Tuesday, November 5
There were a couple of things that we wanted to see that didn‘t lie on an easy route to anything else, so we made our last day into a public transportation day!
First stop was the Fushimi-Inari Shrine. There are many shrines in Japan dedicated to Inari—the Kami of rice and the harvest—but this is the most important. The shrine is older than Kyoto, though its origins lie in the mists of time. Inari is also worshiped by businessmen, and it is they who have made the shrine famous. There are more than 1,000 vermillion Torii gates, each one donated by a business or individual.
This is perhaps the most popular site in Kyoto; we were glad to have seen it, but it doesn‘t make our „must see“ list!
From Fushimi-Inari we took a train to Kyoto Station and then a bus to To-Ji, the oldest temple in Kyoto proper. When the capital moved to Kyoto in 794, three temples were allowed within the city walls. The other two were destroyed long ago. To-Ji was founded in 796 and serves as the repository for a remarkable array of art from the next millennium. Five of the structures in the temple precinct are designated as National Treasures; the complex as a whole is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Like Kyomizu-Dera, To-Ji is a Shingon, or esoteric Buddhist temple
The Kondo or Image Hall houses glorious statuary: a three dimensional mandala comprised of statues of the Buddha, two Boddhisatvas, and four protector deities. As in most temples, photography of religious imagery is not permitted.
The five-story pagoda is particularly beautiful, sitting at the edge of a water garden.
. We had To-Ji virtually to ourselves; the crowds stayed with the few temples that offer a straightforward visual image like the Gold and Silver pavilions and Fushimi-Inari.
We all had various things we wanted to do on our last day, so we parted ways with the Bans and took a bus to Gion. Sue wanted to visit a store in Gion selling antique woodblock prints. This store had much more beautiful but also much more expensive prints than the one we first visited. We barely have enough wall space for the things we have, though, so we reluctantly passed up this chance. We ducked into a hole in the wall for a snack and ended up with a „tea set:“ tea, raisin toast, and a hardboiled egg!
Next up was a stop for me. Ever since visiting the Raku Museum, I had dreamed of acquiring a Rakuware chawan or tea bowl. The chawans used in the tea ceremony are made in a very few studios around the country. And they aren’t exactly cheap. We found Waraku, the studio of the Raku Master Takao Kawasaki. After suitable deliberation, I purchased a chawan that is a deep black shot through with silver strands. The artist wasn‘t in the studio, but we got a tour that included two artisans at work and the clay kiln (that has to be rebuilt every five years!).
We had wandered through a number of beautiful lanes in Southern Higashiyama today; our steps led us next to the Kyoto Ceramics Center where, as it happened, there was an exhibition of work by Takao Kawasaki!
We walked back to the hotel and put our feet up before going down for drinks. The hotel put on something rather weird every night: a dance performance by a Maiko, or apprentice geisha.
We had managed to avoid this despite the lure of a glass of sparkling wine, but the young woman came around to greet every table in the bar after her performance, so we had our most obvious candidate have his picture taken with her.
We were soon off to our last culinary adventure in Kyoto: tempura at the Yoshikawa Inn. We were led into a room with low benches around a burning hearth where we chatted with other guests: a gay couple from London and a woman from San Francisco. One of the guys from London heard that I had bought a chawan and launched into a detailed history of the tea ceremony and Raku ceramics!
We were soon brought into the „action room:“ a horseshoe counter for 11 around the tempura chef. What a meal it was! The chef was in constant, blurred motion; he knew exactly what stage of the meal every group was at—there were four groups, two Chinese women living in San José, an English couple, and three Japanese friends besides us—and kept not just the tempura pot but a stock pot and a grill going at just the right temperature. The experience of sitting at the counter was especially convivial here, and the food astonishing.
After the main event we were led back to the room with the hearth, and the amiable conversation continued. Although none of our new Japanese friends had much English, we were able to communicate the essentials. They were that most Japanese of things: golf buddies from Tokyo and Kyoto!
