Girls' weekend in Kyoto! (May 24-25)

As we walk out of the train station, Astro Boy is there to welcome us...That there is the Kyoto Tower (or is it the Seattle Space Needle?).
Anita and I stayed at a hostel called K's House, totally comfortable and clean.Red bean really dominates the snack food scene here. I mean, I realize this sorta-sweet stuff is popular all around Japan, but it seemed to be everywhere: inside green gluten balls, dipped in batter, sandwiched between two thin crunchy cookies, etc. We passed this lady making square red bean cakes on a grill on our way to Ginkaku-ji, our first tourist stop.
The approach to Ginkaku-ji was impressive, with the wide path of paving stones and the immense hedge.


Quite a build up. But when we finally get there, we learn that the main temple (the 'Silver Pavilion') is completely hidden under scaffolding (!). But OK, minor setback, it's all good, I'm still happy because I'm on a girls' weekend sans kids and nothing is going to bring me down. And anyway the grounds are lovely, with tall pines and a pond, and this little brook, with tree roots visible among the moss:
There was also this Zen garden featuring a Ginshadan, a bed of very small rocks meticulously groomed to represent water (the way it's raked indicates the direction of the current).
After we left Ginkaku-ji we walked down the "Path of Philosophy," a meandering trail that runs alongside a brook, through a quiet, mostly residential area. It was raining, but like Scotland, it would have been so much drearier if it wasn't so green. There were some small cafes and craft shops selling pottery or paper (I bought some postcard-size woodblock prints at one artist's shop) and some smaller shrines, like this one guarded by two lions...a monkey:
and a rat:
We had soba noodle soup with fried tofu for lunch at a place outside Nanzen-ji, a Zen temple and headquarters of the Rinzai sect. This is the San-mon, the main entrance gate, built in the early 1600s. There were loads of Japanese school children visiting that day.
Inside we climbed a flight of very steep steps, wet shoes in plastic bags, to get to the second-story balcony and look at the view.
Then we followed Lonely Planet's instructions on how to get to a place "overlooked by most visitors" (we're hardcore, even in bad weather). We started at the red-brick aqueduct by the subtemple of Nanzen-in...
...then hiked up a trail that took us up into the hills and to Oku-no-in, a lovely shrine-temple by a small waterfall.
Anita just reminded me that the best part was discovering all the smaller shrines along the way, the altars with small bud vases and a few candles and tiny piles of yen coins stuck into rocky crevices and among the tree roots. And up at the top of the path there was a wee shrine tucked inside a small cave. I made my way up onto a flat rock just below the cave, a spot where I could stand and look out over it all (and take the photo above), and, feeling all zen, managed to do a tree pose without toppling over.

As we turned around to head back down to the main road, we passed a man, a woman (you can see her praying in the photo above) and a kid on their way to the top, and then noticed that they had lit a candle or two at each shrine, and as it was approaching dusk, suddenly everything looked even prettier. It was the coolest thing we did that day.

This is one of the cleansing stations we passed on the way up (you're supposed to rinse your hands and mouth to purify them before praying).The cleansing station at Kiyomizu-dera, a major tourist stop we hit next, was much fancier.

I do not have good shots of the main hall, with its huge veranda, or of the crowd of Japanese tourists in matching yellow rain ponchos, taking turns drinking the sacred, purifying water piped in from a nearby waterfall called Otowa-no-taki. But here's one of Anita's shots of one of the pagodas there.
That night we went out to dinner and had yuba salad -- a soft delicately-flavored tofu, which Kyoto is known for, with greens and radish and other raw veggies in ginger-soy vinaigrette. We also had a fragrant vegetable soup and some salmon sashimi garnished with plum blossoms.

On Sunday morning, the skies were overcast but it wasn't raining (hooray!) so we took a 10-minute ride on the local train to Inari, home of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha, a cluster of shrines on the slopes of Mt. Inari. Thousands of torii (temple gates) mark the approach.In ancient times, Japanese farmers believed the fox to be a messenger for the god of harvests, or so I read, and many shrines in these parts are dedicated to the fox deity (called Inari, just like the town). There are stone fox statues all over the place. Some are small and covered in moss; others seem brand new and sport red bibs and are holding scrolls (like the one above, left). Here's two more shots of the gates (that's me in black with the big bag).
I stuck my camera out between two gates to get this shot from outside the passageway:
We then took to a walking path that runs beyond the temple grounds and through a bamboo forest.And beyond that, more shrines and temples and statues, like this one below, a Myo-o guide whose fearsome look is meant to frighten non-believers into accepting the teachings of Buddhism.
(An evil eye from this guy is definitely making me reconsider my Catholic upbringing. I can joke like this because my parents don't read my blog. They don't even pretend to read it. Becoming expert video-Skypers is enough for them I guess...) Anyway, I just loved this mossy one:
We returned to Kyoto and went straight to the Gion district, on the eastern bank of the Kamogawa river, distinctive (in some better preserved parts at least) for its narrow streets and old wooden teahouses draped with bamboo curtains. We strolled down Shirakawa Minami-dori, which is singled out by Lonely Planet as "arguably the most beautiful street in all of Asia, especially in the evening and during cherry-blossom season." Our timing was obviously way off (though I could see the potential).
It's around this area that you're supposed to be able to spot geisha as they head to their evening appointments, serving tea and otherwise entertaining men, or maiko, younger women who are in training. But that Sunday afternoon it was almost deserted. We did see one kimono-ed lady...

Expensive hair accessories are part of the uniform:
Anita asked a cute traffic cop for directions. We weren't really lost...For lunch we ducked into a random place and ended up, entirely by accident, having shrimp okonomiyaki. Anita thought she ordered a shrimp rice bowl -- she pointed to the plastic sample in the window -- but we didn't complain when the guy poured the batter onto the grill and we could see how tasty it would be. We ate at the counter next to a couple of old guys who were smoking and drinking and eating and trying to talk to us, even though I kept saying, "Gomen nasai, wakarimasen." (I'm sorry, I don't understand you.)

The owner/cooks happily posed for me:
There's our pancake, at an early stage; in the foreground you can see my neighbor's beer, ashtray and small dish of a sort of beef stew (which I had them serve to me as well).Now, sauce:
Seasoned, sectioned and ready to eat!