Well by that I could be referring to two ancient capitals really: Kyoto which was the emperor's capital for about 1000 years prior to 1868 and Nara which was the capital even before that. To which I can then say, we went to both! After an early start and then two and a half hours on the shinkansen (yay shinkansen!) we arrived in Kyoto to check in to our snazzy hotel. (Our/ we/ us actually refers to Kevin and I because for the first time ever Kevin went on a trip with me on his own accord lol.) After we went back to the station to take a train to the Fushimi Inari shrine but after running around in circles looking for the right train we settled on one that was apparently an express, kinda missed our stop, didn't care much, and right on to Nara for the afternoon!
Nara was chilly but sunny enough and in good spirits to be off trains, we trucked down the road towards the temples stopping only to buy a strawberries to snack on. When I was last in Nara, nearly five years ago, it was at the end of a long trip and I hardly appreciated it the way I did this time. The sunlight streaming over the red capped jizo statues shadowed only by the swaying trees and a three story pagoda, the massive five story pagoda that dwarfed the mountains in the background, the hungry deer that attacked as soon as we collected cookies for them, the ginormous Todaiji Temple that gave me vertigo just looking up at it and the big bronze Buddha within who's hand alone is as tall as Kevin. It was rather brilliant to see it again. Often when we recall things in our minds they are not nearly as beautiful or big as we remember. This was! Even though it wasn't my first time I gasped at it's size and wandered about the temple dizzying myself for my eyes were locked on it's marvelous sculpture.
Of course as much fun as getting there was, the return trip was bloody cold and a little painful but we comforted ourselves knowing we had a good dinner before us! I'd found a T.G.I Fridays on the map and that was our last destination of the day. It turned out it no longer existed. All the cold tiresome trekking for nothing... ;_; so we went to Burger King. Forgive us! We were half starved and shaking in the cold and it was the first thing around. After that it was home to the hotel and sleep.
The next morning we had an equally healthy breakfast at McDonald's and then hit the crowded buses to finally make it to Fushimi Inari shrine. It was really beautiful and the sky was clearish with the sun doing it's best to keep us warm. As per usual, I didn't make it to the top, through all two thousand gates, but rather made it to my favourite little village of fox shrines, the pond and the secondary shrine. There are really not many words to describe the magic of it. The sun was casting dappled shadows on the torii gates and the smell of incense wafted in the air for the candles that burned in the little shrines built right into the forest so that it looked as if over the time they had grown from the earth instead of the earth reclaiming them. It really is one of my favourite shrines, next to Itsukushima on Miyajima of course! I think, for a shrine, even Kevin enjoyed himself. We took a different route down the mountain passing hundreds of more little fox shrines and one frog shrine! The trees were all leafy and green despite the season and on that side of the mountain there were less people so it was as if this whole little magical country of shrines was ours to explore. It really made me feel in a land of fables.
After the shrine we hiked up to another bus stop, (how my feet hate expeditions like this) and caught a bus to Kiyomizudera. Again it was a battle of crowds but we eventually surfaced at the top of this slope at the temple. The temple was built by Tokugawa Iemitsu in the 1600s and takes it's name from the water fall off the slops which translates as 'clear water.' It was too busy to drink from this time but last time Rhee and I chose one of the three foutains and drank from it, unknowing if it would improve our love lives, wisdom or strength. This time we merely strolled around, avoiding the crowds when possible to take detours through little paths with ponds and empty sakura trees. In the end as we were leaving I captured a shot of a traveling pilgrim that really inspired me with a back ground of the vermilion gate and pagoda.
From the temple we followed the old fashion streets down to the famous Yasaka pagoda, one of the landmarks of Kyoto, and went inside! This experience was over priced and brief but now I know what the inside of a pagoda looks like and 400 yen was a good price to satisfy my curiosity! It turn out it's just a very narrow tall place with lots of ladder leading up the layers surrounding a thick pillar in the centre to which at the bottom is a simple altar. So satisfied! Apparently the pagoda was maybe erected by Prince Shotoku, who is credited to bringing Buddhism to Japan but burned down a couple of times. The current structure was rebuilt by the 6th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate in the 1400s! On the way down the streets from it there was a young bride and groom getting their wedding photos before it, they were gorgeous and at the foot of the streets crossing from the modern world into the past were three geisha!
The next part of the trip was quite painful. We made it to the bus stop but it was so crowded that when we tried to get off at our stop I somehow missed the doors and the evil bus driver shut them in my face and refused to open them even when traffic brought us to a complete stop. We were trying to get to the golden pavilion by closing time and this detour (for he eventually dropped us off at a stop ten minutes later and made it impossible to catch the next bus) cost us going to see it that day. Instead, I looked up the area and found we were close to Mibu Temple. Mibu Temple was the most important of the Shinsengumi head quarters in Japan. The Shinsengumi were this really cool group of samurai that rose from the lower class and poverty to be some of the strongest loyalists to the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1860s. They were strict about Bushido, the samurai's code, and protecting their honour with moral acts but they could be harsh and decisive and those who did not follow the code were committed to ritual suicide. Regardless, I'm a huge admirer of their plight even though their legacy ends in tragedy for they were defeated in Hokkaido at the end of the samurai era. Besides the temple there was this little garden island across a bridge that lead to a monument of Kondo Isami, their leader, and in the pond was a beautiful brass dragon. Going to the temple where they trained, discussed and lived was incredible made even more so by the best omiyage ever: a shinsengumi mameshiba!!! Life is complete!
In the failing light we had missed all the closing times and nothing was left to do but find dinner. The bus dropped us off by this really narrow alley all lit up with lanterns that advertised delicacies of Kyoto. We settled for a very nontraditional but fun and cheap izakaya where we ate and drank our pains away and eventually headed home to bed again.
Monday morning was our last day but we had enough time before the shinkansen to check out Kinkakuji and because after that we had enough time, we went to Nijo castle as well. Monday was a bit less crazy busy and the buses were running faster which was a nice change, we even got a seat, as we crossed town to northern Kyoto. Nestled in the hills and then a pleasant stroll garden is the golden pavilion. It was originally built sometime around the early 1400s by the third Ashikaga shogun as a retirement villa and was converted into a zen capital after his death according to his wishes. Apparently some young monk burned it down in 1950 when he wasn't of sound mind so the current structure is sadly a reconstruction but it's still very beautiful. As we left I noticed for the first time (perhaps because the other two times it's been summer and there was too much greenery) the 大 on the side of the hill. The kanji means big or great and is one of several characters burned into the hillside at the end of summer for the Obon festival. It was pretty cool.
Last stop was Nijo castle in central Kyoto. Once the place of residence for the Tokugawa shoguns when they went to Kyoto it eventually became the place where the last of them, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned and thus ended the bakufu government and restored power to the emperor. It was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1601 and later fortified with a main castle keep that then burnt down. Still on the grounds is the main palace, complete with nightingale floors that sing like birds when walked on, a few guard towers, the stone walls and gates, garden and moat. An imperial palace is also on the grounds and after the property was confiscated from the Tokugawa the Imperial family made a villa of it for a while, at least until the capital moved to Tokyo soon after the fall of the shogunate. But as far as my experiences, it was as beautiful as I remembered, although I missed the warm wind and soft grass that Nikki and I spent a long time relaxing in a few summers ago. It was interesting to go back with the knowledge I have now of Japanese history and know that it was in that palace that all of Japan changed.
Finally it was time to collect our bags from the hotel, grab lunch and then shinkansen it home to Tokyo. We rewarded our work well done by dinner at a T.G.I Fridays I knew existed, and thus the weekend came to a perfect close.
