Our first day in Kyoto started early-ish - we were up at 6:30 am but didn't rush and left around 9:45 am after having in-room coffee. We walked 10 minutes to the closest subway station and spotted a McDonald's at the entrance of the subway station so decided to stop for a quick bite. We had the good old egg and cheese McMuffin with orange juice and also tried a tuna fish sandwich that exceeded our expectations and was very refreshing and yummy.
Then we took the subway to our first stop of the day, the Nijo Castle. Interestingly, Kyoto has private subway companies so to get to Nijo Castle, we took two trains and both of them were operated by different companies. Nijo Castle is the former home of the Shogun. It was commissioned to be built as the official Kyoto residence by the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu in 1603 and was completed in 1626 by the third Tokugawa Shogun, Iemitsu. It was at the Nijo Castle that the fifteenth and the last Shogun returned sovereignty to the Emperor in 1867. We rented the audio guide which was very advanced and worked by tapping a pen-like device on a piece of thick paper that had chips embedded in it. The Nijo Castle is a walled compound with two castles and two gardens. The main castle is the Ninomaru Goten which looks majestic from the outside but was surprisingly simple from the inside, specially given that it was the official residence of the political administrator of the nation. It has about a dozen rooms but all of them had floor seating on tatami mats and no furniture, let alone any thrones. All walls have simple yet elegant paintings on them depicting various seasons and animals of Japan. The castle is primarily made of wood and its floor makes a nightingale's sound when someone walks on it. This was achieved by using a special technique that involved using metal clippers beneath the wooden floorboard and was meant to act as a built-in burglar alarm. The second castle is not open to public so we continued our tour to the gardens. Both the gardens are lush green and have a wide variety of flowers, most of which were not in bloom today.
I completely forgot to mention that the weather in Japan is extremely humid and hot these days and for the past few days, humidity has been above 95 percent with a feels-like temperature in the late 30s Celsius. The days sap out all energy and to keep up our fluid levels, we've been making full use of the vending machines that seem to be on every road corner to buy water. Today was another hot day and having walked over 50 km in the past few days, we decided to relax a little and take cabs for getting to the various sightseeing places for today. So we took a cab from the Nijo Castle to our next stop, Kyoto Imperial Palace.
We had to fill out a permission form for entry into the Palace so we reached there around 1 pm for the 2 pm tour. We sat and waited in the air conditioned information center and left only when the tour was about to start. The one hour long tour started at the south end of the 27 acres palace compound and ended at the west end. We were shown the various gates that were used by different people to enter the palace. For instance, the emperor had his own gate whereas the Empress had her own. Dignitaries used another gate and ministers used a separate one. In total, there were six gates. The tour did not include a visit to the Northern residential area. We saw the building with rooms for visitors, the building that was used for ceremonies, the Emperor's residence and various gardens and other buildings. In contrast to the Nijo Castle, the whole compound seems much more elite and luxurious. This is despite the fact that even this elite and luxurious version is also way more simple than any royal residence one will find in any other country of the world that has had royal families. For instance, seating was still mostly on floor and the buildings still primarily use wood as the main construction material. Kyoto Imperial Palace is no longer used as a royal residence for the current Emperor who lives in Tokyo now. After the tour ended at 3 pm, we took a cab to our next stop that was the highlight of the day.
Kinkaku-ji is also known as the Golden Pavilion and it was initially designed to be the retirement home of a Shogun but according to his will, it was turned into a temple after his demise. This temple has two roofs that are gold plated and thus yellow in colour. The temple is on the edge of an artificial lake surrounded by trees. As soon as you enter the area, the spell-binding scene greets you. The majestic yellow roofs shine against the green backdrop of trees and their reflection in water enhances the whole effect. Itsukushima Shrine that we saw in Miyajima yesterday has stiff competition for our favorite ancient Japanese attraction. The setting is so perfect that words can't do justice to the beauty of this magnificent structure. After taking pictures of this unforgettable scene, we walked through the rest of the temple grounds admiring the greenery and then made our way out.
The next cab ride took us to the Ryoan-ji which is another temple but its claim to fame is not the temple building but instead the Zen rock garden in it. In Buddhism, the number 15 signifies completeness and this rock garden has 15 large rocks spread in a few clusters in a rectangular 25 meters by 10 meters "garden" that has white gravel only interrupted by the 15 rocks. The interesting thing about this Zen rock garden is that if you look at the garden from any vantage point, you can only see 14 stones and so figuratively speaking, you can never achieve completeness. It's a very unique concept. We sat at the edge of this garden for about 20 minutes and relaxed.
Our last cab ride of the day then took us to the Gion area. We stopped at a theater that had a 6 pm crash-course performance about various customs of the ancient Japanese culture. Gion is the geisha quarter of Kyoto and the performance's main draw was a dance by two maikos. A maiko is a young in-training geisha who hasn't yet graduated to being a full geisha. A geisha has always been misunderstood as a glorious Japanese euphemism for a prostitute and although it is true that some geishas did dabble in that profession, the original concept was not meant to include that. A geisha is meant to be a performer who presents a world of fantasy and perfection for her audience as an escape from reality. Apart from the rather serious dance by the two maikos, other items of the performance included a demonstration of the tea ceremony that we had already experienced at the Hama Rikyu garden in Tokyo, a Japanese harp performance, a flower arrangement demonstration, a court music performance, a small skit-like ancient comic play and a puppet show where a life-sized very realistic puppet danced to a song and was controlled by three men wearing black head covers and black clothes. Great quick introduction to some of the ancient Japanese customs in just an hour - we felt it was excellent value for money.
After that, we dined at a nearby restaurant in traditional style by sitting on tatami mats with a 6-inches high table in front of us. We ordered Shabu-Shabu which is a Japanese culinary experience where you cook food in front of you on your table in boiling water. We tried vegetables and supplemented the Shabu-Shabu with tempura and Japanese omelet. It was an interesting experience but we weren't quite full after the meal so we decided that we would have something else before going to bed. We walked around the Gion area for half an hour and then took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel. As we got out of the subway station, we stopped at McDonald's to have filet-o-fish and then walked back to our hotel to call end to a busy day where despite taking cabs, we still ended up walking over 10 kilometers!
Tomorrow is going to be another full day since we have quite a few things planned. Till tomorrow, take care and good night! :)
Then we took the subway to our first stop of the day, the Nijo Castle. Interestingly, Kyoto has private subway companies so to get to Nijo Castle, we took two trains and both of them were operated by different companies. Nijo Castle is the former home of the Shogun. It was commissioned to be built as the official Kyoto residence by the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu in 1603 and was completed in 1626 by the third Tokugawa Shogun, Iemitsu. It was at the Nijo Castle that the fifteenth and the last Shogun returned sovereignty to the Emperor in 1867. We rented the audio guide which was very advanced and worked by tapping a pen-like device on a piece of thick paper that had chips embedded in it. The Nijo Castle is a walled compound with two castles and two gardens. The main castle is the Ninomaru Goten which looks majestic from the outside but was surprisingly simple from the inside, specially given that it was the official residence of the political administrator of the nation. It has about a dozen rooms but all of them had floor seating on tatami mats and no furniture, let alone any thrones. All walls have simple yet elegant paintings on them depicting various seasons and animals of Japan. The castle is primarily made of wood and its floor makes a nightingale's sound when someone walks on it. This was achieved by using a special technique that involved using metal clippers beneath the wooden floorboard and was meant to act as a built-in burglar alarm. The second castle is not open to public so we continued our tour to the gardens. Both the gardens are lush green and have a wide variety of flowers, most of which were not in bloom today.
I completely forgot to mention that the weather in Japan is extremely humid and hot these days and for the past few days, humidity has been above 95 percent with a feels-like temperature in the late 30s Celsius. The days sap out all energy and to keep up our fluid levels, we've been making full use of the vending machines that seem to be on every road corner to buy water. Today was another hot day and having walked over 50 km in the past few days, we decided to relax a little and take cabs for getting to the various sightseeing places for today. So we took a cab from the Nijo Castle to our next stop, Kyoto Imperial Palace.
We had to fill out a permission form for entry into the Palace so we reached there around 1 pm for the 2 pm tour. We sat and waited in the air conditioned information center and left only when the tour was about to start. The one hour long tour started at the south end of the 27 acres palace compound and ended at the west end. We were shown the various gates that were used by different people to enter the palace. For instance, the emperor had his own gate whereas the Empress had her own. Dignitaries used another gate and ministers used a separate one. In total, there were six gates. The tour did not include a visit to the Northern residential area. We saw the building with rooms for visitors, the building that was used for ceremonies, the Emperor's residence and various gardens and other buildings. In contrast to the Nijo Castle, the whole compound seems much more elite and luxurious. This is despite the fact that even this elite and luxurious version is also way more simple than any royal residence one will find in any other country of the world that has had royal families. For instance, seating was still mostly on floor and the buildings still primarily use wood as the main construction material. Kyoto Imperial Palace is no longer used as a royal residence for the current Emperor who lives in Tokyo now. After the tour ended at 3 pm, we took a cab to our next stop that was the highlight of the day.
Kinkaku-ji is also known as the Golden Pavilion and it was initially designed to be the retirement home of a Shogun but according to his will, it was turned into a temple after his demise. This temple has two roofs that are gold plated and thus yellow in colour. The temple is on the edge of an artificial lake surrounded by trees. As soon as you enter the area, the spell-binding scene greets you. The majestic yellow roofs shine against the green backdrop of trees and their reflection in water enhances the whole effect. Itsukushima Shrine that we saw in Miyajima yesterday has stiff competition for our favorite ancient Japanese attraction. The setting is so perfect that words can't do justice to the beauty of this magnificent structure. After taking pictures of this unforgettable scene, we walked through the rest of the temple grounds admiring the greenery and then made our way out.
The next cab ride took us to the Ryoan-ji which is another temple but its claim to fame is not the temple building but instead the Zen rock garden in it. In Buddhism, the number 15 signifies completeness and this rock garden has 15 large rocks spread in a few clusters in a rectangular 25 meters by 10 meters "garden" that has white gravel only interrupted by the 15 rocks. The interesting thing about this Zen rock garden is that if you look at the garden from any vantage point, you can only see 14 stones and so figuratively speaking, you can never achieve completeness. It's a very unique concept. We sat at the edge of this garden for about 20 minutes and relaxed.
Our last cab ride of the day then took us to the Gion area. We stopped at a theater that had a 6 pm crash-course performance about various customs of the ancient Japanese culture. Gion is the geisha quarter of Kyoto and the performance's main draw was a dance by two maikos. A maiko is a young in-training geisha who hasn't yet graduated to being a full geisha. A geisha has always been misunderstood as a glorious Japanese euphemism for a prostitute and although it is true that some geishas did dabble in that profession, the original concept was not meant to include that. A geisha is meant to be a performer who presents a world of fantasy and perfection for her audience as an escape from reality. Apart from the rather serious dance by the two maikos, other items of the performance included a demonstration of the tea ceremony that we had already experienced at the Hama Rikyu garden in Tokyo, a Japanese harp performance, a flower arrangement demonstration, a court music performance, a small skit-like ancient comic play and a puppet show where a life-sized very realistic puppet danced to a song and was controlled by three men wearing black head covers and black clothes. Great quick introduction to some of the ancient Japanese customs in just an hour - we felt it was excellent value for money.
After that, we dined at a nearby restaurant in traditional style by sitting on tatami mats with a 6-inches high table in front of us. We ordered Shabu-Shabu which is a Japanese culinary experience where you cook food in front of you on your table in boiling water. We tried vegetables and supplemented the Shabu-Shabu with tempura and Japanese omelet. It was an interesting experience but we weren't quite full after the meal so we decided that we would have something else before going to bed. We walked around the Gion area for half an hour and then took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel. As we got out of the subway station, we stopped at McDonald's to have filet-o-fish and then walked back to our hotel to call end to a busy day where despite taking cabs, we still ended up walking over 10 kilometers!
Tomorrow is going to be another full day since we have quite a few things planned. Till tomorrow, take care and good night! :)
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