aomori bokeh 青森暈け: Kanto Trip Part 1

The week of (American) Thanksgiving happened to be a week of special testing for the students at my school, so I had no classes. Roxy had made plans to go to Kyoto and Osaka for the week, and she sweetly invited me to tag along. It was coincidentally the third anniversary of my first trip to Kyoto (and Tokyo, and Osaka).

Day 1: Kyoto National Museum and Kiyomizudera Illuminations

Roxy had already made night bus plans, but I decided to travel in luxury. I took an early shinkansen from Shin-Aomori, made a quick transfer in Tokyo, and arrived in Kyoto in the early afternoon on the 23rd. Shinkansen is probably the most expensive mode of transport in Japan, and in my opinion the best- I try to economize on every other part of a trip, but I'll treat myself with the bullet train (the ticket usually ends up costing as much as every other part of the trip combined).

Hayabusa Shinkansen waiting at Shin-Aomori Station

Monday the 23rd was a national holiday, Labor Thanksgiving day, so Kyoto Station was a bit crowded with travelers, I assume heading home from their three-day-weekends and not heading off on a week's adventure like me.

Crowds in the Shinkansen area of Kyoto Station

I met up with Roxy at our hostel near Shichijo station. We made our first attempt to visit the temple Sanjusangen-do, famous as Japan's longest wooden structure and the home of 1001 statues of Kannon, aka Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. The temple had just changed over to their winter hours and closed an hour earlier than we expected, so we looked around for something else nearby. Lo and behold, across the street from Sanjusangen-do we saw a crowd heading into the Kyoto National Museum.

As we stood in front of the ticket booth debating the ticket price, a young Japanese guy approached us and offered us a free ticket to the Rinpa special exhibit, which decided us in favor of checking it out. It turned out to be the last day of the exhibit, which included quintessential examples of the aesthetic style called Rinpa or Rimpa, founded in Kyoto and practiced from the 1600s to the mid 1800s. One of the crowning pieces was a calligraphy scroll called "Anthology with Cranes" featuring cranes painted in silver and gold in many stages of flight. There were also many folding screens, decorative containers and kimono. It was a pretty good opener for three days in Kyoto.

Meiji Kotokan Hall (currently closed) at the Kyoto National Museum

Welcome to the Kyoto National Museum courtyard

Heisei Chishinkan Hall, designed by architect Taniguchi Yoshio, opened just last year

After we left the museum, we squeezed into a very crowded bus headed for Kiyomizu-dera to see the night illuminations. The line for tickets for entry was quite long but moved quickly and we were inside in no time. A seriously powerful spotlight was shining from the northeast corner of the temple grounds off into the western night sky, and all the temple buildings were lit from below. Certain clusters of trees were lit with yellow, blue and green lights from below. The eponymous fountain (kiyomizu means "clear/pure water") had a line of devoted folks waiting for their turn to drink some of its water and hopefully gain some luck.

Kiyomizudera spotlight illumination

Crowds entering Kiyomizudera

Illuminated pagoda

An illuminated stand of trees above the temple grounds

Looking down from the viewing platform

Waiting to drink the water from the fountain

Pagoda and spotlight reflection

Looking back at the spotlight as we headed away from the temple

After that, rather than wait for another crowded bus back to the hostel, we opted for a taxi. It was a great choice, because our middle-aged taxi driver turned out to be a death metal fan who got along really well with Roxy and even played a little Slipknot from the taxi's stereo before letting us out near Shichijo station and driving off with a death metal salute.

Walking after dinner, Kyoto Station (on the right) looked like some sort of land-locked cruise ship

Day 2: Kinkaku-ji and Arashiyama

On my first trip to Kyoto three years ago, I had big plans to see all the sights on the west side of Kyoto, but I was totally stymied by the public bus system and never made it there. So, I didn't get to see Kinkaku-ji, the iconic golden pavilion, and I didn't see the bamboo forest of Arashiyama. It's safe to say these were probably the two things in Kyoto I wanted most to see this time around.

We got up and out of the hostel pretty early and walked to Kyoto Station to catch a bus to Kinkakuji. Honestly I'm still a bit stymied by the bus system in Kyoto, since it seemed like at least five different buses claimed to go to Kinkaku-ji, but we picked one and arrived just ahead of the first tour-busload of tourists. We even got the prime viewing spot mostly to ourselves (and about ten other people) for a few minutes.

Fancy iced siphon coffee in a fancy copper-plated mug

Map of the Kinkaku-ji grounds

Kinkaku-ji grounds

Postcard shot of Kinkaku-ji pavilion

Kinkaku-ji gardens

Ten minutes after we arrived, the tour buses unloaded

Kinkaku-ji pavilion

Ducks in the reflecting pool

Archinerd closeup on the thatched roof eave of the omamori shop

Kinkaku-ji grounds

From Kinkaku-ji, we walked about fifteen minutes to the eastern terminus of the Keifuku Kitano Line, and took it all the way to the western terminus at Arashiyama station. A long time ago, I read a post on the cooking blog 101cookbooks about how Heidi (the author) had visited Arashiyama in the rain and it was all atmospheric and empty... so I mistakenly got the impression that Arashiyama was 1) all about the bamboo forest and 2) not that heavily touristed. How wrong I was.

As soon as we got off the train we were in a slow-moving milling crowd of sight-seers, with fashion-model-quality couples wandering about in beautiful kimono eating yuba ice cream and sakura mochi, or riding in rickshaws. There are many temples, parks, restaurants, omiyage shops and ryokan, in addition to the bamboo forest, where hopefully you can walk without an obasan chattering in your ear or staring at you admonishingly for stuffing an onion roll in your mouth (I definitely got hangry and got a Look for eating in a non-eating zone).

We headed for the first temple we saw, which turned out to be Tenryu-ji, the most important temple in Arashiyama and one of the Kyoto gozan (five great Zen temples). We decided to walk through the garden and skip the building interiors in order to have time for other things.

I think this is (probably) the Kuri Hall at Tenryu-ji

Visitors walking on the long approach to Tenryu-ji

Texture - raked gravel in the Zen garden

Sogenchi Teien (Sogen Pond Garden)

We didn't go inside, but we could look into the ceremonial hall

Archinerd shot of roof structure and copper gutters

The bamboo forest encroaches on the Tenryu-ji grounds

Texture - mosses, pebbles, momiji

Quince flower in the garden at Tenryu-ji

The north gate of Tenryu-ji let us out in the middle of the bamboo forest path, in what seemed to be the most crowded spot. The tall bamboo swayed dramatically overhead in the wind, and the crowds on the path oohed and aahed appreciatively. Maybe because I was hangry, or maybe because I had imagined something different, I felt a bit unfulfilled by the experience.

Crowds in the bamboo forest

A less crowded spot in the bamboo forest

After stopping to relax at the foot onsen ("Station Footbath") at Keifuku Arashiyama Station, we walked to the JR station nearby for the train back to the area of our hostel.

Keifuku Arashiyama Station has an illuminated "Kimono Forest" near the platforms

The "Kimono Forest"

It was getting late but not go-to-bed late, so we thought we'd take a look at the Gion area, but almost everything on the main street was closed or closing for the day. We shuffled through the Yasaka Shrine and then wandered in dark and quiet streets of machi-ya style buildings and fancy chauffered cars before finally heading back for the night.