Once we got over the embarrassment and hassle of taking up more than our fare share of space with all our heavy luggage, we really enjoyed arriving in pretty Kyoto and taking the bus to our accommodation booked with air bnb. Thank god again, the Japanese are so forgiving because we felt like bulls in a china shop in the cramped city bus! It really is more interesting , though, to travel by local transit, rather than to take taxis.
This is Kyoto Station where our train from Osaka stopped and where you can take the subway or bus. It is a huge hub and the soaring ceilings and architecture were unexpectedly grand.
We were exhausted when we arrived and made the mistake of taking a short nap which turned out to eat over four hours of the afternoon! We decided to take an evening stroll, however and sometimes mistakes turn out to be happy accidents. We were walking in one of the many tiny back lanes and admiring the tall, skinny houses when Cassio noticed the one we were looking at had a table saw and carpentry tools. Just as we were doing this, the man in the photo above (his name is Sadao) was returing home. We had a brief conversation outside and then he invited us in to see his workshop and his work. It was an incredible chance encounter. He was very gracious and showed us some of the exceptionally intricate children's toys with moving parts made of hand made wooden gears. Spectacular and super sweet! It was a lovely experience. Sadao has a shop open to the street at the front, his workshop toward the back and his living space above. If you go to Kyoto, you may want to check out his place Kushakurokken which is right in front of the Kenkun Jinja Mae bus stop on the 206 line.
Above and below here are a couple of photos from our evening walk. These are the fired ceramic end caps of the finely crafted roofs. There are many different varieties if you pay attention.
The following day, we had rain. What a shame, Kyoto in the rain. Nonetheless, we had our plastic rain ponchos and off we went for a day of temple and shrine sight seeing. Kyoto is a city full of sacred buildings and there are temples everywhere. We took the same 206 bus and in the course of a half hour ride, there were probably about 10 stops that were good for this temple or that! Cassio chose a day walking trip that involved going to one - Kiyomizudera Temple through the preserved historic streets to the Yasaka Shrine. On the way there was the 5 story Yasaka Pagoda and this . Look at this enormous Buddha below from the Ryozen Kwan-On!
See!? I didn't lie. We look so different from the diminutive Japanese with their discreet umbrellas. We look like a couple of large yellow and blue plastic bags with happy faces.... We brought some smiles to the faces of people we saw too!
Cassio often tells me he feels bad objectifying people and photographing them because they are interesting to us. In this case, he couldn't help it. The juxtaposition of the traditional kimonos with the common everyday sight of heads bent over cell phones was more than he could resist. There are many more people going about their daily lives wearing kimonos than I would have thought. We did happen to be visiting Japan during Golden Week, so this may have something to do with it, but that is just a guess.
The photo and inset above here are of a shop that sells a sweet type of treat whose name is Yatsuhashi. It is made with an uncooked rice flour dough and then flattened in filled with a paste of such flavours as black sesame, or bean or green tea or banana and chocolate. This "pastry" is apparently very traditional to Kyoto and I had a serious curiosity to try it. It looked good in a rubbery kind of way. Most shops had large gift boxes of it for about 1000 yen and I just wanted a small quantity. This shop was happily giving out free samples of all their different treats and encouraged us deeper into the tiny, crowded place to test all of them.. The older lady in the back was the owner and she packed up our purchase. She spoke a little English and made sure to tell us that these sweets were best consumed within 7 days. Cassio looked at her and said "These will be consumed within the next 7 minutes!" To our surprise, the lady burst into laughter and spontaneously came to hug us both. It was very uncharacteristic of the reserved behaviour we had seen so far and was a very warm moment for all of us! We ate the whole package of yatsuhashi, walking down the street, and as predicted, within about seven minutes:)
Everywhere you look, the narrow streets are quaint and pretty.
Wow! Get your economy size booze here! 4 litres of whiskey for only 3700 yen (about $39)
No comments:
Post a Comment