Kyoto day 2

On our second day in Kyoto we first went to the Nijo palace, a previous palace of the shogun. It was just us, a handful of tourists and a million school children who showed up at the start of the day! It was a Saturday, Sachi guessed that they were on a school trip for a few days. We bought our tickets and went inside, first waiting around at the front of the palace and taking photos.

Inside we experienced the nightingale floor, to prevent people from sneaking around the palace all the floor boards were attached to metal hook like pieces that you could see underneath when you looked outside, and when the floor flexed as you walked on it, a high pitched rather melodic squeak was heard. So when all the school children walked along the floor it made a lot of noise! The palace was lovely inside as well, although the rooms were all very similar, tatami mats on the floor and large painted panels all around the room. No photos were allowed inside, although most of the panels were painted reproductions with the real panels in a separate museum on the site. After the visit to the palace it was back on the bus to see my friend Sachi who came up from her home town to visit Kyoto with us!

Food in Japan gets a lot easier with a native Japanese speaker to interpret the menu! We went to a lunch spot recommended at the hotel and it was very very good! The first indication was the line up outside the door at 11:30 to get in. I had a fantastic tempura menu, Mic had grilled pork and Sachi had a menu that included a bowl of rice with a liquidy paste of potato spooned out on top. There were lots of little bowls with other parts of the meal and it was so tasty and filling we only had a light dinner in the evening.

We started our day together by taking the city bus to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji), a very very popular shine. The shrine was the former residence of a Shogun who retired there, and after his death was turned into a temple. The place was very very full of tourists taking photos. Yes, the temple is entirely covered in gold leaf.

We wandered around the gardens (on the industrial scale tourism trail), ate an ice cream and went back into Gion to check out another famous Kyoto temple: Kiyomizudera Temple. Man was that place full of people!

One thing I've come to realize about Japanese temples is that the larger ones are collections of many buildings and smaller side shrines which can stretch out. At one of the first temples we walked by there was this sign:

Apparently it lists ages of men and women who will have a bad year this year. It also lists the prices for what you can buy from the temple to try and counteract this bad year.

This temple had a huge wooden terrace held up by many large wooden beams which looked quite impressive when seen from the other side of the ravine. Apparently the beams are held together without any nails.

On the way to the temple we finally saw the old beautiful streets of Gion, full of tourists (Japanese and foreign). It seemed to be the thing to do for Japanese girls, get dressed up in a simple kimono and wander the streets of Gion, their hair all done up and with the typical white socks with sandals.

However it was in Gion that I saw a Maiko, or quite possibly a tourist done up with a much more impressive kimono and the white face makeup (and we got our photo taken with her).

As the sun set we went out for some sake, I didn't realize it was the equivalent of wine at the dinner, and the youngest girl is responsible for filling everyone's small cup. We tasted a hot sake and a cold fruity one and had very fresh sushi. In fact, the fish tank was right in front of us and we would watch the chef reach in and pull out and prepare the next animal on the menu.