Kyoto Temples, Shrines, and Geishas

Japan Blog Kyoto Day One We woke up really early to catch our train from Tokyo to Kyoto and ate some yummy bakeryness on the way.

 The trains in Tokyo/ every other country in the world are really nice and SOOOO Fast. Apparently we aren't on the fastest ones, says Cami, but the ones we are on are flying through the countryside at over 300km/h.

 We rode through some nice mountains and and past rice patty fields and other picturesque locations and ended up Kyoto. Kyoto is a historicaly rich city, with tons of temples and shrines dotting the map. After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we started walking - as per usual. We seriously walk everywhere. You know that pioneer children song? Think of that tune and substitute Cami and Lockey - for Pioneer children - and sing it!!! Cami and Lockey sang as they walked and walked and walked... It's true, but it's a good way to see the sights and the city. So we walked up to the Nishiki market and saw lots off cool food and shops and ate some samples that people were offering.



Then we walked through some cool stores, because there are lots of expensive cool clothes to buy. The problem is that we will have spent our life's savings traveling to these places and don't have any money left over to buy cool nice stuff to bring home. So we window shop lots. I don't know why, but Japan is freaking expensive.

Random car outside of a boutique

while walking we came upon a teeny creek in the street and a cute slide that goes down the hill, so of course we had to go down it together!

The slide is on the other side of that little hill behind Lockey, but we thought that the entrance gates were funny, because they were all this small, so apparently to play at this park you ned to be this small to enter.

 Then we moved onto Pontocho, which is an old school thin street with neat old buildings full of restaurants that were way to expensive to eat at. 

 The buildings were gorgeous and they were near a picturesque little river that people were lounging about on.



 After we proceeded to Gion, where we saw lots of geisha dressed up in Kimonos going about their days. We had Okinomiyaki (Japanese Pancakes) that were interesting and full of lots of different stuff, but not completely delicious.



 However, there were supposed to be these five geisha renowned for their beauty inside.



 Funny enough they were mannequins. After a snack we continued on up into the hills/mountains and discovered a shinto shrine. We first had to clean ourselves, so you take the ladle by the gate and put some into your hands, then take some from your hands into your mouth and spit it near the trough, not into the trough.



 Then you go up to the God's Shrine, there are over 8 000 000 gods in Shintoism and you ring the bell, bow and say your prayer, then you clap and the god is supposed to answer your prayer.



 What is interesting in Japan is that over 85% of the people here are both Shinto and Buddhist, Shintoism is focused on in life and praying to the gods is encouraged, whereas their belief in the afterlife typically stems from buddhist beliefs about enlightenment and re-incarnation and such. Shrines and Buddhist Temples can be found in abundance.

This is a great picture, you've got sailor moon, and Geishas and fashionistas, so very very Japan!

 There was a nice garden pathway where we walked through and a waterfall and nice smelling fallness everywhere.





 We saw the bell tower, which had a massive bell that I really wanted to ring,



and visited a cemetery

Each piece of wood represents a dead ancestor

where there were huge spiders and spiderwebs outside of the gates.

 On the way up to the Bell tower we also had a black sesame ice-cream cone which didn't really taste like ice-cream but it was cool and somewhat delicious. Good once, but probably don't have to buy another one.



 After seeing the bell tower and the cemetery we walked down to a large buddhist temple where we took off our shoes and listened while one of the monks gave a discourse in Chinese. It was Sunday, so we got a little bit of churching in.

 Then we continued down the mountain to walk through more of Kyoto.

We walked back through Gion and saw a Shrine where people would write their prayers on these little peices of paper then crawl through this monolith and then adhere their prayers to the rock. It looked like people were a little embarrassed to crawl through this little space with their peice of paper, but if you get your prayer answered, then what the heck right? 

 After all of this walking and seeing sights we were kind of tired so we sat and watched the sun go down by the river. We grabbed dinner at this noodle shop and had soba noodles, which I accidentally ate almost all of them and left none for Cami, and we also had some pretty decent Tempura. We then finished off the day with a hot chocolate and a small little dessert from Starbucks. Both of us have been pretty tired lately, so after a day of sightseeing we hit the hay and were off for more adventures the next day.