Kyoto is a city of a million temples. It's ancient Japan at its finest. I suppose that's what happens to a place when it's spent over a thousand years as the capital of the country. What's more, Kyoto escaped the large-scale bombing that much of the rest of Japan experienced during the end of WWII.
The city is huge and we based ourselves in the Nakagyo District, in the centre of the old city, in order to temple spot/wander. Our first stop was at the train station's Family Mart for cheap rice triangles! To me, Asia tastes like these little wrapped seaweed wonders.
In Kyoto, it became easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of buildings built under the premise of religion and reverence. Having grown up Catholic, I had little understanding of the faith system behind these beautiful buildings. But that made them no less impressive.
Because summer 2016 appeared to be the summer of UNESCO, it's important to note that Kyoto is home to no less than 17 World Heritage Sites. We tried to see as many of these as we could but, two days into the Kyoto portion of the trip, Paul's gout foot had other plans. This was probably for the best; temples become overwhelming en masse.
But Kyoto is more than just temples. It's:
Street Art in Unexpected Places
Street are in the geisha district of Gion...all protected historic sites:
Scenic Viewing
Temple Crawling
And then it's temples, shrines, pagodas and more temples.
These wooden plaques are called ema and they're wishing cards to send/bless the self and others with good fortune. The Zooming Japan blog has a brilliant write up about these gorgeous cards if you want more information. Buddhist and Shinto shrines have them, as do temples.
Similar to these ema are chains of paper cranes that people fold and leave for similar reasons. Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. This was something I'd learned about as a student in elementary school and was later reinforced when we made our way to Hiroshima.
And obviously there's sake casks. I'm not sure why they're in front of places of worship but there you have it:
Everywhere you look, there's places for moments of quiet repose.
The view up to Kiyomizu Temple, one of the 17 UNESCO temples: the entire area and neighbourhood surrounding this temple is also protected, making the atmosphere feel like you've stepped back in time.
The shrine is home to a lot of history, a Japanese expression similar to 'to take the plunge' and a waterfall with apparently wish-granting powers.
Kimono Spotting
And once you've had enough temples, or fancy seeing the temples in more traditional dress, you can hire a kimono, shoes and a woman to do your makeup up, old-school style. And then walk around with your friends, family, closest acquaintances for hours. It's fabulous:
Traditional:
Family-style:
Hipster chic:
Paul was very jealous:
Gyoza Eating
And last but certainly not least, eating delicious Japanese food. Japan is no stranger to delicacy--it's home to the most Michelin stars in the world and at this point in the trip we'd had sushi, sashimi, ramen, okonomiyaki. Gyoza had barely registered but a cursory glance on TripAdvisor revealed that Kyoto's number one eatery was a short walk away from our hotel.
This is how we ended up at Chao Chao Sanjo Kiyamachi, a tiny, unpretentious gyoza restaurant right off the river tributary running through the middle of the city. From the outside, it looked like nothing. But once we found it, we noticed the omnipresent queue that wrapped around the door and down the street. So we decided to go at slightly off-meal time.
My goodness. They served gyoza every which way--fried, boiled, curry flavoured. I love dumplings. I love this place. And their staff. And the entire experience.
Thank you, Kyoto. You rock.
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