The first time I went to Japan I did not visit Kyoto. I had to wait until my second trip to Japan to actually se the old Capital and its wonders. At the time, we had been introduced to friends of Miyako, living in Kansai, Osaka and one of them took a day off to come with us to Kyoto. We went by train and tried really tasty tea, sweets on top of visiting the prettiest of the multitude of Kyoto temples. Not being really good with geography, I had literally no clue of where we went, how we did and remember no names of restaurant and tea shops we visited. That is quite a shame, because, among other things, I did not find the tea house we had gone to at the time. It was all made of a bright beige wooden structure, with many separated sections. When ordering matcha one had the opportunity to whip it on his own instead of getting the tea already prepared and the sweets were amazing. Then again. Japanese style sweets meant to be eaten with tea are usually amazing, wherever you get to try them.
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| Noticed the bird on the left? |
But I am straying away from the subject here....
While in Kyoto, there were many interesting temple sites we could have visited, without having necessarily to go all the way to Kinkakuji, as I had already seen the place. However, when I went the first time, I bought a matcha au lait with gold fragment in it that I could never forget... I had to go back, even if only for the tea.
My brother took the pictures we have of Kinkakuji. The place looks calm and peaceful, but that is all due to his photography expertise: the site was filled with hundreds of people. I loved the weather that day, cold - I had to keep my coat on - but not windy, and very sunny. That made the lakes and trees look still as if time had stopped.
Enjoy a couple of the clichés we have of the Rinzai-Zen temple covered in gold sheet.
My brother literally took pictures of every angle possible, while I went up the mountain to buy my tea.
The third temple we visited was the buddhist temple complex Daitokuji, a complex with a lot of small houses with Rinzai-zen garden. We did not stay this long at the place, but enjoyed the peaceful feeling of it and left to eat a quick lunch before heading out to the Imperial palace, of which we were told was a must-see whenever coming to Kyoto.
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| This type of thatched roof are made with the fallen pieces of bark, which make it easy to bend according to any kind of shape. The imperial palace roof are entirely made of those |
We later went to visit the imperial palace, and learned on the spot that following a tour guide was mandatory to visit the site. This was probably, sadly, the less interesting of all the visits. The tour took nearly 3 hours, standing in the sun. Being used to go to our own pace - staying longer where we feel like, and shortcutting where we felt like it was more what my brother and I were after. I never really liked to wait for tour people to explain everything. I like it better to have a friend who knows her stuff give me the answers to questions I ask. All in all, I must admit: the palace IS amazing, and I did learn a lot of interesting random facts about the construction of the palace and the way people lived in it. The only shame is that the visit took so long that I was honestly praying for it to end. Here are a few pictures. Sadly enough, we ran out of battery at the palace, so on top of not having appreciated the visit as much as we should have, we don't have much visual memory to remember it by.
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| Another example of the thatched roof. Interesting fact here is, after 25 years the roof must be changed, for there are many weeds that grow on it and the bark starts 'rotting'. However, it takes a very long time to restore those roofs and thus, when they are done restoring the entire palace, they need to start again, at the place they started.... poor things |
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