Kyoto

Well the last 4 days of my trip were spent in Kyoto, and it lived up to my expectations of what I thought it would be like. At this point though I was a little templed out, not to say I didn't go and see some temples in Kyoto, but it was no longer my main focus. So instead I tried to seek out the more random locations on the outskirts of the city, that my lonely planet only kind of wrote about.

First off, the amount of people there is a little nerve racking, even for a city girl like me. I was also there at a prime tourist time, but compared to Nara and Koya San there was like 10 times the people. Also Kyoto isn't as English friendly as the other two cities, which really surprised me. Only some of the streets names are translated into English and only at major intersections. So it's really easy to get lost there if you don't have a little knowledge of Japanese and a good map. My lonley planet maps only had the Enlgish names, not English and hiragana together so really it wasn't very useful. And because it's such an old city, the set-up is confusing. Instead of a grid system, the roads curve and intersect with other ones, so if you think you're walking in a straight line, you're really not.

Well my first day there I met up with some Americans from my hostel and we decided to sight see together. First we went to the Temple of a 1000 Buddhas. There wasn't actually 1000 Buddhas but a couple hundred small gold Buddhas that each had like 10 arms, and one large bronze Buddha in the middle of them. Anyhoo, I wasn't allowed to take any pictures there as it was strongly discouraged, but we did have some fun buying 100 yen fortunes. Julie the past teacher who worked at my schools told me that she picked up one and it turned out to be a pretty bad, so we were a little apprehensive. I went first, because they wanted to see what I would get. It was in the good category, it said I would meet my soul mate but in time (good to know), my health will be good, etc. Jason's was funny, it said he would have digestive problems in the future, and that he would find lost items. Then 2 hours later he left his camera in the restaurant we had dinner at, and thankfully he found it. Handy fortune.

Next we walked up to the Kiyomizu-Dera which is located atop a big hill. The main hall is raised on pillars, so it looks like it's floating. This is where my first three pictures are from. Under the temple my lonley planet wrote about a beautiful waterfall, and we looked around for quite a while trying to find it. Finally we realized that the small pipe trickling into a pond was the waterfall. But the water is believed to be holy, so we stood in line with the rest of the tourists and took a sip from it. I decided not to take a picture of it and instead tell everyone that I saw this amazing waterfall, but who am I kidding.

Next we walked to the Gion district where the Geisha are. This was one of my goals for the trip, get a Geisha picture. So we went to the main street with all of the tea houses and waited...and waited. Finally a taxi pulled up and stopped at a red light right where we were waiting. This was where the pushy sterotypical American came out of me and I pulled out my camera and started clicking. The poor women in the car had like 10 foreign tourists swarmed around the car all using their flashes which were blinding them. It was my Britney Spears moment. We were so incredibly rude, but no one cared, they wanted their picture (including me). Then we went a step further in the madness and decided to chase after the car in traffic to see if we could meet them at their destination to get an even better picture. So we ran, for like 5 or 6 blocks until Taya couldn't run anymore and we stopped in defeat. I went two days later to try and get a better picture but I couldn't find any Geisha. Instead I found myself lost in the seedy area of Gion. So in the end I'm glad I was so aggressive, because I got my picture. Woo.

The next day was pretty rainy so I decided to spend half of it sightseeing and the other shopping. I went to the Kinkaku-Ji or Golden Temple, and it was still a nice sight in the rain. Then I went to the Imperial Palace but it was closed for the holidays so I walked around it, and then headed for the giant mall. The shopping is amazing in Japan, and unlike Taiwan I can actually fit into the clothing so the mall is a dangerous place for me. But I'm so broke right now that all I picked up was some Clinique lip gloss, cookies for my teachers and took some mental inventory for a later date. Protocol in Japan is that whenever you go on a trip you have to pick-up local treats for your friends, family and co-workers. The Japanese love giving little presents. I swear at work I get like 1 or 2 treats a day.

For my last day I ventured to the outskirts of Kyoto to first Arashiyama and then Fushimi-Inari Taisha. Arashiyama is this quaint little town. It's the Kyoto Japanese tourist hotspot. So while I was there I didn't see any other foreign tourists. I hadn't planned on coming here at first, but one of the hostel employees suggested it as a good option if you're tired of Temples. And it turned out to be one of the main highlights of my trip. The area is very pretty to walk around and there are ice cream parlours everywhere selling my favorite Japanese flavour of 'kudo goma' or black sesame. It tastes a little like peanut butter, but better. But the attraction here is the bamboo forests surrounding the entire town. I also checked out a zen garden there, complete with the rock lawn.

Next was my Memoirs of a Geisha moment, where I walked through all of the red torii's at Fushimi-Inari Taisha. [In the movie this is where the little girl runs to pray to become a Geisha after getting the cup of ice]. I was lucky enough to get a couple of moments of sunshine while I was there, and take some nice pictures. But that was my trip, enjoy my short video of the bamboo.