Day8: May 14, 2015
Breakfast so far has been pretty standard. This morning, however, I met a Venezuelan woman from Southern California. She asked if I liked Japanese food, because the place across the street served traditional breakfast. Duly noted!
From there I took the #12 to Nojo Castle, a beautiful building that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It consists of two concentric circles of fortifications. Like much ancient Japanese architecture, parts of it succumbed to fire, so some of bits of the castle are relicas; however, some those replicas are themselves hundreds of years old. Wrapped up the morning with a coffee set lunch in a Japanese tea room: macha chiffon cake with dollops of whipped cream and red bean jam. So good!
Although I meet a lot of people while travelling solo, it’s a good idea to take a group tour, especially if you’re on your own for a while. So I took Tammy Burns’ suggestion, and booked a three-hour tour with Urban Adventures. Ours was a diverse group made up of people from the States (an editor from NYC, a children’s librarian and her husband from DC, and and a wannabe writer and her husband from Hawaii), Qatar via Calgary ( a Quebec geologist and his Columbian wife) and Australia via India.
Benjamin, originally from Ghana, lead us to the Tofukuji Temple to admire its zen garden. Next, we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine with its famous red toshi gates. Each one is donated by businesses large and small to ensure prosperity. We walked through a gauntlet of peddlers hawking tat and taste. Then we were on the lookout for geishas in the Gion district. Alas, none were to be seen.
Our group had an interesting dynamic. The four Americans (20s or 30s) were friends travelling together, and didn’t really mix with the rest of us (40+). One of the merits of travelling alone is meeting and mixing with people I’d normally not know. Sure you meet people at parties, but on the road you don’t talk about mundane shit.
As our tour wrapped up, Beatrice (from Qatar) proffered discount tickets to a variety show, of sorts, featuring samples of traditional Japanese culture: tea ceremony (slow and precise), kabuki (colorful and dramatic ), noh comedy (silly without needing to understand dialogue ), geisha dance (lovely and subtle), and a bunraku puppet show (riveting despite seeing the black-clad handlers). While it targetted tourists, it was a great way to sample traditional that I may not otherwise get to see (e.g., the bunraku isn’t running in May ). So happy I could see this.
After the show, we parted ways. It was dark so I thought it would be a good chance to use my tripod. What a clusterfuck. I swore at it, decided to sell it as soon as I got home, and packed it away. Then I realized that I all I’d eaten was a ham and egg sandwich at 7 am. Time to find food.
Fished around for sushi, but instead netted a weird place that only served one dish: a pancake filled with meat, egg, and veg. It easy decorated floor to ceiling with strange bawdy geegaws, and at each table sat a mannequin dolled up in a kimono. Lots of tourists, naturally. Food was good and filling, and my mood improved.
I took the bus to Kyoto station to see the tower and take some photos. Watched a buskers for a bit then headed back to the hotel.
Muse Ink 