Anyway, we went downstairs and had breakfast in the cheapest restaurant in the hotel. It was something like 2000 yen a person for breakfast. Yes, that was the cheap one! It was a buffet and they had bacaon and eggs and other stuff. It was ok - not worth 2000 yen though. We both read the paper over our coffees and finally headed out for sightseeing around 11.
Our first stop was Ryoanji, which is the temple that has the most famous zen garden in Japan. There is a huge pond at the temple that has a whole bunch of ducks. Apparently the temple used to be called mandarin duck temple because of all the ducks that visited. It was cold out so the pond was just starting to freeze. We walked along the walkway up to the main temple area, but took a quick detour over a stone bridge out to a small temple on an island in the middle of the lake.
Unfortunately, the wall surrounding the rock garden is under construction, so there is a big white tarpaulin all around the gardin. It kind of distracts from the view. The temple opened another garden that is normally closed though for people to see. The rock garden was pretty much deserted - there were only two other couples there other than us. It was perfect for viewing! While we were looking at the garden, it started to snow and it was sooo peaceful. We sat on the wood balcony of the temple, which had gorgeously painted sliding doors and tatami floors and just contemplated the garden.
After view the garden, we walked through the rest of the complex. Suddenly I saw a white stupa and I was thinking it looked rather Burmese, and low and behold it was. The Burmese had donated it in memorial for all the Japanese who had died during WWII. This was just outside the garden that was specially open during the renovations. The garden wasn't all that exciting - probably looks much better in spring or fall - but it did have good balance with trees and open space. After seeing the garden we walked around the rest of the pond. We saw some more ducks and the lake was starting to freeze up - it was really interesting because it was forming all these circular designs as it froze. (To see pictures of ducks and other parts of the temple, go here)
From Ryoanji we went to Kinkakuji, called the Golden Pavillion in English. We just hopped on the bus and went two stops... and suddenly all the tourists we had excpected at the other temple surrounded us. We walked into the temple entrance, and as we did so, the sun came out. It couldn't have been better timing. We turned around a corner, and BAM there was the Golden Pavillion shining as the sunshine hit it. It was beautiful!
I had seen pictures of it before, but my jaw still dropped. The grounds themselves are also laid out perfectly because it was really easy to take pictures of the temple without getting any people in the photo.
We walked around in awe (and enjoyed the warmth the sun gave!) and took a bunch of photos. I suddenly saw something sitting out on some rocks in the pond surrounding the temple. At first I thought it was a bird, but then though maybe I was seeing things. As it turns out, I was right. There was a beautiful heron standing on one of the rocks... and we were the only people who noticed it!
We followed the path up a bit of a hill which overlooked the temple, and there was a small pond and then further along a tea house and a shrine. We got our fortunes at the shrine. Mine was only so-so. We just tied them onto a piece of string with all the others (you leave it for the gods to take care of your fortune).
All in all, Kinkakuji is an excellent site. It wasn't that expensive admission wise, and it is really well designed. I would definitely recommend seeing it if you have the chance. (To see more photos of Kinkakuji, click here)
From Kinkakuji we hopped on the bus again to Daitokuji which is actually a series of temples in one complex. One of my students had recommended a restaurant here (he is a Kyoto native) that serves shoujin ryori, which is vegetarian temple food. We found the restaurant just outside the temple and were really disappointed to see that it was closed - especially since we had made the trip specifically for that. Since we were already there, we decided to go inside the temple area anyway... and it was free too. Well, lucky thing we did! There is another branch of the restaurant inside and it was open!
The restaurant is called Izusen and the food was amazing! Also much cheaper than last night's kaiseki LOL All of the dishes are served in laquer bowls and presented beautifully. The first course was matcha (tea ceremony tea - thicker than normal green tea) and warabimochi which is a rice dough covered in a flavoured powder. This was followed by plum wine, stewed daikon (Japanese radish) and a vegetable in a creamy tofu sauce. The third course was my favourite - there was a tempura (lightly battered and fried) plum that was soooo delicious. Plums in Japan are usually pickled so they are salty and sour, but this one was very sweet. Yummy! There was also a slice of lotus root, a carved root vegetable (I forget what it was!), mochi (rice dough) on a stick and a small dish of stewed mushrooms.
The fourth course was a piece of vegetable sushi and a soup which had turnip, greens, carrot and tofu. The fifth course was sesami tofu and tofu sashimi (raw tofu). It came with some wasabi set on top of a piece of cucumber and it was hot! The sixth course was mountain pototo, yuba (tofu skin), tofu ball, a mochi flower and snap peas. This was followed by rice with burdock in it and some pickles.
By this time we were already stuffed, but there was more! The eighth course was soup. It had a lovely yuzu (citrus) smell and had broccoli, tofu and a shiitake mushroom in it. The ninth course was tempura - it was beautiful. There was okra, mushroom and I think tofu (I forget and can't tell in the picture - too many things to remember!).
Finally, the tenth course came and it was dessert! It was green tea babaloa (not exactly Japanese) with small bits of orange sherbert and a sector of very sweet orange. We were sooo full afterwards! The food was amazing and all that food was only a few thousand yen each. (You can see pictures of all the courses here)
After eating all of this we waddled through the temple complex and saw two more zen gardens. The first was quite interesting because the temple actually had two gardens. The temple was founded by a man who was originally Buddhist but converted to Christianity later in life. As such, the temple has two gardens - one traditionally zen and one that is zen but the rocks are in the formation of a cross. The zen garden was really neat because the pebbles were raked to look like waves.
After viewing this garden, we saw one more within Daitokuji. The temple actually had several gardens in it - the smallest zen garden as well as a garden showing male/female, positive/negative, etc. in addition to the main large one. It was really interesting to see how the pebbles had been raked underneath the balconies into designs. Great attention to detail! This was my second favourite garden of the day (after Ryoanji). I think I liked this one better than the previous one with a wave-like pattern because these were more geometric in design. Ryoanji just had an incredible peacefulness about it and it seemed to cause internal balance - it was really weird how relaxing and calming it was. So Ryoanji was my favourite overall, but this garden had great patterns in it.
After seeing all of the gardens there were still more temples to see, but we decided to leave and go to another area of town. (You can see all the Daitokuji pics here) Actually, Hiroshi wanted to go home and take a nap, but I had more things I wanted to see, so I dragged him out to Ginkakuji
Ginkakuji is the Silver Pavillion. It was more expensive to enter than the Golden Pavillion, and I walked inside, looked and said "This is crap". Unlike the Golden Pavillion, the Silver Pavillion is not covered in silver leaf. It has two unusual mounds of sand that reflect moonlight, but the gardens and the mounds had been marred by a bird hopping through them and destroying their perfection. (You can see the mounds and more photos here) Hirohsi dragged me up this huge hill, which I wasn't thrilled about, but at the top we at least had a decent view of the temple where I could appreciate the architectural beauty of the building. It still doesn't stand up to the Golden Pavillion though.
By the time we finished walking through the Silver Pavillion it was dusk, so we headed out to Gion in search of Geisha. It took us a while to find "Gion" in the sense of old buildings because the main strip is a modern shopping arcade. We eventually wandered down a side street and found the old buildings, along with a tea shop where we drank more matcha and had some Japanese sweets. It was nice to just warm up! (You can see Gion photos here)
After tea we walked past the kabuki theater and then crossed the river and walked down a street called Pontocho... which was rumoured to be a good place to find Geisha, but we didn't see any. So we froze looking for them and never found any. Oh well. At this point we were so cold, we just wandered on back to the hotel. It was back to the cheapest of the expensive restaurants for dinner again - they had a Christmas buffet on. Actually the buffet wasn't bad, but there were so many screaming children who were all running around, it totally ruined it. Oh well. We went back to the room and drank some champagne and looked at the lights of the castle out our window and had a nice relaxing end to a very long day.
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