Kyoto – Day 1

Let the marathon begin!  After a semi restful night – the time change was quite dramatic, we started our city touring.  The first stop was the Fushimi Imari Shrine.  Shrine = Shinto.  We went through the various rituals necessary when entering a Shinto shrine.  There was the entrance Torii gate at which we bowed.  You had to go to either the right or left but could not enter in the center, that was for the Shinto god.  We then went to the next ritual station where we purified ourselves by washing our hands – left, right, left again with that water brought up to your mouth and then tipping the ladle so the handle was clean for the next person.  We then went to the entrance of the Shrine and asked for a blessing.  Toss a coin, bow twice, clap your hands twice, make your request, then clap your hands again.  Our guide Meg, did a blessing on our group’s behalf, asking for safe travels, retail therapy options for the women, patience for the men, no earthquakes and no attacks by North Korea!

Then we went into the Shrine and were blessed in a traditional ceremony.  It was similar to the one I (Bette) had attended in Tokyo in January.  We all received boards that represented our being blessed.

We have no actual photos from the ceremony since it is not allowed.

Then we toured the rest of the Shrine area seeing thousands of torii gates.  The have been donated over hundreds of years by believers.  The gates actually follow a path to the top of a mountain, but because of timing, we could not walk through all of them.  We probably walked through 500 or more of the gates.

We then went to the Sanju-Sangendo, a Buddhist temple.  At this place we had to remove our shoes to go in.  This once was the largest wooden building in the world, 400 feet in length.  It is no longer, but it is very impressive.  The main attraction were the 1,001 Buddha statues.  The original building burned down and was rebuilt in the 13th century.  Most of the Buddhas were replicas but there are approximately 200 original ones.  They are made of cypress wood and are gilded.  Each one had 42 arms with each arm holding some different object.  There were 28 guardians for the Buddhas.  Each Buddha stands or sits on a lotus flower which represents wisdom.  Again, we could not take photos inside.

Then we were off to a shabu shabu lunch at Hyoto restaurant.  We had to remove our shoes here too. This involved cooking our meat in a hot pot of boiling soup along with vegetables.  We had a small box with sashimi and pickled vegetables and a bowl of sticky rice to accompany the meat and vegetables.  It was very good.

Then we were told our driver had arrived and off we went on our own.  Shozo was his name and he took us about 40 kilometers outside of Kyoto to the Miho Museum.  The day was beautiful and the drive took us out into the countryside.  The final part of the road reminded us of North Carolina mountain roads.  This museum was founded by a Buddhist sect.  The building was designed by I. M. Pei.  It is set into the side of a mountain and the building is as much a part of the experience as is the art.  The displays were beautiful and the art quite extraordinary.  No paintings, but beautiful Japanese glass from 400 years ago when glass was first being made in Japan.  There was also sculpture and artifacts from Egypt, Persia, China, Iran and other Asian places.  Unfortunately no photos of the inside of the building but some of the outside.  You get to the museum by walking through a tunnel, over a bridge and then up a grand staircase.

We took the expressway back to Kyoto.  Then we cleaned up and were off to our group dinner.  We had cocktails at Geshi-in Temple followed by dinner at Sodoh Higashiyama restaurant.  The dinner was 6 courses, first salad, then a hot appetizer of conger eel, then a pasta course with cuttlefish, then a fish course of Pomfret, then the main course of grilled sirloin and vegetables and finally dessert a mango “Baba”.  Bette gave up after the fish course!  While we were eating we had entertainment, geishas singing and dancing.  They then came around the room for photos.  

The geisha with Bob is 18 years old and has 2 more years of training.  It costs about $300,000 for her to complete her training.  

We crashed immediately after dinner.

Fitbit: 12,245 steps, 5.8 miles and 10 flights.