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Hello again,
I'm actually in Kyoto again now but was in Hiroshima this morning so feel the map location is justified. Nara anyway. Really enjoyed my ryokan experience there with the dressing up and stuff, and hit a mass of temples in Nara Park that varied in their quality. Definite highlight was Todai-ji temple, apparently the largest wooden building in the world, also housing the world's largest bronze buddha. The photos never do the thing justice and it's simply awesome to stand in front of, with two great big gold 'horns' on the top. Saw a bunch of other temples and shrines, which I found much of a muchness. They're much less interesting over here than they were in China I think.
Then, starting to feel a bit lonely, I made sure I got some company at a popular hostel in Kyoto and instantly found some Aussies and Brits to chill with. We had a cards and beer evening and got to know Sam and Kirsten, Owen, Tom and David. The next day I did a walk in the east of the city called the Philosopher's Walk, because of a university professor who used to do it often. It connects some temples along a canal and was a very pleasant day. Saw some great gold-leaf screen paintings by the famous Kano school artists, and ended up at Ginkaku-ji, the 'Silver Pavilion', which was really impressive. It's not actually silver as was intended but the gardens were fantastic, with nice little pools and reflections, and I'm getting a definite appreciation for raked gravel zen gardens. In the evening a group of us went back to Nara for a festival at one of the temples which was amazing. Monks wielded huge balls of fire on long poles and ran along the veranda, dripping the embers over the crowd in the rain. Really special thing to see.
Day 2 in Kyoto was spent winding through the tour groups at Kinkaku-ji, the 'Golden Pavilion' with a shining layer of gold all over the walls. It too was in a great garden, with a massive Mirror Lake, but the presence of so many photo-taking tourists was a bit annoying to say the least. Then went to a much quieter temple, Myoshin-ji, and sat looking at the garden with mini waterfall and pond, writing my journal for a bit. Lovely and calm. Then on to Nijo Castle, in the centre of the city, where the Shogun had his base between the 17th and 19th centuries I think. It's a great wooden building with intentionally-squeaky, 'nightingale' floors (because they sound like little tweety birds when you tread on them, to sound out intruders) and has even more of the golden screen paintings. The gardens were nice there and in my favourite one I had a ceremonial tea and sat looking at the beauty for a bit - one of my favourite experiences so far. Leaving refreshed, I grabbed a bento box and took it to the Imperial Palace Park, where I was amused by 'hanami', the Japanese word for enjoying the cherry blossom season. It's not come out properly, but some of the earlier-flowering plum trees are blossoming and to me they look much the same. In the park old people would slowly cycle past, notice the blooms and slowly changed course to stand and stare at it as though 10 other people hadn't done the same thing in the last 5 minutes. After that went to the Gion part of town for dinner with the gang, and saw a few of the famous geisha walking around! They're not very common to see but I saw two apprentice ones (maikos) and one real one, properly called a geiko. Also saw the Ichiriki tea house, made famous in Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pontocho Alley, where I believe the geisha spend much of their time. Gion seemed to me to be where the real life is in modern Kyoto, with lights and shops and young people side by side with the dimmer, wooden traditional streets - a nice mix.
The following day I got the Shinkansen bullet train (that I have actually been using all over Japan) to Himeji to see Japan's best castle. It's a really interesting-looking building, although walking around it wasn't as pleasurable as I'd hoped, partially because of primary school urchins making noise all over the place. Then back on the train to Hiroshima, which was a great city. Visited the only building left from before the infamous bombing, a withered domed roof on a concrete building, that's set against the tranquil beauty of the Peace Park, with various monuments to the dead, and the desire to remove all nuclear weapons from the planet. I'd picked up a Japanese friend on the way because I'd looked lost, so we went around the sombre museum together, seeing information on the lead up to the bombing, photos of the injured, and a good number of actual artefacts that were melted or changed in the blast. It wasn't as imaginatively put together as I'd understood from others but extremely poignant and very moving in places. For dinner I did a kaiten-zushi, the revolving sushi bar and tried octopus, squid and tuna in raw states. everything yummy except for chewy squid!
Miyajima Island was the next thing, where there's a famous floating red torii gate just off the coast, as an entrance to a shrine that also seems to float on the water. The contrast of the bright red gate against the greyish-blue of the cloudy mountains, and the semi-tropical greenery of the hills around was really special early in the day. Had a good wander around the island, seeing a traditional wedding, complete with masked dancer and music, and meeting up with Sam and Kirsten for a bit too. Great island, although the weather prevented me doing the hike up Mount Misen, that would have given a great view of the bay in good weather. I was a bit fed up of walking everywhere anyway, as I've been on my feet all day every day for such a long time, so I came back to the hostel and watched another anime film and met some more Aussies, Paul and Emily. We met up again for dinner and joined Sam and Kirsten for skewers and okonomiyaki, a kind of noodley eggy leeky pancake thing that filled me up excellently for once! Then went on to a few bars and a few cocktails and had one of my least sober nights ever but had a great time. Tiny bars for just 8 people were the order of the evening and we hit about 4 of them. I think I fell asleep when we got back to the hostel common room in the small hours and crawled into my bed around 6am. Obviously proving I'm still not too old for it!
So that was last night and I'm shattered. Must go and fall asleep again but more Kyoto fun tomorrow and will keep getting photos up on Facebook as often as I can.
Much love to you all,
Dave x
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