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Traipsing through Kyoto

I spent yesterday wandering through Kyoto with Abby. We strolled through the food market, trying to identify the various squids and fish parts displayed. Then we took a cab up to Kiyomizu Dera Temple. Kiyomizu is gorgeous. The temple buildings are set against a hillside covered in maple trees with flaming red leaves. Abby showed me the love stones, where I made my love wish, and then walked with eyes closed from one to the other. At the Otowa-no-taki (sound of feathers) waterfall, we took the metal cups affixed to long poles to reach out and catch a splash of water from one of the three falling streams. A sip from one ensures love, another health, another prosperity. It’s a mystery which is which. If you want to drink from all three, you must cycle through three times amongst throngs of school girls. By rare luck, we caught glimpse of four geisha’s traipsing through the temple to get their pictures taken under the bright autumn leaves. There are only 1000 or so authentic geisha left in Japan. Abby says they’re having a hard time recruiting; it’s a difficult and disciplined life. They rarely go out in public, especially completely made-up as these were. To see them was a rare thrill.

Outside Kiyomizu temple is a long sloping street filled with shops bursting with trinkets and mementoes. The guide books call it teapot lane. Abby and I bought various things to send back to the states – postcards, fans, dolls, pipes, lucky gold droppings of poop.

We wore down the soles of shoes seeking out the next temple I wanted to visit – Sanju-Sangen-Do. This temple features 1001 life-size, gold-plated guardian Kannon (deity) statues flanking a much bigger than life-size Buddha statue. In front of all this, run 28 guardian deities that are frankly, very cool. There’s the Thunder God and the Wind God, there are gods of mercy, love and wealth and so on. They are very expressive and have crystals set into their eyes so that if their fierce some expressions don’t creep you out, their glittery eyes certainly will.

After all this cultural bettering of ourselves, Abby and I headed to the entertainment district to dine on all you can eat pizza, then rest our feet at an English pub. It was happy hour, so we decided to try out some of their half-priced cocktails. We couldn’t resist ordering their strongest drink, which turned out to be absinthe. Modern absinthe is really quite yummy – it tastes like black licorice and reminds me of the first time I tried it when Matt and I were living in the French Quarter in New Orleans. After plying ourselves with food and drink, we caught an English language showing of The Impossible’s at a new movie theatre. This was the first movie I’ve seen in a theatre since we’ve moved to Japan. I love watching movies. It felt so good to sit in the giant chair as the lights dimmed and the sound swelled from all around. I miss movies.

After the movie, Abby and I were pretty exhausted, so we caught the train home, stopping at a Lawson for bottled water to refresh our weary bodies. Great day. Highly satisfying.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, December 10, 2004