Day Seven - Kyoto.
Jul. 27th, 2009 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sechan19And on the seventh day, she did not rest. In fact, she went the opposite direction and really took it just a wee bit too far.
But enough of that third-person shit.
I put Nijo Castle, Kitano Tenmangu, Kinkakuji, and Ryouanji on the same ambitious day schedule. And I managed to keep to that schedule, too. And though I took the train out to Nijo, I pretty much walked from there on out. (And it's, like, two-and-half miles from Nijo to Kinkakuji, yo. In the rain.) It seemed like a good idea at the time...
It rained on and off throughout the day, and for the most part I was outdoors. Really the only indoor part of my trip was in the Ninomaru Palace of Nijo Castle. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's back up a bit.
I walked to Nijo Castle from the JR Nijo Station, stumbling across the ancient imperial garden of Shinsen'en on the way. Shinsen'en was once the location of the eight enshrined goryo - potentially wrathful spirits of political exiles like Prince Sawara, Kibi no Makabi, and Sugawara no Michizane (more of him to come). Now it is the peaceful retreat of Zennyoryu'o, a female deity whose role I'm not quite certain of. When I stopped in there was a tv film crew, who appeared to be in the process of shooting some kind of documentary there. So I took a few discrete photos and then went on my way.
I arrived at Nijo Castle shortly thereafter and made my way inside. The exterior grounds are, of course, impressive. (This was the heavily fortified Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns, after all.) However, the real charm of Nijo lies in the interior decoration of the Ninomaru Palace. Talk about intricate. Practically every inch of available space is covered in sumptuous golden paintings of tigers, pines, peacocks, fans, and other assorted motifs designed to convey power, authority, wealth, and taste. Exquisite abstract patterns (also in gold) adorn the outer halls, and what wasn't painted was meticulously carved.
It's truly amazing. I was looking everywhere at once in an attempt not to miss a single trick, and I'm sure that I must have failed to catch certain things.
The exterior gardens are equally lovely, designed with the same kind of demonstrative calculation that the interior was. This was the official reception space of the shogun. He met with retainers, imperial messengers, and even once the emperor himself, in this space. Everything about it had to impress. And it does.
After Nijo, I walked up to Kitano Tenmangu - the official shrine of the deified form of Sugawara no Michizane (one of the aforementioned wrathful spirits). If you know me fairly well, you know that I wrote my Master's thesis on a 13th century handscroll (about the life, death, and posthumous revenge of Michizane) that is housed at the Kitano Tenmangu. Naturally, visiting this site was of the utmost importance to my trip.
I walked all about the space, taking copious photographs of the gates and shrine buildings. The main Kitano Shrine is surrounded by all kinds of smaller shrine spaces that are dedicated to various beneficial kami. In addition to Michizane, who is now revered as a god of learning and poetic skill, O-ushi-sama (a good-luck bearing cow) is also a prominent fixture of the space. (Incidentally, I bought a super-cute O-ushi-sama amulet for my cellphone. Kuro-tamago-chan is happy to have made a new friend.)
I found the purported shrine building of Tajiki no Ayako, the poor woman who supposedly first enshrined Michizane at Kitano - in deference to the oracle she received from him. The Ayako element of the Michizane legend is fascinating for all kinds of reasons that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that I'm far from done with her (academically speaking). I made a special point of entering her shrine to pray.
Kitano was really wonderful, but I was devastated to find the treasure house not open. Subsequent investigations revealed that it only opens once a month - on the 25th. Had I known that, I would have been there with bells on. But I just didn't do my homework well enough this time out. So I'll have to be back the next time the 25th falls on a weekend (which apparently is in October - thanks B!). At least I'll have the option to do that this coming year. I've reminded myself repeatedly that it could be worse, but I couldn't help feeling at the time that I was kind of 0 for 2 at that point (what with the Kyoto National Museum being a bust).
Anyway, after the shrine wandering I had a delicious lunch of Flower Fox Udon (hana kitsune udon). Flower Fox Udon differs from standard Fox Udon in the addition of sweet bean curd strips (the same that are used to wrap inari zushi) into the broth. It was so good. I couldn't believe it had taken me a week to get udon in Japan. For an opening course, I was served a tofu salad - fresh tofu with a vinaigrette of red peppers and basil - a specialty of the house. It, too, was marvelous.
I wound up the day with back-to-back visits to Kinkakuji and Ryouanji, which I'm not really going to go into detail about. They're both pretty standard art history musts. Kinkakuji is the site of the famous "golden pavilion," and Ryouanji boasts the world's most famous rock garden. Both were pretty darn cool in the flesh.
I took a bus and then a train home, because I was super beat (and because I'd been caught out in a rain storm... and I mean storm... at Ryouanji). When I got home, the French girl in my room - who I'd begun to make pretty good friends with, and whose name is Marine - invited me to join her and some others in a sushi dinner. I did, and it was a great time.
Altogether we were two Americans (one of us a Chinese-America... obviously, not me), two French, one British, and one from the Basque Region of Spain. A really fun mix. At the restaurant, the servers kept trying to communicate with the Chinese-American guy - because he was the one person who looked like he would speak Japanese - and I kept intervening - because I was the one person who actually could speak Japanese. (Actually, Marine speaks it, too, but I was the front man for some reason.)
We had tasty sushi-boat sushi, ice cold beers, and lots of conversation. Then we headed back to the hostel, stocked up on sake, and kept the party going until curfew. Have I mentioned how much I like the vibe in this hostel?
But enough of that third-person shit.
I put Nijo Castle, Kitano Tenmangu, Kinkakuji, and Ryouanji on the same ambitious day schedule. And I managed to keep to that schedule, too. And though I took the train out to Nijo, I pretty much walked from there on out. (And it's, like, two-and-half miles from Nijo to Kinkakuji, yo. In the rain.) It seemed like a good idea at the time...
It rained on and off throughout the day, and for the most part I was outdoors. Really the only indoor part of my trip was in the Ninomaru Palace of Nijo Castle. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's back up a bit.
I walked to Nijo Castle from the JR Nijo Station, stumbling across the ancient imperial garden of Shinsen'en on the way. Shinsen'en was once the location of the eight enshrined goryo - potentially wrathful spirits of political exiles like Prince Sawara, Kibi no Makabi, and Sugawara no Michizane (more of him to come). Now it is the peaceful retreat of Zennyoryu'o, a female deity whose role I'm not quite certain of. When I stopped in there was a tv film crew, who appeared to be in the process of shooting some kind of documentary there. So I took a few discrete photos and then went on my way.
I arrived at Nijo Castle shortly thereafter and made my way inside. The exterior grounds are, of course, impressive. (This was the heavily fortified Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns, after all.) However, the real charm of Nijo lies in the interior decoration of the Ninomaru Palace. Talk about intricate. Practically every inch of available space is covered in sumptuous golden paintings of tigers, pines, peacocks, fans, and other assorted motifs designed to convey power, authority, wealth, and taste. Exquisite abstract patterns (also in gold) adorn the outer halls, and what wasn't painted was meticulously carved.
It's truly amazing. I was looking everywhere at once in an attempt not to miss a single trick, and I'm sure that I must have failed to catch certain things.
The exterior gardens are equally lovely, designed with the same kind of demonstrative calculation that the interior was. This was the official reception space of the shogun. He met with retainers, imperial messengers, and even once the emperor himself, in this space. Everything about it had to impress. And it does.
After Nijo, I walked up to Kitano Tenmangu - the official shrine of the deified form of Sugawara no Michizane (one of the aforementioned wrathful spirits). If you know me fairly well, you know that I wrote my Master's thesis on a 13th century handscroll (about the life, death, and posthumous revenge of Michizane) that is housed at the Kitano Tenmangu. Naturally, visiting this site was of the utmost importance to my trip.
I walked all about the space, taking copious photographs of the gates and shrine buildings. The main Kitano Shrine is surrounded by all kinds of smaller shrine spaces that are dedicated to various beneficial kami. In addition to Michizane, who is now revered as a god of learning and poetic skill, O-ushi-sama (a good-luck bearing cow) is also a prominent fixture of the space. (Incidentally, I bought a super-cute O-ushi-sama amulet for my cellphone. Kuro-tamago-chan is happy to have made a new friend.)
I found the purported shrine building of Tajiki no Ayako, the poor woman who supposedly first enshrined Michizane at Kitano - in deference to the oracle she received from him. The Ayako element of the Michizane legend is fascinating for all kinds of reasons that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that I'm far from done with her (academically speaking). I made a special point of entering her shrine to pray.
Kitano was really wonderful, but I was devastated to find the treasure house not open. Subsequent investigations revealed that it only opens once a month - on the 25th. Had I known that, I would have been there with bells on. But I just didn't do my homework well enough this time out. So I'll have to be back the next time the 25th falls on a weekend (which apparently is in October - thanks B!). At least I'll have the option to do that this coming year. I've reminded myself repeatedly that it could be worse, but I couldn't help feeling at the time that I was kind of 0 for 2 at that point (what with the Kyoto National Museum being a bust).
Anyway, after the shrine wandering I had a delicious lunch of Flower Fox Udon (hana kitsune udon). Flower Fox Udon differs from standard Fox Udon in the addition of sweet bean curd strips (the same that are used to wrap inari zushi) into the broth. It was so good. I couldn't believe it had taken me a week to get udon in Japan. For an opening course, I was served a tofu salad - fresh tofu with a vinaigrette of red peppers and basil - a specialty of the house. It, too, was marvelous.
I wound up the day with back-to-back visits to Kinkakuji and Ryouanji, which I'm not really going to go into detail about. They're both pretty standard art history musts. Kinkakuji is the site of the famous "golden pavilion," and Ryouanji boasts the world's most famous rock garden. Both were pretty darn cool in the flesh.
I took a bus and then a train home, because I was super beat (and because I'd been caught out in a rain storm... and I mean storm... at Ryouanji). When I got home, the French girl in my room - who I'd begun to make pretty good friends with, and whose name is Marine - invited me to join her and some others in a sushi dinner. I did, and it was a great time.
Altogether we were two Americans (one of us a Chinese-America... obviously, not me), two French, one British, and one from the Basque Region of Spain. A really fun mix. At the restaurant, the servers kept trying to communicate with the Chinese-American guy - because he was the one person who looked like he would speak Japanese - and I kept intervening - because I was the one person who actually could speak Japanese. (Actually, Marine speaks it, too, but I was the front man for some reason.)
We had tasty sushi-boat sushi, ice cold beers, and lots of conversation. Then we headed back to the hostel, stocked up on sake, and kept the party going until curfew. Have I mentioned how much I like the vibe in this hostel?
