Friday, November 1
As sorry as we were to leave Kanazawa, we were very excited to see Kyoto. Our express train took us southeast along the shores of Lake Biwa, the largest fresh water lake in Japan.
Kyoto station is another contemporary architectural showcase, and easy to navigate.
We were soon at our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, which immediately rewrote our notion of what a Hyatt is like. Rather than a showy architectural disaster, this was an understated modern take on Japanese architecture: intimate, subtle, lovely. And we got our first taste of the greatest hotel staff any of us have ever experienced.
We got settled in our rooms and headed out to our first temple walk. Kiyomizu-Dera is one of the best known temples, famous for its extraordinary view over Kyoto. The cab dropped us in the Higashiyama district at the bottom of a steep lane thronged with people; the temple came into view as we turned a corner.
The temple was founded in 780, making it older than Kyoto itself. It is named for a sacred waterfall; the name means Pure Water. Like virtually every temple and shrine in Kyoto, it has been repeatedly destroyed by fire and earthquakes and then rebuilt as it was before. The present structure dates from 1633. The temple is Shingon—or esoteric—Buddhist, a major line of Buddhism in Japan that came from India through China. Interestingly, the word Shingon is the Japanese reading of the Chinese word zhēnyán, which is the Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit word mantra. Shingon Buddhism teaches that Enlightenment can be achieved in this life if the proper course of ritual and mediation is followed.
The temple has attained some of its renown from its position high above Kyoto.
The bright vermillion paint allies this and other Shingon temples with Shinto shrines, most of which are marked by vermillion Torii gates.
This temple has much of the good and the bad of Kyoto’s most famous temples: its great beauty is veiled by the hordes of tourists pouring through the gates. We would visit more of the “big five” temples in the days to come, but, for some reason, the overcrowding seemed less tolerable up here. Fortunately, many of the most beautiful and significant temples in Kyoto are not on the itineraries of the tour companies; we were able to visit them and soak up some of the magic that suffuses so much of this city.
Walking along the pathways on the hillside we reached the end of the temple precinct; Sue and Connie saw a sign for another temple and took off like a shot into the forest. Vladimir and I followed more slowly, but gave up when we saw that the goal was a small meditation hut on the mountainside.
Reunited, we took a different path back to Kiyomizu-Dera and discovered a lovely little temple deep in the forest.
From Kiyomizu-Dera we plunged down the hillside and made our way through a series of beautifully preserved alleyways and narrow streets lined with shops and cafes. This area of southern Higashiyama is famous for its lovely alleys and byways.
We stopped for a snack at one cafe and found that it was owned by a young Japanese man who had lived in Southern California for 30 years. The waitress had spent six years in Vancouver and spoke perfect English. These encounters stand out in a country where foreign languages are a constant struggle.
Kyoto is in some ways like Rome: the wanderer finds something interesting and unexpected at every turning.
We were constantly surprised at the number of people in traditional dress; these were predominantly young people, many of whom had presumably rented their attire from one of the many kimono rental shops in southern Higashiyama. The most beautiful kimonos, ravishing things of silk and brocade, are prohibitively expensive. But it is possible to buy a lovely one second hand for as little as fifty bucks.
The preserved streets end in the beautiful Maruyama Park, which surrounds two wonderful temples, Chiron-In and Shoren-In. Although the temples were closed by the time we reached them, we stood, humbled, in front of the massive San-Mon Gate of Cheon-In, the largest temple gate in Japan.
The concierge staff had booked us for dinner at a wonderful place, Torito Yakitori, where we sat at the counter and had our multi-course chicken meal served to us by a very friendly crew. Among the many wonderful things about dining in Japan is the frequent opportunity to sit at a counter while the chef prepares your dinner directly in front of you. Everything imaginable came flying over the counter: skewers of chicken from every part of the bird made up most of the offerings, but the skewers were supplemented with chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken you name it. Delicious and lots of fun!
