Japan Trip, Day 5
Day 5, January 30 - Kyoto
Pictures available: http://family.webshots.com/album/557724889uurmVY
dsc00460 - dsc00484
Upon waking up, I have my breakfast of refrigerated quesadilla, and we prepare for a day spent exploring a few of the temples of Kyoto. We take a train to the former Japanese capitol to discover that Buddhist monks, in their spare time, enjoy building temples on the sides of very steep hills. Over the course of the day, I sample a few kinds of ice cream, including vanilla soft-serve, caramel soft-serve, and green-tea hard serve. I am reassured that the Bar Harbor, Maine ice cream industry is in no danger of being overtaken by rivals on the opposite side of the globe. Kiyomizudera Temple is first on the list and we spend an hour or so wandering around, taking pictures. Here we see what seems to be a stray cat, but Brandon assures me it belongs to one of the monks. Being that these shifty monk characters build their monasteries inconveniently on the sides of mountains, I elect not to trust their cat either.
We decide not to walk to the next temple and instead seek out an appropriate city bus. Next on the list is Ginkakuji Temple which has a fascinating array of pools and Very Important Moss (like VIP). We also discover that these particular monks are fans of shrubbery and bamboo gardens. They have somehow managed to grow barbed wire as well but some mysteries (like backhoes) are best left to the monks and not investigated further by the unenlightened.
Again, we abandon the idea of walking between our destinations. The last temple of the day was perhaps the most famous temple in Kyoto, and my personal favorite. Kinkakuji Temple (not to be confused with Ginkakuji Temple) is plated in gold leaf, hence my preference. On our way out of this last gilded temple, we buy some choco-balls out of a vending machine and consume the individually wrapped ice cream treats on our way down stairs, our new favorite thing in the world.
We take a bus back to Kyoto station, and then catch a train back to Osaka. We wander the streets again, this time, not entirely as lost as the night before and stumble across what appears, at least to me, to be another El Pancho Restaurant. Brandon keeps the secret to himself that this is in fact the same restaurant as the night before, failing to enlighten me, until I notice how strikingly similar the writing is on the wall. He enjoys a good laugh at my expense. I order only a single quesadilla this night, and leave quite fulfilled. However, the aforementioned hot Australian women were conspicuously absent tonight. On the other hand, Brandon fell in love with the combination Japanese hostess/waitress in attendance. In his mind, they almost married, and are already working on making babies, after he gets a vasectomy.
I pick up a 1.5 liter bottle of Coca-Cola for dinner on the way back to the hotel. We then engage in a particularly heated discussion on the English language, invent a word, see the new Webster Dictionary entry on “beenarkwak,” and begin to apply computer science definitions to verbs and nouns and totally demolish the speaking population of the world.
To be continued...
Pictures available: http://family.webshots.com/album/557724889uurmVY
dsc00460 - dsc00484
Upon waking up, I have my breakfast of refrigerated quesadilla, and we prepare for a day spent exploring a few of the temples of Kyoto. We take a train to the former Japanese capitol to discover that Buddhist monks, in their spare time, enjoy building temples on the sides of very steep hills. Over the course of the day, I sample a few kinds of ice cream, including vanilla soft-serve, caramel soft-serve, and green-tea hard serve. I am reassured that the Bar Harbor, Maine ice cream industry is in no danger of being overtaken by rivals on the opposite side of the globe. Kiyomizudera Temple is first on the list and we spend an hour or so wandering around, taking pictures. Here we see what seems to be a stray cat, but Brandon assures me it belongs to one of the monks. Being that these shifty monk characters build their monasteries inconveniently on the sides of mountains, I elect not to trust their cat either.
We decide not to walk to the next temple and instead seek out an appropriate city bus. Next on the list is Ginkakuji Temple which has a fascinating array of pools and Very Important Moss (like VIP). We also discover that these particular monks are fans of shrubbery and bamboo gardens. They have somehow managed to grow barbed wire as well but some mysteries (like backhoes) are best left to the monks and not investigated further by the unenlightened.
Again, we abandon the idea of walking between our destinations. The last temple of the day was perhaps the most famous temple in Kyoto, and my personal favorite. Kinkakuji Temple (not to be confused with Ginkakuji Temple) is plated in gold leaf, hence my preference. On our way out of this last gilded temple, we buy some choco-balls out of a vending machine and consume the individually wrapped ice cream treats on our way down stairs, our new favorite thing in the world.
We take a bus back to Kyoto station, and then catch a train back to Osaka. We wander the streets again, this time, not entirely as lost as the night before and stumble across what appears, at least to me, to be another El Pancho Restaurant. Brandon keeps the secret to himself that this is in fact the same restaurant as the night before, failing to enlighten me, until I notice how strikingly similar the writing is on the wall. He enjoys a good laugh at my expense. I order only a single quesadilla this night, and leave quite fulfilled. However, the aforementioned hot Australian women were conspicuously absent tonight. On the other hand, Brandon fell in love with the combination Japanese hostess/waitress in attendance. In his mind, they almost married, and are already working on making babies, after he gets a vasectomy.
I pick up a 1.5 liter bottle of Coca-Cola for dinner on the way back to the hotel. We then engage in a particularly heated discussion on the English language, invent a word, see the new Webster Dictionary entry on “beenarkwak,” and begin to apply computer science definitions to verbs and nouns and totally demolish the speaking population of the world.
To be continued...