Kyoto

Hello!! -Meg

I was in charge of keeping track or our second day in Kyoto. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding about videos that needed to be cleared from the flip-recorder and mine were accidentally deleted. So please bear with me as I try to remember all of the details of what we did in Kyoto!

We started out our day with a meditation session at a Buddhist Temple (that I can't remember the name of, sorry!) The Buddhist monk-priest-guy that led our session was really nice! (Unfortunately I can't remember his name either...all that info was in the videos that were deleted...sad day!) He actually went to school at the University of Arizona, if I remember correctly, so he knew much better English than other people we have met so far. That was very helpful! There were two parts to our meditation session. Each was split into fifteen minute time slots. Before we began, our leader went through three main instruments that are used in a meditation session. They were two blocks banged together to notify people to prepare for meditation, a bell that is rung to help people focus on their mediation, and a long wooden stick that is used to gently smack a person's back (voluntarily) to help them if they are having trouble focusing on their meditation process.

I personally thought the mediation session was pretty cool, but it was kind of painful too. Trying to sit in one position, cross-legged for longer periods of time doesn't exactly fare well with my hips and legs. I'm pretty sure they fell asleep at least twice for each time slot! That made it especially hard to actually focus on meditating.

After our session we were shown the zen garden at the temple which was beautiful! The detail and time spent to make the garden perfect was visible in ever crook and corner of the garden. Truly a spectacular sight!! We were also shown a rooms used for audiences that had paintings on the walls and sliding doors. They were absolutely beautiful as well. At the end of our visit to the temple we were served rice cookies with matcha green tea. I really enjoyed both! The tea was a bit strong, but it grew on you after the first couple of sips.

OH! Before I forget, our tour guide for the day was a guy named Toyo. He was a very sweet and kind gentleman and he really knew his facts! It was so nice, he made charts of dates and information to show us as he was speaking so that we could better understand the importance of what he was telling us.

Next on our list for the day was a visit to the Golden Pavilion Temple, also called Kinkaku-ji Temple. Now this place was quite a sight! The outside of the temple is made of gold leaf. It was located right next to a small pond area that had little islands all around, each overflowing with beautiful vegetation and some had the traditional Japanese stone lanterns. Apparently from the top of the temple, the view of the pond area and the islands are supposed to look like the entire island of Japan. We hiked the trail around the temple grounds and saw different views of the temple, all of the beautiful!

Check back later for more details of our day in Kyoto!!

To be continued...

[And here is the next part!]

Hello again! Sorry it has taken me a few days to get this last post up! I wasn’t feeling very well when I wrote the first part of my blog.

So, Nijo Castle! That was our third stop of the day in Kyoto. I must admit that my favorite part of the castle was the Nightingale floor. That was way cool to walk across the floor and make it sound like birds. The way this works is by nails in the floor that rub against the wood underneath the floor that creates noise that sounds like birds chirping.

Unfortunately pictures on the inside of the castle were prohibited, so I will try to explain what we saw as best I can! The castle itself isn’t just made up of one big structure. It consists of a few structures that are connected together. If I remember correctly, this was supposed to help confuse anyone who came into the castle with intentions of assassination because they had to try and find their way around. The Nightingale floor also plays a role in this too because if there were intruders the floor would make noise and the Shogun would be warned.

For some reason I couldn’t help but think of the movie “The Last Samurai” as we walked through the castle. The time the castle would have been in use was around the same time that the movie takes place. It really was neat to see!

Our last stop of the day (with our guide Toyo) was the temple called Kiyomizu-dera Temple. The walk up to the temple was pretty cool. The street leading up to it has many shops full of traditional Japanese stuff. From fans and tea cups to kimonos and vases selling for over 30 thousand dollars. Crazy cool! The temple grounds actually had multiple structures. The main temple was neat because it overlooked the hillside and the city of Kyoto (as did the other structures). It was different because the gathering was more of a stage. Thank goodness for the guard rails or it would have been pretty easy for someone to fall off the stage if they weren’t looking where they were going! This temple is also important because it has a washing/purification area that has water come directly from the mountain. It is said to be very pure and good if you drink the water form it. The line to do so was ridiculously long, so we all decided that a picture was good enough!

Today was definitely full of lots of culture and history as well as amazing sights and fun shopping!