Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

How do you take enough pictures and enough video to capture the beauty of an entire country let alone a small county or even just a temple?
Phew. One long long day. I woke up at about 6AM and took a quick shower and headed out for my day of Kyoto sightseeing around 645am. Grabbed some breakfast at the Lawson convenience store and tried to catch the #205 Bus. I dont know why I constantly think that bus stops should be directly opposite each other on both sides of the street. Just something i picked up from college in AA, I guess. All the bus stops here in Kyoto at least are set at around the opposing corners of interesections. Took me like a few stops to figure that out.
This City Bus Map i got at the TIC the first day I was here with Gary and David was a real big help. Its got all the bus routes. Its a little confusing, but not after awhile. I just kinda wish they had the kanji written down so I could match it up with the digital signs at the front of the bus.
My plan today was to hit the Northwestern side of Kyoto then down to the western side of Kyoto and then come back to the central and then to the hotel in time for Shorinji Kempo practice.
I arrived at the Kinkakuji Area, The Golden Temple area, around 720am thinking for some stupid reason that they would be open..eventhough the Lonely Planet says 9am. I guess I got up early to get a head start on everything only to realize i got up too early. So, I walked around aimlessly looking at the entrance and exit and the stairs. Very pretty stairs. There were also old Japanese people doing some morning exercises there as well. Now, in Japan, since they dont have Taiji, they dont do really anything kool in the morning. Its not like they are doing Shotokan Karate or anything. So I just saw them trying to stretch and walking while swinging their arms big and wide...power walking. How I detest power walkers. There was a couple people power walking backwards. That was kinda funny. Now come to think of it, I think I did see a japanese woman doing some taiji. She was stepping down the gravel entrance pathway while doing what looked like a beginner`s attempt at "Parting the Wild Horse`s Mane"...thats a nice way of saying, "Knocking your opponent over and cracking his head on the pavement".
Around this time the people working there started to get annoyed at my intrusive white presence and they started bowing to me and were all like, "Good morning, Jackass, we open up at 9am. Thank you so very much, Jackass." So, I bowed and replied, "I`m sooo sorry for being a gaijin, i beg your forgiveness, please except my apologies. Thank you so very much. Good morning."
So, I sat down at a little pavillion thingy and i realized, Dude...I dont want to sit here for another 1.5 hours for this place to open. So I looked at my trusty walking tour map that I got from the TIC, good stuff. I compared the opening times for other places on this walking tour in the Lonely Planet Guide. RyoanJi opens at 8am. Sweet, it was 745am, so i powerwalked my patoot out of there.
As I was walking down the street I was seeing alot of school kids not in school. I was like, this must be field trip day or something.
I got to RyoanJi in about 20 minutes. This is the location of the very famous Zen Rock garden. The first of its kind apparently. You know, either I am not enlightened buddhistly or i dont have great design appreciation becuase, man, when I saw this site, i was like...this is it? This is what is so famous? What a rip. I found that the temple and the location that plays host to this sight were much more beautiful than that actual garden. I read something about the gardener...no one knew who he was. He made this garden and offered no explanation. He prolly did it as a joke and people took it wrong.
(Dont be calling me some ignorant yankee for not seeing the beauty its existence, it just didnt do anything for me. There was far more other things that I saw here that did it for me though. And no, it wasn`t McDonald`s.)
The area surrounding the rock garden was absolutely gorgeous though. Man, so many places in this country are so pretty. How do you take enough pictures and enough video to capture the beauty of an entire country let alone a small county or even just a temple. Its gotten to the point that I am like, why bother taking a picture, I cant duplicate its beauty. The dilemma of the ammateur artist.
So, I get into the RyoanJi. First major site is this pond filled with lillipads and a couple cranes. Then there was this little bridge leading out to a small island in the center that contained a micro Shinto shrine. Then on after that was to the Zen temple containing the famed, and my personal view of overrated, Zen Rock garden. There were some shoji sliding wall/doors that had paintings and such. The foliage around the temple was another sight all its self. Oh yeah, the temple`s architecture was pretty as well. It was around 845am so I started heading out. The walk back to the entrance was scerene and picturesque and I didnt know how to get video of it all. so pretty. So green. So relaxing.
I left and thats when the throngs of people started showing up. Well, not the throngs, but the older white women with too much make up on and baggy clothes. I hopped a taxi back to the Kinkakuji sight seeing area. I arrived got out and walked down the walkway and I got there just as they were swinging the doors open and allowing the hundreds of japanese tourists and schoolboys and girls that had lined up for entrance. I was impressed with the size of the crowd. Got my ticket and then headed in. When I saw the Golden Temple, I was just standing there awestruck. It was absolutely beautiful. Very amazing. For those of you that dont know what the golden temple is, it was a three storey villa that. after the owner died, was turned into a buddhist temple. The owner had completely covered the entire temple, starting at the second floor, in gold. It was...i cant really explain it. I stood there for about a minute before I got bumped into and then I scurried to find a spot to take pictures of the thing. I took a bunch. The stereotype of japanese people just taking pictures was in full effect. All i heard besides the pleasant cawing and scrapping of tourists was the snapping of lens shutters. I took lots of pictures of this temple. Then i followed the set path onto the other sights of the area. All the while as I walked thru the path, I was always pretty much just looking at the golden temple. Once we got out of view from it, I couldnt really see anything, the morning sun shining off the gold burnt my retinas. Not really.
The rest of the area was quite pretty as well. I tried to get fotos of everything kool. I headed out after about an hour. I went to the bus stop that I got off on. I took the bus to an exchange point and picked up another bus to go to the Arashiyama section of Kyoto...the Western area. This had another walking tour. A much longer one thru a monkey filled park, a giant bamboo forest, a bunch of forest nestled temples that were just awe striking. I think I went to like over 10 temples. It got to the point that after all those temples, I just didnt really go into any of the other three that were there. I mean, all the temples and shrines are pretty much all constructed in the same way. Its exactly the same thing in China. What is really cool, though, about seeing these temples is how they incorporate their construction with the immediate surroundings. And that is what I find so beautiful and amazing about these temples...the location. The last one I went to before not going into the others was the massive Nison-in temple system with an extensive graveyard set up. There was just no way to get pictures and videos of all the wonderful sites there. It also had a little lookout ledge up in the hillside that offered a gorgeous view of the city, however, there were too many trees in the way. I wanted them chopped down.
I left that temple system all happy. I ate at this little resturant on the path to the other temples. It was very yummy. I skipped the next 3 temples, but i did walk up to their gates to check their layouts, pretty much the same. So I headed onto the last one that was considerably different. The Adashino Nembutsuji. This is a temple that honors all the homeless, those with no next of kin, and poor souls who died with no one else caring for them. There were thousands of these little stones set up and a couple really extravagant buddha statues. Something I have noticed alot in these temples is that people have put little red clothes on the buddhas to keep them warm in the winter and cold nights.
After this place I walked back down to the Arashiyama station where i got let off and picked up a bus back to the center of Kyoto.
I headed for the Nijo Jo and got there around 2-230pm. A shogunate castle in Kyoto that rivaled that of the imperial castle in Kyoto. (the Imperial castle nowadays isnt that great of a spectacle because its a rebuilt one that just isnt oldschool)
Nijo Jo was impressive, not as massive as Himeiji Castle, but just as powerful in presence. All the artwork inside the temple wasnt very well preserved, unfortunately. It was just really old and showing it. It also had nightingale floors to act as warning alarms against silent intruders, ninjas! There were two parts, there were the offices and such areas and then the interior palace. The garden of the place was really awesome as well. Some wonderful views in this location. Gorgeous.
After this place was spent, i left around 4pm when the place closed. I headed towards the Imperial Castle. On the way there I stopped at McDonalds out of curiosity for how it tastes in Japan. Its very salty here. Everything. At least, I am infering that from just one sandwich and some fries. It was great on the fries, but not the burger.
I also got some fotos transfered to a disc because my 1GB stopped working the other day, but now it works and I had filled up my other two cards with me. I went to a fotoshop across the street from McDs. It was cool, you plug your card into this computer and you say what you want it to do, it calculates the price for how many pictures you got and then burns it to disc. Only problem is you can only put on card on one disc, you cant do 2 cards on 1 disc, which is what I wanted to do. Oh well.
I headed to the Imperial Castle. Now, for any imperial possesions, they want you to get permission/make reservations to enter the grounds before hand. So I was all like, "Screw that, Yo! If I need special permission/reservations to visit your place on my time, then you obviously dont deserve my patronage. Yeah, suck on that, you lousy Imps!"
So I just hung out at the "free to the public" park/garden. Very very pretty. It was real nice. It was around 500pm so I headed out and headed for downtown Kyoto. My ghetto hotel is just on the south side of downtown, i was on the north side. I walked all down thru it while doing some window shopping for some sort of gift to give to Suzuki sensei tonite at practice. Downtown Kyoto was really cool. Very cool vibe. Lots of lights, lots of shopping, lots of crazy japanese styles - clothes and hair. It was pleasant. Didnt get any fotos or video though. Dont know why. I will tomorrow.
I picked up something for Suzuki Sensei. I finally arrived at my hotel after a long walk at about 6pm. I paid my hotel bill because the machine was working today. It took me a while to get the girl behind the counter to understand because I think it was the daughter. She kept pointing at the receipt trying to tell me its been paid, and I am like, no its not. Your mom told me to pay it today. So she finally figured it out after 10 minutes.
I relaxed in my room for about 45 minutes while I watched some crazy Japanese game show. They are just as annoying and crazy as the one in Lost in Translation. However, I wish they still had Takeshi`s Castle still on. I would totally love to see that. Thats the Japanese sports gameshow that SPIKE TV took and added a comedic english dub too. The events themselves are ridiculous and pain inducing enough to make you laff your butt off, but the enlish dub adds more stuff too.
I headed out to SK. Practice went well. Met a dude from New York named Dante. He was real cool. He has been in Japan for 1 year. Has a wife now and other things. Likes it. Wants to learn more of the language. He helped me with some things that the sensei was talking about.
Near the end of practice i couldnt continue, i was breathing heavy and everything. So much walking and siteseeing. I was tired. I think I impressed the sensei with my flying skillz. It was fun. These kenshi, even the old ones, are out for blood at all times. I was like...YIKEs! They are too fast, I cant block! There was also this little yellowbelt boy when i was there. I walked in, changed into my new dogi. He saw me and came up to me, and I was like, "Hello" and then he poked my balls. I was like, WTF! so I kicked his ass and threw him around.
I was so tired that I was happy when class ended. I walked home and took the subway back like I did there. I took a well needed shower. I bought a beer and some chips. Chilled out in front of the TV for about 20 minutes and then past out. Goodnite all. Take care.