Today is a holiday here in Japan, and I finally took an oft-postponed trip to Kyoto to do some things on my own. The last few times I’ve been with other people and this time I wanted to set my own pace and look around. The trip to Kyoto takes about an hour and a half from my doorstep to Kyoto station – just 30 minutes longer than a trip to Osaka. With all my gear in my bag, I made the trip, rocking out to my mp3 player the whole way.
I had an improvised itinerary thanks to Yasu, Miss Kageyama, and some other folks at school. I walked a big loop in eastern Kyoto, starting with a 20 minute hike to the first temple, Sanjuusangendou.
This temple is a Japanese National Treasure, and is famous because inside the huge building are 1001 statues of Buddha. These statues are human sized – and they really fill up a temple. No pictures allowed, but I managed to sneak one without the flash. It didn’t turn out great, and it does no justice to how awesome it is to walk through the smoke and incense in the temple under the eyes of all those statues. There is one gigantic statue in the middle of the temple, where everyone was praying. On either side there were 500 statues made of cypress, and painted gold. The whole site was amazing – I spent about half an hour walking back and forth past the statues.
Afterwards I walked past the Kyoto National Museum, which was featuring a special exhibit on the art of Star Wars. Unfortunately it was only for the last two movies, so I decided to skip it. I walked north from there to Kiyomizu-dera, a temple built on the side of a mountain. The hike was pretty steep to get there, and the pathway that I found went through a huge graveyard. It was an amazing sight to see all the gravestones stretching up the hill.
At the top was a huge orange gate, and beyond that the Kiyomizu-dera temple. I walked around the area and took lots of pictures. Mr. Komuri said that the balcony of the temple is famous – apparently it used to be believed that if you jumped off while making a wish and you survived… your wish would come true. It was a big drop to the ground, I can’t imagine many people surviving the drop.
At the bottom of the temple grounds there is a waterfall, and the water is supposed to have healing properties. I paid 200 yen to collect some water in a cup and drink it. It tasted great, by then I was pretty thirsty.
I made my way north from there and passed many smaller temples – the area is full of religious areas. I found myself at Yasaka-jinja, a somewhat newer temple that had some music going on. An old lady was singing a traditional Japanese tune, and boy was it terrible. Maybe I haven’t listened to enough of that kind of music, but it sounded really bad – kind of like a cat in heat. It probably sounds a lot like what Corrosion of Conformity sounds like to my students. Anyway – just relating my thoughts here. I didn’t clap at the end of the song.
Getting out of earshot became top priority, so I went behind the temple and found it surrounded by smaller temples – set up in squares somewhat like booths at a fair. Beyond the small temples I found a park that Yasu recommended, Maruyama-koen. The park was pretty bare right now – there are cherry trees everywhere, and soon they will blossom and create a tourist stampede. The park was nice to explore, and I took lots more pictures here.
Beyond the park was another huge temple, Chion-in. The gate is enormous, and once you walk through there are gigantic stairs that lead to the main temple. When I walked through the gate and saw the stairs, I realized that I had seen this before. It turns out that they had filmed part of The Last Samurai here. If you watch the trailer you can see the stairs that I’m talking about – in the trailer there are two guards flanking the steps. There’s also a castle at the top in the trailer – something that they added later with computers.
The temple was pretty active. There were priests praying and chanting, lots of incense burning, and plenty of tourists running around. I walked through the grounds and went all the way back down the huge staircase before I realized that I missed seeing a 67 ton bell that they ring every year. I turned around and went right back up the stairs and found the bell. It was enormous – apparently it takes seventeen priests to ring it.
I took a shortcut back since I had done the stairs three times, and I got to see some lonely temples on the way back. At the bottom of the hill I went due west, and entered the downtown Kyoto area. I flirted with the idea of getting a traditional lunch/dinner here, but Miss Kageyama had warned me that the prices were way too high. Instead I went back to the station, and walked through the underground shopping center. I found a good ramen place with homemade noodles, and I sat back and slurped noodles happily.
I got back on the train, and got home around six o’clock in the evening. It was an easy day trip, and I got to see lots of new things. There is still a lot more of Kyoto to see, but I’m on a temple burnout right now. It was great exercise though, and it sure beat sitting around the house on a holiday. I took 140 pictures, which is pretty good for just one day’s work.
