JIJ Vol. 007: Kyoto

Hey everyone! I finally got a cell phone... if you want my number I will gladly pass it onto you if you ask. If you would like to reach me asap by mail let me know (by email, AIM, etc) and i'll give you my mobile email address and I'll get the email instantly (in which I can reply instantly as well). In other news, I also just got the internet so you'll be hearing from me a lot more often. In the next few days I will be posting about my trip through Kyoto, Osaka, and Takamatsu. I will also be writing about some interesting cultural things and other things of the sort. If you have any questions about anything please send an email to ask.

Jocy in Japan Vol. 007: KYOTO PART 1 IN A NUTSHELL: Tojian, Kinkakuji, Sanjusangendo, Okonomiyaki

I already went to Kyoto for two days earlier in August... but there is so much to do in Kyoto I ended up going back again for another 6 days. I left Nou (Niigata perfecture) for Kyoto taking a local train to Toyama and then the Shinkansen to Kyoto.

I arrived Sept 15 and went to go check in at "Tojian" which is a backpackers kind of place. Lucky enough I discovered this place through my Roughs Guide book. This place is apparently not listed in the Lonely Planet guide. If I could say anything about this... it is definately not regretting this chosen place. I first checked into Tojian and it looks like a really run downed ryokan that could use some maintenance - but I thought that the price I was paying for should be alright. The first night I ended up spending in the girls dormitory for 2000 Yen ($20.00) that night. I ended up spending part of the afternoon around kyoto station and then went to the public bath.

The only downside to staying at Tojian is that... there is no bath/showers. You have to go to a public bath or what they call an 'ofuro.' After having my first onsen (natural hot spring) experience with my friends Taka and Sue (during our trip in Nikko) I really didn't have too much of a problem doing it again. After my trip to the ofuro, I headed over to Kyoto station to meet another foreigner by the name of Brian. We had actually been talking on the internet and he was just looking for another english speaker to hang out with. We met at Kyoto station, had donburi for dinner (rice bowls with some sort of topping - depending on what you ordered), and then just spend the rest of the night wandering about the Kyoto Station area which included a trip to Starbucks (which is insanely expensive!), a trip to the arcade and eventually another trip to a different cafe.

Brian is actually a university student from Texas - he's on an internship program working for a japanese company called Hiyoshi. His studies focuses mainly on Biology (it currently has slipped my mind) and actually we discussed his research work which I found pretty interesting. After hanging out that evening - which had been actually quite a lot of fun he had agreed to my invitation to climb Mt. Atago (san). He then made me agree to dinner the next night and a trip out to where he lives called Oumihachiman.

The following day (Sept 16) I went to Kinkakuji (Golden Palace) and spent my morning there. Kinkaku-ji is all about the palace and basically nothing else. The palace is decoupaged in some sort of gold foil... hence why they call it the golden palace. since the actual building was basically the eye catching focus... people seemed to not really notice anything else. I ended up spending much of the morning analyzing the placement of trees in relation to the palace and documenting anything else that I thought was interesting. What I have noticed about japanese maple trees is that they tend to plant them close to pathways and no where else. It definately has an interesting reaction... I wish I could go back to Kyoto and visit these places again as fall is soon approaching. Following Kinkakuji, I ended up going to Sanjusangendo.

Some Photos of Kinkakuji:




The kanji "Dai" (great) burned into the hillside:



Sanjusangendo is most famous for the 1001 Kannon statues (Buddhist Religion based). All the statues are lined up in a hallway on tiers of 5 or 6. Taken from the Roughs Guide Japan description:

"At first the impassive, haloed figures appear as identical imges of Kannon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, portrayed with eleven heads and a thousand arms. But they all have subtle differences in their faces, clothes, jewellery or the symbols held in their tiny, outstreched hands. Rather than a thousand arms, the statues have been given only forty apice (excluding the two hands in prayer), but each of these can save 25 worlds. In addition, every figure represents 33 incarnations, giving a total of 33,033 Kannon to help save mankind"

The hall way is about 118 metre long and during the samurai era they would hold archery tournaments. There is also a HUGE Kannon figure about halfway along the hallway and it is just amazingly huge. It was quite breath taking. Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed for obvious reasons of losing its originality and popularity.

After the trip to Sanjusangendo - I eventually hopped on the JR Biwako line heading west of Kyoto and off to meet up with Brian again. I got off at Oumihachiman and met with Brian and we went wandering around the HUGE Mall attached to the station in which he then he took me to dinner. We had Okonomiyaki. He insisted that we have Okonomiyaki since I had mentioned that I had not tried it yet.

Okonomiyaki... the best way to describe it is... "Japanese Pizza" It is definately an original japanese dish. The basic contents of Okonomiyaki is flower, egg, cabbage, and usually the special ingredients you want in it (like pieces of meat, cheese, etc). You mix up the batter and then pour the batter onto the cooking table and make it into a pancake. You let it sit until it full cooks, flip it over... and once its done you serve it with Okonmiyaki sauce and kewpie (japanese mayonase). It's rather tasty (well I like it). We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the huge shopping mall in Oumihachiman, shopping, going to the arcade and just hanging out. I caught the last train back from Oumihachiman to Kyoto - and at one point the train was leaving one of the station stops and suddenly stopped - I was momentarily frightened but it started up again and everything was fine.

I returned to Tojian and was able to catch the last bit of the "Everynight there is free beer" night and sat down, had something to drink and talked with the others who were staying at Tojian. I had the chance to talk to a bunch of people from Europe (mainly people from France, and one guy from Germany), and other Japanese people. I ended up meeting a young Japanese boy named Mitani and we actually talked until 2AM talking about all sorts of things. He is an English and International Business major so his English was very good and I was able to talk to him about deeper things in regards to the difference in our culture, and about our own majors. It was actually a lot of fun.

I'll update more tomorrow. Ja mata ashita!