Golden Temples and Bronze Buddhas

So, now that you have all my pictures to look at, I think I'm going to keep the blog text a little shorter. Not that there is less to tell you; quite the opposite, I could write a book about everything I've seen since my last posting. But, this part is just costing a lot of time and effort, and the pictures may be telling you just the same story. So, I'll just lay out the basics here of where and when, and you can then see for yourself.

On Monday, Megan and I went to Inuyama, after her Japanese lesson. First we stopped for Japanese curry, which is quite good; not really comparable with, say, Thai curry, perhaps closer to Indian curry, but still quite different. When we got to Inuyama, the museum (Meiji-mura) that we wanted to go to was apparently closed, so we were told. So instead, we went to the Inuyama-Jo, Japans oldest castle (1440). It was quite beautiful and another photo-opportunity (picture left). Too bad the city of Inuyama is very industrial, otherwise the pictures from the top of the castle would have been much prettier.

After that, we walked towards the monkey-park, but the entrance fee was $15 and we got there only half an hour before closing time. So instead we went to see the Shinto shrine next door, Sanko-Inari Jinja. The cool thing about that shrine was that the staircases were lined with the "komainu" statues (protective dogs that look like angry bulldogs, picture right). After that, we went back home to walk Reggie and eat another one of Megan's great dinners.

Tuesday morning, Megan and I left for Kyoto (by car). The drive wasn't too bad, only about 2 hours. First thing in the morning that we went to see was the famous Golden Temple (Kinkaku-Ji). The sight of this stunning gold-plated temple in the bright blue sky with the sun bouncing off of it is hard to capture on film (picture left), and even harder to capture in words, so I'll just say, look at the pictures and imagine what that must have been like. I'll just say that it was one of the most magnificent things my eyes have ever seen... It was in a yard that was also beautifully kept, which made it even sweeter.

After the Golden Temple, and a good amount of time looking for parking, we had lunch at the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park (Kamigyo-ku Kyoto). The guidebook told us we'd be able to get some nice views of one of the three Palaces in the park, but without permission of the imperial household agency (for which you have to apply in advance) you cannot get close enough to take any pictures; the tall palace walls and gates (picture right) are in the way. But, it was still a pretty park, and a beautiful day (as indicated by the various track meets going on, and old people playing Frisbee golf).

After that, we went downtown to see the Nishiki market. This more than anything made me feel like I was really in Japan (picture left). It's a one-street market with all sorts of fish, candy, and other edible things for sale, all strongly scented but mostly smelling delicious. The downtown shopping center is connected to it on one end, and there I saw some fashionable Japanese youngsters (the look closest to it in American or European culture is, I suppose, the "punk" look).

When we were sort of through strolling around, we found a little Ryokan (Japanese hotel) on the South side of town. We chilled for a bit, then went out into the Ponto-Cho area of town. This is where the night owls of Kyoto come out to play, weather it be for Panchuku (pinball), dinner, one of the many "gentlemen's clubs", or just to "hang out" on the street. Megan found us a little "Izakaya", which is kind of like a Japanese "tapas" restaurant; you buy all kinds of little dishes (picture right). We had some hot sake and lots of great food, all very nice. After ice-cream we went to the hotel, exhausted.

Wednesday morning we got up early so we wouldn't have to pay additional parking. We drove over across the river to the (south)east side of town. There we found the giant Buddha sitting outside that Megan had told me about (picture left). Also, we found a pretty Pagoda, with a in-bloom lemon tree right out front. So, we snapped a whole bunch of additional pretty pictures. What was nice was, no one was out yet so we had the streets pretty much to ourselves!

We then left Kyoto, and drove to a small suburb called Uji. There we went to see the temple that appears on the 10 Yen coin, called Byodo-in. This was a magnificent old (from the year 1053!!) temple that somehow had survived all the fires, and situated behind a little lake, it was gorgeous! Inside the museum that they had, the history of worship in the temple was explained, and several "floating Buddhas" were on display (wooden Buddha carvings that lined the walls of the temple). And again, we were having a beautiful day (picture right).

After Uji, we made our way to Nara, which was the first permanent capital of Japan (before Kyoto and Tokyo). The place to be in Nara is the Nara-koen area (koen means park), because that's where all the temples and shrines and other sights are. Also in the park: some 1200 deer that roam around freely hoping to be fed by the people (picture left). It's quite funny actually!

We first went into the Isui-en garden, which was a beautiful yard with some ceremonial tea houses in it. Perhaps it was overpriced to pay $6 to walk around this small garden, but it was a pretty day, like I said, so it was still quite nice. At that point we pretty much got to lunch time, so we found a little Shokudo, a restaurant with "set" lunches (and plastic displays of those lunches in the window). I had noodles, which I hadn't had before, and it was quite tasty (more like a noodle soup).

When we were full, we went back into Nara-koen to see the temple with the big Buddha (Todai-Ji). This was a phenomenal sight. The temple hall (Daibatsu-Den) was gigantic (supposedly the largest wooden building in the world!!), and once we got inside, I realized why: there was a gigantic bronze Buddha (16 meters tall!!) sitting right in the middle of it, flanked by two also very large gold-plated Buddhas on either side (picture right). It was so large and humbling, hard to describe really (picture left).

We continued through the park towards the Kasuga-taisha (shrine), on the other side of the park. The coolest thing we saw here was all the lanterns; apparently they have a lantern festival here twice a year, and it was clear to see why they chose this location: hundreds if not thousands of lanterns (stone and otherwise) were simply EVERYWHERE around this shrine. It was a very cool sight, even if I don't quite understand why they'd need THAT many of them (picture right).

The drive back from Nara to Nagoya was pretty cool (mountain roads), and after doing laundry and walking Reggie, the three of us went out to Nimbus, Ben and Megan's favorite restaurant. We had some amazing Sateh, garlic rice, and "Nagoya-noodles" (Japanese spaghetti, sort of).

Now it is Thursday morning, and Megan and I are about to head out to meet Ben for a tour of the Toyota factory. Tomorrow (Friday) I leave for Shanghai, so no more posts from me before then. But, once I'm at Steph's place there I'll get you guys another update. Hope you guys are enjoying the posts & pictures (all are completely unedited so maybe not all are good, but it's the best I can do at the moment).