

 The main deity of this temple is the Thousand Armed Kannon.  It turns out the main attraction of this temple are the 1000-armed kannon located inside.  To enter the temple, you first have to take off your shoes.  Inside there were one thousand life-size multi-armed kannon statues which were quite impressive to see.  The statues are carved from Japanese cypress and coated in gold leaf.  Each of the statues is roughly the same, consisting of a human body, with about 30 arms– creating a statue with literally a thousand arms would obviously be impractical.  Various holy symbols were held in the kannons’ many hands, and if you looked closely you could see that the exact objects held varied from one statue to the next. 
   
In addition to the kannon there were also 28 Buddhist guardian deities, who were there to protect the Buddha.  These usually, though not always, had a single set of arms.  Interestingly, a number of these gods had their roots as Hindu gods, which were adapted by Buddhism (although their exact nature and importance was different).  I was surprised about this at first, but it makes more sense when you consider that the founder of Buddhism was actually Indian.

[Kristin Interjection: I just looked at D like he was stupid when he was making these comments because I learned about the origins of Buddhism in college. I knew something before Davin for a change! Of course, I’ve forgotten everything about it now but not where it came from! :p]
   
At the center of the 1,000 kannon is an 11 foot tall version of the same deity, and this is the focal point of the temple.
   
Once you finish viewing all of the statues, you walk around the corner and back along the other side of the building.  Along this walk, you can read a series of signs telling you more about the construction of the building and its history.  I did not find most of the history to be that interesting.  Basically, the emperor requested that one of his generals build the complex as the cost of being granted a noble title. 

    What was more interesting was that the temple grounds were also used to hold contests of archery.  These contests were feats of endurance, as well as outright skill.  A number of competitors would stand at one end of the temple grounds, and shoot repeatedly at targets at the other side.  The winner would be the competitor who struck the target the most times before time expired.  There were various contest of different lengths of time, with the main event lasting a full 24 hours! 
   
We left Sanjuusangendou Temple and walked another 30 minutes to Kiyomizudera Temple.  Reaching the temple required navigating a small street lined with shops selling all manner of trinkets, as well as a few kimono rental places.  At least here the gift shops were mostly outside the temple, rather than crammed inside like at Todaiji!

Kiyomizudera is a famous Japanese Buddhist temple, built on the edge of a mountain.  The main deity of this temple is the Kannon Bosatsu (God of Mercy).  The temple itself is a wooden structure, supported on top of a large wooden scaffolding.  The main attraction of the temple are its purported healing waters (we’ve heard that before) that come down off of the mountain.  The water pours out of three spouts into a small pool, and people can use a large cup attached to a handle to catch the water, and then drink it. 
   

Leave your bad fortunes here to restore good luck!

Unfortunately, there was a long line to perform this ritual, and once again I was not really convinced of how sanitary the process was.  Although people weren’t supposed to drink directly out of the cup, but instead pour it into their hand first, who knows how strictly that rule was followed.  As well, there was no easy place to wash your hands, so if your hands weren’t themselves clean it wouldn’t matter if the cup was clean.  In any case, it was interesting to watch, but we chose to skip it for ourselves.
 

Purchase one of these to write a wish for good fortune!

[Kristin Interjection: I came to Kiyomizudera temple in 2008 and at that time you could buy a plastic souvenir cup to drink out of and take home with you. I was surprised to see no evidence that these were sold anymore. They must not have been popular!]
   
Directly outside Kiyomizudera there was a small restaurant where you could order dumplings dipped in syrup, as well as other sweets.  We decided to give this a shot and ordered some syrup coated dumplings (Mitarasi Dango), as well as two traditional Japanese drinks. One was a sweet rice drink (Amazake), and the other was a ginger flavored drink (Hiyashiame).  Unfortunately, the dumplings really didn’t taste like much and had a weird consistency, and we didn’t care much for the drinks either.

[Kristin Interjection: The dumplings were really chewy and stuck in your mouth a long time and their flavor was just blah.] 
   
The ginger drink tasted pretty much like a liquified version of the ginger you get when you order sushi.  I don’t care much for ginger, so it wasn’t for me, but maybe it would have been better for someone who liked ginger.  The rice drink was just sweet, and sort of tasted like rice milk– it was better than the ginger drink, but still not something I’d order again.  Although these sweets weren’t to our taste, I don’t regret trying them– after all, you’ll never know if you like something unless you try it! 
   
Reaching our next destination required us to walk through more streets lined with shops. So far today we’d walked east.  Now we headed north about 15 minutes.  Along the way we passed a pottery shop.  The cool thing about this shop was that you could see in through the window and watch people taking lessons working with a pottery wheel.  As we watched, we saw the teacher come around and help various people to shape their pots.  Making pottery actually looks pretty fun (although I wouldn’t be surprised if the novelty wears off pretty fast). 
   
Past the tourist trap, we made it to our destination, the Ryozen Kwan-On Buddha.  This is a concrete Buddha that is dedicated to world peace, which measures 80 feet tall.  It’s actually quite impressive  as it just towers over the landscape.  In fact you don’t actually even have to enter the complex to see it.  As part of the nominal entry fee to this temple we were each given a large incense stick to place in the offering bowl, which we did while dedicating our thoughts to peace and prosperity.

[Kristin Interjection: Uh... or wishes for the happiness of the people I love most!] 

 
Our last destination was the Yasaka Shrine, about another 15 minutes north.  However on the way we encountered an interesting hall, called Temmangu, purportedly home to the deity Nene.  There were some signs out front providing a brief tutorial on Buddhist or Shinto beliefs (in Japan, Buddhism has adopted a lot of traits from Shintoism).  This display was sort of an interactive experience, outlining various things you could do at the site to gain merit.

[Kristin Interjection: I remember vaguely from the past that I learned that the Japanese people ultimately determined that the practitioners of Buddhism and Shintoism were actually worshiping the same gods but with different names and traditions.  So the two religions have merged greatly over the centuries. Just don’t hold me responsible if my memory is wrong!]

Walking around the hall three times was supposed to grant you a wish, and cause your misfortunes to go away.  Spinning the Mani wheels granted wishes regarding health.  And touching the Temmangu Ox was supposed to allow it to bear your suffering and cure you of ailments.  Just for fun we completed all of these tasks, combining the walking around the hall with spinning the Mani wheels for efficiency!  (I feel after this, the incense stick I dedicated to the Medicine Buddha in Hangzhou, and the blessing I received in Hong Kong, I am definitely due for some positive payback!)

   
The Yasaka Shrine was another Shinto shrine, and you could see the similarities to the Kasuga-Taisha shrine we saw in Nara.  Unlike the other temples we visited today, this was a working shrine, and you could enter the complex for free.  Since we weren’t ripped off trying to enter here, we decided to return the favor by making an offering to the Shrine.  Kristin tossed in some money, and rang the bell, although she didn’t quite manage to pull off the bow and clap!

[Kristin Interjection: I clapped twice but didn’t take into account that my hands were supposed to remain together to perform the bow. So I had an awkward moment standing with my hands apart at the crucial moment of the bow. I hastily brought them back together in a resounding third clap and bowed. Ah well, I did my best!] 

As we were leaving the shrine, we encountered some vendors selling foods, so we purchased a crab stick.  It was about what you’d expect– it tasted like crab!– and it was pretty good.  We next searched for an okinomiyaki restaurant, but although we found one a few blocks away, it was oddly closed (we think that it was closed between lunch and dinner, and had not yet reopened).  Not wanting to wait around, we walked around the neighborhood a little while (we saw another Buddhist temple in the distance, but it was closed), and then began the long walk back to our hotel.

 Back at our hotel, we decided to abort on the okinomiyaki and instead get another curry katsu.  We searched on Kristin’s phone and discovered that a prospective restaurant existed somewhere back at the train station.  But finding this place turned out to be much more difficult than expected!  As it turned out there were at least four separate malls attached to the train station, and these all covered multiple levels– up to ten or twelve stories.  Just making sense of where anything was turned out to be a significant challenge! 
   
Finally after at least an hour of searching, we managed to find the restaurant on level one of the train station.  There were a couple interesting things about this place.  First, it was split down the middle, so that it could be reached by both people inside and outside the ticketed area of the train station.  Secondly, and most memorably, to order your food you used a machine which printed out a ticket for your meal or drink, and then presented it to the person behind the counter! 

Both of us ordered a chicken curry katsu and a Coke, and we weren’t the only ones.  It seemed the chicken option was quite popular, likely because it tasted quite similar to the tonkatsu, but you got more food for your money!  We both quite enjoyed our meal– I think curry katsu is one of my favorite Japanese foods.  Finally, with a full stomach, we returned to our hotel, to end a long and eventful day!

Tomorrow’s Adventure: Kyoto Day 2