Kyoto

After Miyajima, the group spent 2 days in Kyoto. We took a shinkansen late at night from Hiroshima to Kyoto, so we didn't get to our hotel rooms until about 9 p.m. We didn't know of anything to do in Kyoto, so us 6 guys decided to walk around and play "The 7-11 Game." We invented this game on the spot. The rule of the game is that, when you see a convenient store (preferably a 7-11), you had to go inside and buy a tall can of beer or a cup of Japanese sake. Then, you had to finish that drink before you reached the next convenient store, in which you have to buy more booze. We didn't realize that there are so many convenient stores in that area. We made it back in one piece, but I felt quite terrible the next morning.

The next day we met up with students from a local university, and they gave us a tour of the most famous shrine in all of Japan, let alone the city. All the guys had a tough morning because we drank too much sake the night before.

That day was the start of Golden Week. Golden Week is a national holiday in Japan where people close down their businesses and do a lot of traveling. Have you ever been to Disneyland during memorial day weekend or a water-park in the middle of summer? Those places are not even half as crowded as Kyoto was during Golden Week.

In order to reach the famous, giant shrine, you had to walk through the "old-city" of Kyoto. My guide claimed that this is what the city was like during the Edo period (fuedal era), except that I know that this area was bombed to the ground during WWII. The area was still quite astonishing, and yes, very crowded. I even saw an authentic Geisha gracefully walking down the street. Here is a picture or two:




Standing in front of the entrance to the shrine there was a monk-in-training. I asked my guide, and he said that part of a monk's training is that he has to stand and beg for money, and he has to use all the money he makes in one day to buy food and shelter. He may not keep money for the next day. I thought this was very interesting. I saw him before going into the shrine, and then he was standing in the exact same place and exact same pose when I came out hours later.



The giant shrine, like most other shrines in Japan, was beautiful. However, at this point in the trip, especially this week, I'm pretty tired of looking at shrines and temples. Anyway, here are some pictures:





There was an attraction in the shrine that I was particularly fascinated with. There was a fountain, and the fountain had running water from the mountain (who knows if it actually came from the mountain). The water was separated into three streams, and drinking out of each one gave you different perks. One was long life, one was super intelligence, and the other was a successful love life. I waited in line for 20 minutes to drink from the fountain of infinite wisdom.




That night I went to bed early to recover from the night before. The next day we had free time. A group of 7 of us decided to rent bikes and tour the city, hoping to see more than by just walking. The bikes were extremely cheap and a great help. We first visited the famous Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace is the place where the current emperor resides (supposedly, but he's actually in Tokyo and has no real significance anymore). Before, it was used as the headquarters and home of the Shogun, or military leader of Japan (this is all pre-1900's). The Palace is hardly a palace, but can be better described as an intense stronghold. The moat was wide and the walls were steep and high with tightly-packed stones. I would not want to siege that castle.
However, my favorite part of the castle was the main building. The architect knew of Japan's long history of assassinations, so he constructed special floors called "Nightingale floors." Whenever you take a step, the floor makes a creaking noise. Sadly, they do not allow pictures, but I found the image online of how the nightingale floor works:



The rest of the palace was very pretty. The garden was especially gorgeous. Here are pictures:





We then biked to the next temple on our site-seeing list, and decided to get lunch before going in. The two girls in our group split up and went to an expensive restaurant, while the 5 guys went searching for somewhere to eat. It was already 3pm, so almost everything was closed. We then walked down a side ally and into a dingy little shop at the front of someones house. The "restaurant" consisted of 5 seats at the counter and 2 seats at a tiny table against the wall. The "chef" and owner was an old guy and his wife was there cleaning dishes. There were two patrons seated at the counter, and by the way that they were slurring their words and smiling a lot, I figured that they were drunk. I sit next to them and they immediately strike up conversation. They were quite interesting, and the food was surprisingly delicious and cheap.




After lunch, we saw more shrines and etc. That night we took the Shinkansen back to Yokohama and made it home by 9:30pm. That was the end of the planned field trip, but I was leaving for Nikko the next day...