Tuesday 10th April Had breakfast at 8.30 – cornflakes, pancakes and orange juice,
¥1050.
Then I walked with Paul and Heather to
Ginkakuji Shrine, which is on the side of a hill with the edge of a forest
behind it. There’s a lot of moss on the slopes; piles of sand represent
famous lakes in China
and are designed to reflect moonlight onto the buildings. There is the usual
pond. The street leading up to the high-hedged entrance is lined with souvenir
shops and the area has a peculiar European Alpine village air to it.
We walked another
few kilometers in the direction of Heian Shrine, stopping to buy a bag of
mandarins, which were nice and seedless.
Many of the streets in Kyoto are narrow and there are fewer tall
buildings than you’d expect, but more bicycles and motorcycles. The little
shops in the streets are that – not much room to move about in and the doorways
force one to stoop.
We finally made it to the Heian Shrine to take
pictures of the torii from the other side and then went to the Kyoto Municipal
Museum of Traditional Industry, which was very interesting, with an exhibition
of a traditional house and demonstrations of traditional industries, though I
don’t think tie weaving is all that traditional in Japan.
Then we caught a bus to the station – enter at
the rear, pay ¥140 as you go off.
From the Tower we decided to walk to Nijo Castle
but stop to have lunch on the way. To be specific, at Kirowashi [probably Kurowashi, really], another coffee
place. I had Dried Pilaf (fried rice, egg, cocktail frankfurter and vegetables)
and a Soda Float (lime), all for ¥950.
Then we made our way once again to Nijo
Castle, going over overhead pedestrian walkways, going into a roofed, or
indeed, as some say, roved, street market (an ordinary street covered with a
skylight roof – lots of people and bicycles and a few cars); then up one of
the many narrow low-housed streets of Kyoto to come finally to the Castle moat.
Outside the entrance were a whole lot of buses for a whole lot of school kids.
Some like to stick their heads out the window and say ‘hello, hello’, but only
if the window is open.
We paid the entrance fee (¥500, I think) and
went inside. The Castle is surrounded by a moat and a wall made of massive
granite blocks. Inside the outer walls are two palaces. One is surrounded by a
normal Japanese wall and the other, the Honmaru Palace,
is surrounded by another moat and huge-blocked wall. In one corner is the site
of the castle tower which I imagine was much taller that it is now, but it
still has an impressive view of what you can see from the site of the castle
tower.
 |
| Nijo Castle, with Honmaru in the centre, and Ninomaru at the bottom. |
Within both palaces’ walls are landscaped
gardens. The castle is a place where you should spend quite a while, especially
inside the Eastern palace which, as far as I can see, is nameless (on my map of
it) [Ninomaru Palace]. It is open to visitors but you have to take your shoes off to get the full
effect of the Nightingale bolts (oh, yes, remind them of the cuckoo pedestrian
light). When you are walking along the passageways towards the Shogun’s room,
the floor boards squeak like the singing of nightingales, so that the Shogun
and his bodyguards would know if anyone was approaching because of the
nightingale-like singing of the boards.
The rooms of the palace, like in other
Japanese houses, are on raised platforms above the passageways (some which
‘sing’ like nightingales. See above.) In fact, they are quite large, with big
paintings and sliding screens. A lot of gold paint/leaf. Some of the paintings
are attributed to Tanyu Kano (1602-1674) and his school. The floors of the room
are bematted [tatami] and there is hardley (an
interesting spelling of the word) any furniture except maybe a few cushions.
There are mannequins of a shogun, his generals, ladies in waiting and a
pageboy. There was a sign saying that the were bodyguards behind a betassled
sliding screen but I don’t know if there were mannequins for them or not.
Being in a slight hurry, we caught a bus from
Marutamachi-dori St to the Kitano Shrine, which place we had heard there were
lots of early sakura bloom. There wasn’t really but inside the entrance were a
lot of red and white striped side-stall type tents that weren’t very busy. [Set up for cherry-blossom viewing parties, presumably.]
Inside the temple itself there were signs of a tea ceremony taking place, and a
lady playing a sweet tune on of those stringed instruments [koto]. This place was a bit disappointing and
smaller than we had expected.
We then went to Kinkaku-ji Temple, on which Ginkaku-ji was copied.
It is right luvly, but unfortunately because
of the time of day and all the trees, the light wasn’t very good for taking
photographs. I bought a booklet and some postcards there.
Decided it was high time we got back to the
hotel. We caught a bus. Kathryn and Ian were already on it. Back at the hotel I
wrote more of this blasted contraption, then went downstairs for dinner. I
stopped to chat with the Milehams, then along came Arthur (there were also some
New Zealanders at one time but I can’t remember who). But I was getting
hungrier and hungrier so I went down to Roly, the pancake shop. Elly, Jane and
Dee were there after having gone to Hiroshima
for the day, and were just finishing their meal. It must have been interesting. Hiroshima, I mean. Well, they said it was.
I had a Stroubrry pancake which cost ¥500, I think.
Upstairs to pack for the morrow – the suitcase
had to be in the lobby to be taken to Tokyo.
Watched some of the Grammy awards on TV.
Ah, yes, the Pedestrian lights at some major
intersections don’t go ‘beep, beep, beep… wheeee … bip-bip-bip-bip’ like what
they do in Northbourne Avenue. They either sound like a cuckoo or some other
bird happily chirruping away. It was hard to figure out what the noise came
from at first – I was looking around for a digital clock saying it was 10
o’clock.
Paid the
Bill, the Frank and also the Cyril. ¥14, 830
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