We started our day pretty late this morning, at around 9 am. We had to pack up and leave our hostel and I don't think either Patty or I were looking forward to that. We chatted with our roommates for a bit. Turns out they were both from England and teaching English in Tokyo. They were spending the weekend in Kyoto and around. After we had a pretty quick breakfast and made some sandwiches for lunch, we were out the door with all our junk and off for our hotel, which is right beside the Imperial Palace in the middle of Kyoto.
We bought a bus pass yesterday and had found it very useful, so we did the same again today. The bus service is actually pretty decent, with buses running pretty frequently and down convenient routes. We jumped off a bus at an intersection near our hotel and walked the rest of the way, walking past the Imperial Palace. We haven't taken a look inside yet, but it's not supposed to be one of the more impressive sites in Kyoto.
At our hotel, we were able to leave our backpacks behind and set off for the bamboo grove, which is...well, exactly as it sounds. We got there by bus after a pretty long drive. The grove is somewhat outside Kyoto on the west side. So far, in fact, that there's an extra fee to be taken there. We jumped off the bus one stop before we should have (due to an improperly labelled map, not due to our poor map reading abilities, of course), but had a pretty nice walk to the site. It was a pretty neat place. As you probably guessed, there was bamboo...but there was an entire forest of it. It was really quite beautiful. Here are some pics that don't do it justice:
The path was absolutely packed with people, and it's probably better experienced in silence, but we both enjoyed it. After heading out of the grove, we panicked as two buses approached and jumped onto the bus that we didn't want. This led to a somewhat interesting experience wandering through 'rural' Kyoto. Here's a picture that somewhat describes our location:
We had a bus map that showed that the bus we ended up taking led us near a bus route that we wanted to take to get to our next site. We learned an important lesson today: never navigate by foot using bus maps! We wandering down some suburban residential areas in the general direction of the line we were looking for. Patty ended up noticing a sign for the place we were headed and, with a bus stop in sight, it wasn't long before we were on the bus bound for our next destination: Kinkako-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion).
This time, we got off the bus at the correct stop. We wandered onto the temple grounds, paid the 400 Yen each, and this is what we saw:
The temple was pretty nice, but both Patty and I agreed that the temple we had seen yesterday, Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion), had been much nicer. The grounds of the temple today were nice, but nothing compared to the perfection of Ginkaku-ji. There was truly something spiritual about being in Ginkaku-ji: the garden was absolutely spectacular. Neither of us got this feeling from Kinkako-ji. Anyway, it wasn't like it was a complete waste of time, but it was a bit of a letdown, since we'd assumed gold is better than silver.
Before leaving we decided to try to make it to one more site before sundown, so we checked out our bus map, determined the best route, and jumped on a bus. It wasn't too long before we were wandering down a path at a complex known as Daitoku-ji, which, according to our book, is a collection of Zen temples, raked gravel gardens, and wandering lanes. I say "according to our book" because we didn't make it in time. Although we could walk down a path and see a couple sites, the main sites were already closed. We may head back again tomorrow. Here's a peak:
We ended up leaving the site from the opposite side we had arrived at and we very surprisingly did not get lost. We debated the route we should take at a bus stop for a bit, until a nice older gentleman offered to help us out. He provided some good advice, and then after he left we decided to head to a different destination. When we hopped onto a bus, another older gentleman who had witnessed our earlier conversation, waved at us to indicate we had gotten on the wrong bus! What beautiful people. We did our best to assure him we were OK, but who knows if he understood.
We were headed to a part of the city called Gion for some dinner and to see, according to our guide book, the nicest street in all of Asia. The bus dropped us off fairly close to our restaurant of choice, and after a short walk we were greeted by some extremely friendly workers. An older couple worked there and it looked like they were married, and perhaps their grandson worked there as well. We were seated at one of those really short tables, sitting on pillows. Neither Patty nor I are very flexible, so we were both struggling to sit in a comfortable way that didn't offend anyone. In the end, we were so tired we just extended our legs straight forward and rested our backs against the wall. Thankfully, no one seemed to mind. When our food arrived (sashimi and tempura) Patty took some pictures and two older women started to laugh and spoke to us. We had no idea what they were saying, but they looked pretty amused at the picture taking. They spoke to us very good-naturedly and were really cute. Anyway, here is the pic of our food, which was pretty tasty:
After this, we wandered around a bit looking for the "nicest street in Asia." We are sincerely hoping our book is incorrect about this statement because, while nice, the street wasn't exactly awe-inspiring. Anyway, it was a nice little diversion on the way home. People are always dressed up so nice here, it's just fun to people watch.
No solid plans for tomorrow yet, but we do need to plan our hike through an old pilgrimage route that we'll take after Nara. Hopefully we get a chance to check out a couple more sites too!
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