Japan day 7

April 7 - If I thought yesterday was rush, rush, get on the bus, today was even more so. The temples/shrines tend to all mix together by the end of the day and I’m really glad that John took 625 photographs today (!) because when I went through them in chronological order, the day made more sense than it did at the time. I’m sure the tour is organized on some kind of principle, but it seems very confusing to the end-users. There were about 4 different groups on the tour bus today, some having lunch, some going on to the train station, some with the tour all day. The tour guides seem very harried (not surprisingly) as they have to try to keep track of all these different people who are all wearing different colored stickers - you feel a bit like a sale item in a store. Everywhere was very crowded because it’s peak cherry blossom time and everybody wants to see them, so I don’t envy the guides trying to chivvy about 40 tourists (not all of whom have English as their first language) through the crowds, explain what we are seeing and make sure we all arrive safely back on the bus at the right time. I don’t think we lost anyone today, but some idiot in our party decided to take a photo in a temple where we had expressly been told NOT to take photos, and he was seen by a monk. Silly idiot then denied that he had taken the photo, so I’m not sure what his excuse was when they took his camera and looked at the photographs. So we were delayed a bit while our guide went through all the motions to apologize to the monks for this guy (a) doing what he was told not to, and (b) then lying about it. Anyway, our first stop was the Nijo Castle which was built in 1603 (they love dates and numbers!) for the first Tokugawa Shogun. He was obviously a somewhat suspicious guy because all the floors have built-in squeaks, so you can’t move without a chorus of sound - this was to ensure that no “assassinators“ got to him. They are actually called nightingale floors which I thought was lovely - they do sound quite melodious! It was absolutely freezing today - I was very glad I had gloves and in desperation, I put the hood of my sweater up to keep my ears warm. We asked the guide how the Shogun had kept warm - charcoal braziers and lots of layers, apparently! The palace was huge and decorated with gorgeous paintings on the walls and lots of inlaid metal work. Next stop was the Golden Pavilion which really is covered in gold. It is set in a lovely garden (cherry blossoms, of course) and it is right on a pond so the famous photograph is the Pavilion with its reflection in the pond. We were all given lucky tokens which look like a large bookmark with Japanese writing and red stamps on them. Our guide (who was VERY sweet - a tiny little lady who wore a red hat and waved a sprig of cherry blossom to keep her retinue in line!) explained that when we got home, we were to “hoist” them to a high place in a living room and the gods would bring us good luck. However, we were NOT to stick them up with a pin because that will hurt the god (who is part of the token) and he will be angry and bring us bad luck. Then we were lucky enough to be able to go into the Kyoto Imperial Palace which is often closed to the public. I have run out of superlatives to describe these places (and to be honest, we have seen so many shrines and temples that they are all beginning to run together a bit) but the palace was amazing. They had opened up the doors to the throne room so we could see the two thrones (but we couldn’t actually go in.
And that was the morning’s tour! We had lunch at the Kyoto Handycraft Centre which was 7 stories of souvenirs!!! I had sworn that I wouldn’t buy another thing, but of course I did. They had some beautiful wood block pictures (and although there was a description of how they are made, it is still something of a mystery to me) so I had to buy a couple and some silk scarves.
Back on the bus in the afternoon together with a whole bunch of different people and off to the Heian Shrine. I don’t have a pamphlet on it, but I think this is where we saw the most amazing cherry blossoms of all. In the private garden (which somehow we had access to) there were trellises for the weeping cherry trees and they were quite spectacular. In a few days, all the blossoms will be gone, so we really did time the trip right on (pure luck as each year the season is slightly different). Then we went to Sajusangendo Temple where there are 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity Juichimen-senjusengen Kanzeon. They stand in ranks in front of an enormous Buddha. They are guarded by terrifying-looking guardian deities to scare people away. Last stop was the Kiyomuizu Temple where there is a 3 storey pagoda and (wait for it …..) more cherry blossoms! By this time, we were all lagging a bit, and our guide gave us about ½ hour to shop. John and I made straight for a little shop which had a delicious cinnamon smell coming from it which turned out to be cinnamon pastries stuffed with vanilla stuff. Topped off with a cup of tea, it was very welcome.