| Submitted by: Evelyn C. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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Still, the trip from Tokyo to Kyoto and a round-trip from Kyoto to Hiroshima covers the cost of a one-week JapanRail Pass, so if you can do those within a seven-day period, it's worth getting. (I should note that there are also cheaper ways to get between some places. For long distances, time becomes a factor, and to some extent on a vacation, time is money.)
We were tired and it was cold, so we were going to take the bus back to the Takase, but we would have had to stand at the stop for fifteen minutes, in which time we could be most of the way back, so we walked.
October 21, 1996: Today we had to change hotels. Luckily, the logistics were not as bad as they might have been.
We had been able to get only five nights in the Riverside Takase, so had booked the remaining six nights in the Ryokan Seiki. Though they are listed as being in two different areas of Kyoto, the areas border each other, and it was only about a twenty-minute walk from the Takase to the Seiki. Even with our luggage this wasn't bad, but it was morning and we were fresh. We thought we might have to leave our luggage at the front desk at the Seiki, or worse yet, have to take it to the station and check it, but there was a room free even though check-in wasn't officially until 15:00. So we dropped our bags off and immediately headed out to see Kyoto.
Our first stop was the Tourist Information Center (again). Now that we knew there were two big festivals on Tuesday, we wanted more information on when and where they were. We also got a slightly better map of the northern area of Kyoto, and not much help on whether Toei 'Movieland' was worthwhile if we didn't understand Japanese.
We then took the 206 bus to Kinkakuji Temple. This took about forty-five minutes, because we were in the southeastern area and it was in the northwest, but at least we got to see a lot of Kyoto on the way. The buses display the next stop on an electronic display at the front, as well as announcing it, and some of them include romanji on the display and/or announcements in English of what sights are at or near this stop.
Kinkakuji Temple (¥400) is more accurately called Rokuon-ji Temple, and is also known as the Golden Pavilion. It is apparently also a World Cultural Heritage Sites, or rather part of one: the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Maybe these were named after the Horyu-ji pamphlet was printed, because that said there were only two such sites in Japan. It has also been named a 'Special Beauty Site' (whatever that means).
The Golden Pavilion is a reconstruction, since a monk obsessed with it burned the original down in 1950. Well, actually, that one was also a reconstruction of one that had previously burnt down (at least according to one person). Yukio Mishima wrote about this in his novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. There is a fine reflection in the mirror pond (though not as good as the reflections in some of the Norwegian lakes we've seen). The Lonely Planet guide claims the gold-covering had been extended to the first floor during the reconstruction, but if so, the renovation in 1987 reversed that and only the second and third floors are covered in gold. Perhaps to prevent further fires, visitors are not allowed in the pavilion.
On leaving Kinkakuji Temple, we walked towards Ryoan-ji Temple, stopping for a Chinese lunch along the way.
Gerald Masan says, 'A visit of one of lesser known, remote temples will give a deeper impression of the temples. A visit of Ryoan-ji at 11:00 AM will give you a deeper impression of Japanese package tour buses.' While an impression of the temples is a good thing to get, part of getting a feel for modern Japanese culture would include getting an impression of Japanese package tour buses. In fact, one of my favorite books on tourism is Maxine Feifer's Tourism in History, which discusses (among other things) the birth and rise of the package tour. In any case, Ryoan-ji (¥400) was not nearly as crowded as either of the Daibutsus, or as the Hiroshima Peace Museum. And the loudspeaker announcement explaining the garden was fairly easy to tune out, being entirely in Japanese.
The garden in Ryoan-ji Temple is the most famous Zen garden in Japan (or in the world, for that matter). It is not what Westerners think of as a garden at all, consisting of a raked gravel bed with fifteen rocks placed in it, surrounded by a wall. The rocks may represent islands in a sea, though some see them as tiger cubs crossing a stream or other less likely interpretations. One thing making it complicated is that the rocks now have moss growing on them, but when the garden was created in 1450, they probably did not have moss. And moss makes the rocks appear more like islands (and less like tigers) than bare rocks would.
Looking at the garden, I know I was supposed to get some sort of Zen feeling. But instead I found myself thinking, 'Is the raking of the pebbles fixed? How?' and 'What does a Zen garden mean, especially to someone typing on a palmtop in it?'
On leaving, I got confused as to which direction we wanted to take the bus in, and so we managed to be on the wrong side of the street just as our bus came by. Another one, which we did catch, came by fifteen minutes later, but it's things like this that make everything take longer. We took that bus to a stop north of Gion and walked a long way-a very long way-to Sanjusangendo Temple. Distances that don't look so far on the map are and the streets are not very interesting. Maybe we're just missing the fascinating byways of Kyoto, but I found walking in Tokyo much more interesting. The streets have more vitality to them, and there seems to be more of interest, where here the streets seem mostly residential or small businesses.
As with all temples, there were 'No Smoking' signs all over. If nothing else, the temples give you a chance to get away from tobacco smoke. The Japanese love to smoke (a fact I find somewhat ironic given how they talk about all the cancers caused by the atomic bomb), and smoke everywhere. The restaurants here do not have non-smoking areas, at least not the restaurants we've been going to.
Sanjusangendo Temple (¥500) is known for its 1001 statues of the Thousand-Armed Kannon (Goddess of Mercy), arranged in ten rows of fifty each on either side of the central worship area, with the last one behind the main altar. These statues were all individually carved and are replacements for the originals, which were destroyed in a fire in 1249; it is estimated that it may have taken a hundred years to create them all. They all seem pretty dusty now, probably because they are so close together and have protruding rays from the heads that they are difficult to get to in order to dust.
They are called 'Thousand-Armed,' but each has only forty arms. Apparently each arm saves twenty-five worlds, making a thousand. (Jews will recognize the logic; it is almost precisely the same as one reads in the Passover Seder discussing the number of plagues visited on the Egyptians at the Red Sea.)
Along with the 1001 Kannons are twenty-eight Nijuhachibushu (spirits subordinated to Kannon): Varuna, Narayana, Sri-devi, Kimnara, Mahamayuri, Maha-brahman, Gandhrva, Purna-bhadra, Sagara-naga-raja, Mani-bhadra, Kumbhira, Gobujo, Hariti Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka, Virupaksa, Vaisuravana Garuda, Maha-bala, Nanga-naja-raga, Vasu, Mahesvara, Vikarala, Asura, Sakra-devendra, Sanjaya, Purna-bhadra, Mahoraga, Vajra-pani, Vayu. It's probably just as well we don't read Japanese and that there was no English here-this would have taken us forever, since each Nijuhachibushu had a descriptive plaque.
Again, this temple is misnamed. Rengeoin is the whole complex, while Sanjusangendo is just the main hall.
We picked up some food at Lawson's, and returned to the Seiki. The room is our smallest yet: a six-tatami room. When the futons are unrolled there isn't much room left at all. There is hot water and tea bags, and a free television (the Takase had a coin-operated one). There are also a half dozen hangers.
I did the accumulated laundry, happy to have a working dryer. Except it wasn't. Apparently it had no heat, so running it did very little in terms of drying clothes. We hoped that the laundry dried by the morning, since I had foolishly washed all our socks (and all my shirts but one). It's hard to hang up this much laundry with only six hangers and very little furniture.
October 22, 1996: Disaster strikes! Lawson's was out of pork buns!
Well, okay, not disaster, but a crimp in Mark's breakfast plans. (I had a raisin bun in the room.)
We took the 202 bus from Gojozaka near the Seiki, but managed to overshoot the stop we really wanted by one. (The problem is that the bus map doesn't indicate the streets very well, and the street map doesn't label the bus stops. This worked out for the best, though, because on the walk back we passed a 7-11 and got buns there. (I realize that 7-11 and Lawson's don't seem very Japanese, but what they carry is. Circle-K also has stores here.)
As we proceeded toward the Imperial Household Agency Office we saw them preparing for the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages) with traffic barriers and such. This is one of the major festivals in Kyoto, held every October 22 to commemorate the founding of the city, and we just happened to be here for it.
To tour the Imperial Palace, you don't just go and get a ticket, you have to apply for permission at the Imperial Household Agency Office at the Palace. You do this by filling out a form which asks for your name, age, and passport number. Then they stamp it 'permitted' and that's that. I'm not sure the purpose of this, or if they ever refuse anyone (though supposedly these tours are granted for foreigners only, but I saw Japanese entering as we were leaving, so maybe it's just specific tours that are for non-Japanese).
Unlike many palace tours, this covers only the outside of the buildings. The buildings date from various eras, but are all quite old and rarely used except for ceremonial occasions. As the tour guide noted, the current Emperor would rather live in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, which has electricity. One suspects it has been more modernized than just that.
The guide told us something about the Palace, but as she was not speaking very loudly, it was hard to hear a lot of it. (Because this tour are only for foreigners, they are in English. If you understand a different language, you need to bring an interpreter.) She did explain a little of the symbolism of a Japanese garden, particularly of the tsukiyama ('hill garden') or chaniwa ('tea garden') types. There are three basic elements: stone, water, and trees. These represent respectively bone, blood, and flesh. In addition to these, there is the kare-sansui ('waterless stream') type of Ryoan-ji Temple. It is not clear how or if this symbolism translates to the kare-sansui; it would seem that would be a garden attacked by a vampire. In any case, flowers are not part of a traditional Japanese garden. Flowers do, however, play an important role in the art of ikebana, or flower-arranging, so they are not completely ignored.
One of the things about Japanese culture is that the traditional arts were so unlike those of other countries, even China and Korea, which influenced Japan heavily. These arts included ikebana, calligraphy (here there is a tie to China), chanoyu (the tea ceremony), origami, kabuki, Noh, haiku, and bonsai. Add to this the completely different clothing styles and domestic architecture, and you can see how the arrival of Perry's 'Black Ships' was real culture shock on both sides.
In contrast to this, we say now that the Japanese are busy inventing things and exporting them. But this is not new, what I've said notwithstanding. For example, people often cite Cervantes' Don Quixote as the first novel. Wrong-Lady Murasaki's Tale Of Genji predates it by about six hundred years, or put another way, is almost twice as old. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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