The Travels Continue
We got to Kyoto on Christmas Eve, where we had booked two nights at a no-frills business hotel in a convenient area. We went to see arguably Kyoto's most famous attraction, Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple. I had read Mishima's "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" in high school but didn't realize that the plot was actually based on real events, and that a perverted fanatic really did burn down the temple in 1950. It was an interesting place to walk around, a bright crisp winter morning, etc. We had Christmas Eve dinner at a pretty good Indian place, then went back to the hotel for Christmas Cake, hot chocolate w/ brandy and It's a Wonderful Life on tv.
The next day we went to Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shrine complex dedicated to the FOX, with tons of fox statues looking rather menacing actually. This was probably my favorite place in Kyoto. We saw a Shinto ceremony going on, and we went on a long walk through the hills around the shrines. The paths were covered in red torii gates, each of which was inscribed with its donor's name and date it was donated. There weren't that many people around, so it felt very peaceful. I even got up the courage to drop in a donation at one shrine and ring the big ol' bell. As we meandered around, we found another cluster of shrines which all seemed to be frog-related, there were a bunch of very somber and dignified looking frog statues.
Then we went to Ryoanji (The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon) which is much heralded as having this amazing Zen rock garden. Admission was a little steep and I had heard so much about this garden that I was really surprised when I saw how small it was! Mona Lisa syndrome I guess. It was about as big as..I dunno...a classroom. It was rectangular, with these interesting low, oil-stained metal walls around it. There were three big rocks in it, with some smaller rocks clustered here and there. The total number of rocks was 13, I think. The brochure, instead of expounding on the significance of the site, simply said that it was up to every visiter to divine the garden's significance for themselves. So Tristan and I came up some ideas...later finding out that the alignment of the garden is supposed to SUBCONSCIOUSLY evoke the architecture of the buildings behind it. Hmmmmm. So zen right now.
The next morning we went to the airport as soon as the subway started running, for our flight to Hong Kong.
More on the travellin' later. But I'll end up with office anecdote of the day. The rice cooker in my apartment was all kinds of fucked up when I first got here. And since Joto has a budget to buy stuff for me, I asked for a new one :) The clause was that each item they bought had to be worth just under 100 dollars (10000 yen). I was like "no way they're gonna buy me a 100 dollar rice cooker!" but they did! And when I asked my superviser what was so special about it that it cost so much, since there were so many other cheaper options...she just smiled and said in all seriousness "maybe...very delicious rice". So it was delivered today and when I took it out of its box so that they could affix the official "This belongs to Joto high school not to you so you better take care of it, dumbass" sticker to it, the whole office started crowding around to ooh and ahh. They were calling it "cute" and making jokes about how I had to invite them all over to my house for a "rice party!!!". Then the imposing vice principal with the insanely out of control eyebrows who I've probably seen smile once in 6 months butted his way to the front of the crowd and began gesticulating wildly. He gestured taking rice out of the cooker with his hand and forming it into shapes. Then he nodded authoritatively and conclusively and then strode away, as my superviser tittered nervously and said "now you have to make sushi for the whole office."
So yeah, this better be one hell of a rice cooker...
The next day we went to Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shrine complex dedicated to the FOX, with tons of fox statues looking rather menacing actually. This was probably my favorite place in Kyoto. We saw a Shinto ceremony going on, and we went on a long walk through the hills around the shrines. The paths were covered in red torii gates, each of which was inscribed with its donor's name and date it was donated. There weren't that many people around, so it felt very peaceful. I even got up the courage to drop in a donation at one shrine and ring the big ol' bell. As we meandered around, we found another cluster of shrines which all seemed to be frog-related, there were a bunch of very somber and dignified looking frog statues.
Then we went to Ryoanji (The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon) which is much heralded as having this amazing Zen rock garden. Admission was a little steep and I had heard so much about this garden that I was really surprised when I saw how small it was! Mona Lisa syndrome I guess. It was about as big as..I dunno...a classroom. It was rectangular, with these interesting low, oil-stained metal walls around it. There were three big rocks in it, with some smaller rocks clustered here and there. The total number of rocks was 13, I think. The brochure, instead of expounding on the significance of the site, simply said that it was up to every visiter to divine the garden's significance for themselves. So Tristan and I came up some ideas...later finding out that the alignment of the garden is supposed to SUBCONSCIOUSLY evoke the architecture of the buildings behind it. Hmmmmm. So zen right now.
The next morning we went to the airport as soon as the subway started running, for our flight to Hong Kong.
More on the travellin' later. But I'll end up with office anecdote of the day. The rice cooker in my apartment was all kinds of fucked up when I first got here. And since Joto has a budget to buy stuff for me, I asked for a new one :) The clause was that each item they bought had to be worth just under 100 dollars (10000 yen). I was like "no way they're gonna buy me a 100 dollar rice cooker!" but they did! And when I asked my superviser what was so special about it that it cost so much, since there were so many other cheaper options...she just smiled and said in all seriousness "maybe...very delicious rice". So it was delivered today and when I took it out of its box so that they could affix the official "This belongs to Joto high school not to you so you better take care of it, dumbass" sticker to it, the whole office started crowding around to ooh and ahh. They were calling it "cute" and making jokes about how I had to invite them all over to my house for a "rice party!!!". Then the imposing vice principal with the insanely out of control eyebrows who I've probably seen smile once in 6 months butted his way to the front of the crowd and began gesticulating wildly. He gestured taking rice out of the cooker with his hand and forming it into shapes. Then he nodded authoritatively and conclusively and then strode away, as my superviser tittered nervously and said "now you have to make sushi for the whole office."
So yeah, this better be one hell of a rice cooker...