Land of the Rising Sun Day #8 “Tour of Kyoto and Making a New Friend”

Last night we had the kind of experience I love when we travel. We had an interaction with the local people. We were introduced to Tomoko, a friend of one of Patrice’s biking buddies. We simply met for dinner at a local restaurant and it was delightful. I could tell immediately that this was my kind of experience. When we walked in I didn’t see anyone who looked like a tourist (except us of course) and they didn’t have any menus in English. If we were alone it would have been a nightmare but with Tomoko’s assistance we were able to order a delicious meal at an incredibly inexpensive cost. When I think back to the meal we had at the Sky Tree restaurant that was EXTREMELY expensive and not nearly as good it makes me a bit nutty.

This morning we decided to start with my favorite activity of the trip…. Breakfast. The hotel offers a choice between a restaurant serving a traditional Japanese breakfast or another with a Western breakfast. Today (at the urging of my friend Fred) we decided to try the Japanese style. See below.

The breakfast was good but I certainly recognize why there are not many (if any) obese people in Japan. The Japanese diet is one of very lean foods. This reminds me of one of our earlier guides who compared the geography of Japan and the USA. “Japan is a very thin country and America is a very wide country” she said. I told her that Japanese are very thin and Americans are very wide as well. We have only seen two overweight Japanese people here. One was from Seattle the other from San Jose. We did see one rather obese boy in a group of school children today. The only possible explanation would be that his father moved here from the USA for work.

Today’s guide, Kiyoko, was supposed to meet us in the hotel lobby at 9:00. We were in the lobby at 8:55 when we found out she was going to be late since her train was delayed. Hey, I thought Hiro told us the trains might be about 15 seconds late? No matter, she arrived and we were on our way. Our first stop was the UNESCO World Heritage Site Kinkaku Ji Temple. The building was constructed in the 14th century and was burned down by a novice monk on July 2, 1950. It was subsequently rebuilt (obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t be here) in 1955 and the gold leaf was replaced from 1986-1987 at 5 times the original thickness. I am sure you will agree it is a fantastic sight.

Here are pictures of two famous couples who have visited the temple.

Sorry if that was a downer moment for what I typically like to make a funny experience for my readers. I suppose I can be forgiven because after all we have been taught that Buddhist temples are typically used for funerals since the Zen Buddhist philosophy deals with the hereafter as opposed to Shinto shrines which deal with happy occasions such as weddings and birthdays.

Our next stop was Ryoan-Ji Temple which houses another UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Rock Garden. I have to admit this didn’t do much for me. I don’t want to be disrespectful but playing with rocks never appealed to me. What do you think? See below.

Our third stop was at the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. This place was really cool. I mean temperature wise. Today was a very hot day and the bamboo provided a lot of shade to cool us off. See below.

Our final stop of the day was the Inari Shrine. This is a Shinto shrine which boasts of having thousands of torii gates. It was explained to us that torii gates are at the entrances of all Shinto shrines but this one takes it to an extreme.

Then it was back to the hotel. The front desk made reservations for us at a restaurant recommended by Tomoko. I am excited to go but a bit concerned because we won’t have Tomoko to order for us like she did last night. The front desk printed a map for us which includes directions on how to get there. They just delivered it to our room. See below.

Maybe you need a closer look at the instructions?

ホテルを出たら左に進みます。 300メートルほど歩くと左手にレストランがあります。

Now do you have it? We better leave early since I think this will be an adventure.