Kyoto

On our way from Australia back to the US we decided to stop in Japan for 10 days. We spent our time in the old city of Kyoto. It was the heart of winter there, so walking around the narrow streets took some getting used to. We had our cold-weather clothes from the boat with us, but things didn't get comfortable till we purchased some gloves. Because a US high government official had visited Kyoto, the city was spared any bombing during World War II and the hundreds of shrines and temples are intact.

A typical shrine would include a plaque telling of its history in English. I was always disappointed when it said this was the rebuilt 6th century shrine of some Buddhist or Imperial Leader, till I read further on and it would note that the last rebuild was in 1250AD.

The shines are mostly guarded by Lions and Liondogs. You tell the difference between the two, as one has his mouth open, the other closed. Its interesting that these are used to protect the temples, as there are no lions in Japan or liondogs, anywhere.

The food in Kyoto was great. They have a lot of Japanese restaurants there. of the first restaurants we went into. The restaurants focus on one type of food, such as Udon, Ramen, Sushsi, Yakatori and Tempura. This means you pretty much have decided what you will eat when you pick the restaurant. This is a Udon restaurant with a single row of bar seats.

To order you go to this machine and press the buttons corresponding to what you want, stick in some Yen and a ticket comes out. Seems complicated for a 8 seat restaurant, but it works. Good Udon too.

The shrines of Kyoto bring lots of Japanese tourists. The women often like to dress up fancy rental kimonos and take selfies in front of temples.

Groups of older school children are brought by their teachers to learn about their history and show respect.

Each of temples has a way to purchase some small item to leave there. These papers have prays on them and you can ask for good luck in romance, business and life. I'm not convinced it works, but I didn't want to take any chances.

 Food stores are always interesting to check out across the world as some insight to the local culture. Here's Chris in a supermarket picking out apples. The fruit is individually wrapped and blemish free.

This is one of the canals dug in the early 1600's used to trade cargo in Kyoto.

Doing a little street shopping for used kimonos.

On a particularly (really, really) cold day we took the train and subway to a weekend antique swapmeet at one of the temples. We could have filled a cargo container with the cool stuff that was offered. Chris bought an antique kimono and I scored a set of cool old Kyoto steel wood chisels. 

It made my trip to Japan even if I near had to freeze to death get them.

This temple has arches that lead up and then down the side of a mountain for a 45 minute walk around. This is only a small sample of the hundreds of pictures we took in Kyoto.

Paul