Temples, Tea and Geisha Hunting in Kyoto

Catching the scarily fast Shinkasen (bullet train) to Kyoto, we arrive in this beautiful city of temples, tea ceremonies and Geishas.

 

Temples

There are reportedly over 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines in Kyoto so with only a couple of days here, we had to prioritise which ones to visit.

 

First up was the Kennin-ji Zen Buddhist temple which is one of the most important temples in Kyoto.  I must admit, the most amusing part was John trying to squeeze in the little red shoes that we were required to wear within the temple.

 

Next up was the Fushimi Inari Shrine which is consists of 10,000 stunning orange Tori gates that arch a path up a steep hill.  This shrine which is dedicated to the god of rice is stunning and I particularly liked the bronze foxes guarding the site who were sporting very fetching red bibs!

 

Next temple was Sanjusangendo, which is an amazing Buddhist temple that contains 1001 shrines of Kannon -t he Buddhist God of Mercy and looks like a Buddhist version of the terracotta warriors.  It is housed in Japan’s longest wooden building of 394 feet long. Unfortunately, no photos were permitted in the building and severe warnings threatened that cameras would be seized so we quickly hid ours away.

The most stunning temple of all was the Golden Temple.  We were first in the queue for opening time and stood as close to the huge wooden doors as possible to preserve our place in the front of the queue.  At opening time, we were primed to run to the ticket office as quickly as possible and then head to the temple to take our photos prior to the hordes of tourists behind us getting there to spoil our view!  We made it and it was worth it because as we turned to corner we were stunned by the beauty of this temple.  We have seen many beautiful temples throughout the world but this truly is the most beautiful yet.

Tea Ceremony

The tea ceremony is one of Japan's traditional cultural practices, and experiencing the tea ceremony feels like a spiritual and mindful experience which is not surprising given the link
between the tea ceremony and Zen Buddhism.  I inadvertently (Eva) managed to sit in the positon of “Main Guest” which meant that the tea was presented to me for tasting.  Each step of the process has significance and we watched in silence the various stages of tea preparation including the preparation of the utensils, pouring of the water, mixing the tea, offering of the tea to main guest (me) and clearing up of the utensils Then it was time for us to have a go at mixing the green matcha powder with water to make our own cup of frothy tea.  We were even instructed on the process of drinking the tea which involves holding the cup in the left hand, turning it twice to the right, drinking tea making sure to slurp loudly at the end to show that the tea is finished and appreciated and then turning the cup back to the centre.  We came out of the tea ceremony feeling as relaxed as if we had meditated for an hour. Clearly a very Zen experience!

 

Geisha Hunting

Having just finished reading “Memoirs of a Geisha”, I was intrigued to see that the Gion district of Kyoto, with its narrow streets and wooden buildings looked just as I imagined it would from the book even though the book was set several decades ago.  Yes, Geishas do still exist and to set the record straight, they are not prostitutes as often thought but are professional entertainers who are trained in the various traditional Japanese arts such as music, dancing and the art of conversation.  Trainee Geishas are referred to as Maikos and fully trained professional Geishas are known as Geikos. Geishas are single women aged anywhere between 18 and 90.  In fact we think we spotted the 90-year-old Geisha!  The art of Geisha spotting begins after dark.  We soon learnt that they can walk amazingly fast in what is a restrictive outfit. We had watched many young people struggle to walk in traditional costume so the amazing speed of movement was impressive and made getting a photo problematic. This was not helped by the fact that they only surface as daylight dimmed thus making photo’s more difficult and creating amazing distortions. Was it the camera or are Geishas really mystical beings?