Day 3 – My Trip to Japan
Posted on June 7, 2014 by Leslie Blythe No comments
Day 3 – My Trip to Japan
We took the bullet train to Kyoto and arrived around lunch time. We found a wonderful little place in the train station and had some amazing soba noodles. The train station in Kyoto puts most shopping malls to shame. There were so many interesting shops.
After lunch we hired a taxi driver to tour us around Kyoto stopping at several shrines and temples. One of which was the Ginkaku-ji (“Temple of the Silver Pavilion”), officially named Jishō-ji (“Temple of Shining Mercy”), which was truly the most beautiful place to which I have ever been. It is a Zen temple in the Sakyo ward of Kyoto, Japan. This temple is associated with the Shokoku-ji branch of Rinzai Zen. The photographs do not do it justice.
Like all places of pilgrimage, these shrines attract a large number of visitors (hordes of uniformed Japanese school children) which means that the way into the shrine is always lined with shops selling everything from tourist souvenirs, religious items and food—lots of food, everything from Japanese pickles on a stick, green tea ice cream and my favorite, a spirally sliced potato, deep fired on a stick, which was advertised as having “salty taste” which is not always a given—in the convenience store FamilyMart, I bought what I thought were shoe string potato snacks that were, in fact, coated in sugar—not a salty taste.
We were then taken to the Heian Shrine, which is a Shinto shrine located in Sakyō-ku. The Shrine is ranked as a Beppyou Jinja (the top rank for shrines) by the Association of Shinto Shrines. It is listed as an important cultural property of Japan.
There is a purification fountain near the shrine’s entrance. You take one of the ladles, fill it with fresh water and rinse both hands.
At the offering hall, throw a coin into the offering box, bow deeply twice, clap your hands twice, bow deeply once more and pray for a few seconds.
After seeing the shrines, we then stopped at Kyoto’s oldest and most famous tea store near the royal palace called Ippodo Tea Co. and has been providing the highest quality Japanese green tea for nearly 3 centuries. They also have tea making classes. More than just a retailer, Ippodo is a multi-faceted tea company directly involved in the procurement and blending of carefully selected tea leaves. It is also a tea house and we had traditional green tea and sweets. The specialties of the house were new crop green tea which is brewed in a normal way with tea leaves and water in a pot and this powdered green tea that was hand whisked into a beautiful shiny green syrup that you drink from warmed porcelain bowls. I was amazingly strong, but delicious.
We then checked into the Yuzuya Hotel Isshinkyo, which is a Ryokan. A ryokan is a type of traditional Japanese inn that originated in the Edo period (1603–1868). They feature tatami-matted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear yukata, which is a casual summer kimono.
Here is what the brochure says –
There are a total of 8 guest rooms. Each room has individual tranquil atmospheres with faint scents of refreshing yuzu citron. The rooms welcome our guests with warm antique Japanese furnishings and subtle arrangements of seasonal wild flowers. The refined and unobtrusive interior decor is meant to bring you peaceful comfort.
After relaxing at the ryokan, we were picked up some friends. The husband happens to be a very famous architect in Japan and is highly regarded. He and his wife took us to an amazing restaurant in Kyoto for a nine course dinner! It may have been more, I lost count. It was a very traditional Japanese meal. I managed to eat almost all of it. Here are some pictures of the meal.
