Nijo Castle

We visited Nijo Castle on our second day in Kyoto, amid choruses of "Kawaii!" Nijo castle is very, very big. The sign outside said to allow an hour - but if you visit the castle with an adorable child and a throng of potential admirers, allow two hours. We had the good fortune to visit the castle while seven or eight school groups visited the castle. Locutus was on form, flashing his winning smile and charming the girls.

Fortunately, Nijo castle has several large gravel areas where our son could run and play. Mostly, he spent the time picking up rocks in one area of the castle and moving them to another area of the castle, whilst posing for pictures when a group of school girls passed by.

Eventually we were able to coax our son onto the rest of the tour. Nijo castle consists of the castle itself, which was really more of a sprawling palace with many rooms, each gorgeously painted to inspire envy in visiting dignitaries. The floors were the infamous 'nightingale' floors, designed to chirp when stepped upon and alert the castle staff to intruders.

After touring the castle, we moved onto the gardens and the palace. The palace, sadly, was not open to visitors. But the gardens surrounding the palace were quite lovely. Locutus spent an hour or more playing in the drain channels, attempting to climb the fences, and banging his head on the low hanging beams beneath the elevated decks. Successes all around.

The deep drain channels

Elevated deck that was mostly just above Locutus' head height

 

We climbed the stairs to a viewing platform that displayed the grounds and the myriad of autumn colours. We joined a flock of kimono clad school girls. We snapped photos of the castle foundations and bamboo garden. We were invited to a tea party but decided delicate china wasn't the best fit for our son. And afterwards we bought umeshu in the lobby. 

We'll chalk this adventure up as a success.

Eikando II.b

Looking back through our posts about our first trip, I'm realizing that we put very little detail into them. Probably because we were writing at internet cafe's and visitor info centres and were on a time limit. It was also not possible to really add pictures to those posts, so I'll throw a few of those in now for you.

On our first trip to Kyoto, we rented bikes the first day we were in the city and tried to find a few places like the Philosopher's Path.



Since I'm not a very good cyclist and was in a foul mood after having a run in with a wall (which I can now laugh about, instead of being embarrassed about) we ended up stopping before we found it and went in to the closest available temple. It turned out to be very cool despite the fact that it was under restoration. One of the things we wanted to do this time was find the temple again and see the artwork restored.

Because Lance is an awesome navigator, we actually found the temple quite easily. And discovered we were about 200 metres shy of the Philosopher's Path when we gave up on our first trip! (But that's ok as it probably would have done us in had we found it).

The first time through all of this was covered with scaffolding as they worked to bring back the original brilliance of the colours.

The temple also had a couple of other cool things like an awesome bell and the dragon walkway!

Eikando II

On our first visit to Kyoto, we stopped into Eikando temple for a visit. It was undergoing restoration at the time, a project undertaken by the local art college. Since Eikando was located between Ginkakuji and Kiyomizu-dera, we decided to drop by and see how the project went. There was also substantial construction underway during our first visit, which we assumed was related to the restoration, but turned out to be an elevator installation for better accessibility.

 

The updated colours inside the building were splendid!  The project was not entirely finished, causing us to wonder if the temple ran out of money, or if the semester ended and the "Eikando restoration 101" course was not offered the following term. We were asked not to take photos of the interior, and in an unusual display of compliance, we complied.

 

 

 There is probably a proper name for these aside from sand art.

The new elevator 

Some of the updated paint on the outside

 

A shot of Eikando from the topmost building

The garden

Honen-in Shrine

The path to Honen-in was marked with signs, undoubtably warning travellers that certain doom was ahead and to avoid the area at all costs. Undaunted, we marched onward up the modestly steep hill and well paved road.

 

Clearly a trap 

 

 

 Reaching the temple grounds, we were confronted by a horrifying immaculate and clearly marked cobble-stone path. The warm weather and temperate breeze did little to calm our nerves.

 

 



 

Not-quite murder stones

Along side the path were grave markers, no doubt the savage tally of others foolish enough to venture to deep. We wandered through the rows and rows of tombstones, reflecting on the path ahead of us. Though we could not read the strange pictographs on the headstones, we realized that these must be fallen adventurers. Adventurers, like ourselves, led like flies to the... GAH! Spider guardians!

Grave site

Spider guardians!

 

 

We fled the graveyard and ventured forth to the inner sanctum of Honen-in.  There was no admission charge for the temple, and it featured several well laid-out (if short) walking paths, a small pond, and several buildings that were closed to the public. There were a few guests along side ourselves. The grounds were very tranquil and shaded, no doubt designed to lure victims into a false sense of security. After a brief tour of the grounds, we hastened away before certain doom could befall us. But not before snapping a few more pictures of the more sinister features.

 

The main gate

 Sand art

Sand art

 



 

 Twisted trees? That's a sign of unequivocal evil

Evil red berries adorned the path

Well groomed paths are the sign of evil arborealists

Evil pond!

Macabre rain chain!

In our haste to depart, we forgot to hurl our child at the danger. It seems we'll have to carry him around a while longer.



Souvenir Shopping and other Random Things

I think that with this latest trip, we have officially purchased at least one of every stereotypical Japanese souvenir that exists. Just like Pokemon, you gotta catch 'em all, right? The challenge to you, dear readers, is to name a souvenir in the comments, if you think we haven't got it yet. Go ahead, I dare you!

We have also finally bought some things for Locutus.  So long as the items are clearly for him, he gets the same duty-free allowance that we do. So I'm trying to carefully keep track of which expenses are going under each person.

Some other random details in a stream of consciousness fashion . . . we've finally arrived in Fukuoka for the sumo tournament. Sadly we were too late to get general admission tickets for the first day and we didn't want to spend $200 for tickets the first day, so we went back to our hotel room in order to watch on tv. It's going to be strange for us not to have sumo in the background in the evenings during this sumo tournament.

We believe we've found a solution to posting photos of Locutus on a public forum. Stay tuned!

Some 'mommy' thoughts . . . I'm noticing quite a bit of baby-wearing so far. Mostly it's soft-sided carriers and lots of Ergo's - yay! Their Ergo's seem to be a bit more fancy than ours. Different colours and patterns on the interior so it looks good even when it's hanging down and the baby isn't in it. Plus, most of them make extensive use of the hood so it's always hanging out. Babies are bundled ridiculously, just like their parents are (seriously, toques even if it's over 10 Celsius!). And I don't think I've seen more that 1 or 2 babies being worn on the back. I guess it's because Asian babies tend to be so much lighter than their Caucasian counterparts. A lot of people have guessed that Locutus is 2 already, because he walks so well and is so large.

Ok, a messy, stinky diaper is demanding my immediate attention. Good thing we're in our hotel instead of the sumo stadium!

The Philosopher's Path

While walking the Philosophers Path, I had a revelation. The path was named for its ability to bring clarity and focus. In particular, clarity and focus on where you put your feet, because those stones are pretty treacherous in places. The path culls the weak and unfocused mind, bodily removing the poor philosophers from the gene pool and leaving only the greats.

The Philosopher's Path

Murder stones

Beautiful colours abound to distract the weak

It also features crazy old men on bicycles that randomly accost travelers and exhort them to visit Honen-in shrine. It sounded like a trap. We readied Locutus in the baby carrier, prepared to toss him and flee the moment a threat appeared.

New Old In Kyoto - Ginkakuji

Kyoto is so chock full of temples and shrines it's easy to see something new every time you come. I thought I'd do some more detailed posts about some of the new old sites we're seeing during our time in Kyoto.

We'd seen Kinkakuji (Golden Pavillion) before and this time we really wanted to see Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion. The Golden Pavillion was named because it is actually covered in gold leaf (well, I'm not sure if they actually did that for the restoration, but it is gleamingly gold). So you'd think that the Silver Pavillion would be silver, right? Well, you'd be so very, very wrong. I believe it was named thusly to indicate that it was built during the great time after the Golden Pavillion. (Do you sense the innate hierarchy that is so prevalent in Asian culture?).

So we went up to the Silver Pavillion by bus since it is fairly towards the top of the map (which you'd think would be North, but it isn't.) On the way we got to do a bit of people watching on the bus. The particular route we were on ended in the foothills of the mountains, so when I saw a group of girls wearing parkas and big winter hats and serious looking boots with backpacks, I assumed they were on their way for an outdoor adventure.

The one sitting on the left also had awesome pink moustache earrings.

But they got off in the middle of the city. You see, temperatures between 10-20 Celsius apparently just call for that kind of clothing. Boy do I feel out of place in my t-shirt!

Anyway, the temple itself was gorgeous. It had a few very nice raked sand designs at the beginning and very nice ponds and such to walk around. We let Locutus loose on the path and he practiced going up and down the staircase a dozen times as other tourists admired and commented on how cute he was (you'll notice this quickly becomes a running theme of this trip). Since word descriptions can't really do it justice, here are a few photos . . . 

See? Not so silver.

Just like at Golden Pavillion there was a spot where people toss their coins and try to hit a target. It's for luck, I'm assuming. This time we all faced forward and there were also school boys attempting. And, just like last time, guess who hit it with a definitive 'click' on her first try? Oh yeah, that would be me. However, the boys were distracted by the cuteness of my baby so my coin tossing didn't receive the same chorus of appreciation.

My 10 yen coin is one of the ones on the right of the rock ;)

Incidentally, between Lance and I there are over 500 photos from this day. So, it'll take a while to sort, edit, upload, etc. There will be some of us uploaded to our Flickr site, though you won't be able to see ones with Locutus unless you are a friend/family contact on Flickr, or you ask very nicely for an emailed link.