Kyoto- Shrines, Temples, and Castles!, Honshu

Kyoto is a city full of shrines, temples and is shrouded in history. This is not your 250 year history we have going in the States. We were walking in buildings that were made in the 13th century! Elegance seems to be an appripo word to describe just about everything we saw.

Our first historic landmare was a Zen Buddhist temple called Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion). I often think of gold plated (or fo-golden) buildings or statues as kinda gaudy, but this was CERTAINLY not the case here. Located in the middle of a lake, it's beauty almost demanded your appreciation and awe. The water was so still that the reflection in the lake could easily be mistaken for the real thing. It was pretty hard to take a bad picture of this place.

As beautiful as the temple was, our highlight of the place had nothing to do with Zen Buddhism. While we were taking in the view, 2 Japanese girls came up to us, waved their camera and said "together?" At first, we thought that they were asking us to take a picture of them, but then we figured out that they wanted a picture, not with the temple, but with the Americans they found! When they giggled away, Mike turned to me and said, "that just happened." Yeah!

Next, we walked down towards two other nearby UNESCO sites. The first one was closed (Poo), so we went to the Old Imperial Palace called Ninna-Ji. It has a 5 story shrine with a ray-gun-looking-thing on top. It also had a wicked cool garden. We read that one of the values of Zen gardens is that there is a depth to a seemingly simple landscape. As you move through the garden/palace, the same thing takes on completely different beautiful views of the same thing. A bush, pond, tree building rooftop, and walkway all seem to become new even though you know you just saw the same thing a moment ago. It was a photographer's (ie, Mike) paradise.

That night we took in the city and had a ball searching for the best tea set or ninja outfit. It's great to be in such a vibrant city at night. We never know what was around the next corner and it gave us such a good reason to explore! One turn ended us in a Korean resturant (though we didn't know it was a Korean resturant until we were sitting down) in the basement of a large building. The Korean roll brought back childhood memories for Mike; he made that satisfied life-is-good face at the first bite. Now, this is the second time in Japan that we were supposed to cook our food at the table. Yeah, we didn't know what to do. Thank goodness the kind waitress (who spoke great English) assisted us and didn't even make fun of those silly Americans (at least to our faces). The waitress really was nice and even slipped us a free ginger ale and Korean sake! I love how even eating is an adventure!