Follow the Path of Philosophy...

Thursday, April 6, 2006
As we awoke in our ryokan, our bodies were absolutely as stiff as a board from our thin futons. We were a bit nervous about our breakfast after our dinner experience.

Our maid (I’m not sure what else to call them, so I guess that works.) arrived promptly at 7:30 with our breakfast. This time, the meal was a little bit better than the night before, but not my cup of tea. Al enjoyed it a bit more than I did, since he likes the more savory soup and fish and rice breakfast, whereas if you give me a bowl of cereal, that’s all I really need.

We finished up our meal, and made our way to the next hotel-Hotel Brighton. Since we were there too early to check in, we made fast friends with the concierge asking for recommendations before our 1:00 pm tour. She recommended a walk along the Path of Philosophy, which is adorned by beautiful cherry trees and lined by temples and shrines all up and down the path.

The walk was about an hour and a half long, and worth every second. Kyoto is so peaceful-even with all of the tourists here for the cherry blossoms, the peace and tranquility just fills the air. We enjoyed our walk, stopping along the way to the little shops off of the path, as well as grabbing an ice cream along the way-green tea and cherry blossom swirl—delicious!! We stopped at a shrine or two intermittently, and did the traditional washing of the hands, swirling incense to our heads, bowing, clapping twice, bowing again. The sun was shining, and it was a perfect way to forget our ryokan experience, and embrace the Kyoto culture.

After our walk, we made our way to join the tour, but I got hungry to the point of grumpy, so we quickly found a little soba noodle place to grab a quick bowl of noodles before meeting up with the group.

We finally met up with our group, and as we were about to board the bus, we started talking to a couple-a British fellow named Jez (who looks like Quentin Tarrentino), and a Scot named Emma (who looks like British local celeb Lorraine Kelly).

Our first stop on the tour was the Heian Shrine, also featured in the movie Lost in Translation. This is a Shinto Shrine, dedicated to the first and last emperors that reigned from Kyoto, Emperor Kammu and Emperor Komei. Behind the shrine’s main building is a series of gardens, filled with beautiful weeping cherry trees, and little cement stepping stones, allowing you to walk across the ponds. Even packed with people, it was inspiring.

Our next stop was at a National Trasure, Sanjusangen-do, a Buddhist temple. The principal images of the temple are the 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity-made up of 1,000 standing statues, and 1 gigantic seated statue of Buddha (the National Treasure). The statues were almost eerie, but also hypnotic in the same sense.

Our final stop on the tour was the Kiyomizu Temple, a Buddhist temple built into a steep hillside with 139 giant pillars supporting part of its main hall. And it really is supported by these pillars-not a single nail can be found. One of the sayings in Kyoto is “I have jumped from the Kiyomizu”, which loosely translates into doing something a bit daring, or taking a chance. The view from the temple was beautiful as we looked over the peaceful city of Kyoto.

After our tour finished, we decided to grab drinks with our new British pals, Jez and Emma. We headed back to the area they were staying, and went up to the food court across the street from their hotel. Emma and I were feeling a bit picky-we needed a bit of a break from anything slimy, fried, or with noodles. We walked past a pizza place, and it just called our name. We decided that pizza and beer sounded too good to pass up, and Al and I were curious about how the Japanese prepared their pizza anyways.

I ordered a Margherita pizza and Jez and Emma ordered a sausage pizza, thinking it would be something like pepperoni, but what they got was little hot dogs cut up on their pizza. It wasn’t really bad, but quite funny. The next round of ordering went better-the pizzas were thin, and we were all hungry from a day on our feet, so we ordered a minced meat pizza, which was quite good.

After dinner, Al and I were setting in with perma-grin, and so we went to Emma and Jez’s hotel bar with them to continue drinking. Al and I had to be up early the next day for a tour, so we ended the night after one more round.

The next day-Kyoto by day, and the most blog-worthy food experience yet. Stay tuned!