Kyoto: What We Loved

Hello! We've left Kyoto and headed to Takayama but before we go we wanted to share some of our thoughts about the place.

We took turns reflecting on our time in this city-of-temples as we rode the train out of Kyoto station. Comment if you like, we'd love to hear from you.

JT: The Ryonaji rock garden. It's a very famous, extremely austere Zen rock garden that has been tended at the temple for hundreds of years. No one knows who exactly made it or when, but it emerged just after a period of civil war. It has only 15 rocks arranged in a dynamic pattern that is hard to understand or explain, but it is deeply, deeply silent.

WM: Kimono girls!

While we were in Kyoto I noticed many young women walking around the temples and in the markets wearing traditional Japanese kimonos and taking pictures. I took it upon myself to research this fancy phenomenon. It turned out that many kimono rental shops are placed around the city, the girls we saw would go in, pick out a kimono and get their hair done and then stroll.

Now, it is important for you to know that most of these girls, if not all of them, were Japanese. So when I decided to do it too I stood out rather prominently. However, it was definitely worth it. We went to a rental shop and all worked together to pick out the perfect kimono and then I was whisked away to get my hair done (the woman seemed a bit taken aback by the sheer muchness of my rebellious curls, I could almost hear them laughing at her).

If any of you decide to do this, I suggest breathing and thinking about Elizabeth from "Pirates of the Caribbean" while the women tie the belt on (it involves bamboo boards FYI). My dad got his own male kimono and we walked through the little streets of Japan with my Mom as the photographer!

DOD: Temples every couple blocks. Big ones, small ones, touristy ones, humble ones. It goes: 'house, house, laundromat, temple, coffee shop. Repeat.' The story Kyoto tells is that belief and spiritual practice and communal aspiration are as important as family and laundry and coffee.

JT: Jizu shrines. We will Likely see more of these, but we saw them first in Kyoto. Small, low stone statues of a cheerful round bald headed god wearing a bib or a hat.They are at crossroads and peripheries, and he's a sort of Buddhist/Shinto probably very old God of children and transitions and travelers and those who are weak.

WM: Pillows! The pillows here have one soft, fluffy side that you can smack to get it into a comfortable position like the ones back in the US, but wait......if you flip the pillow over there is a side that is full little plastic beads that form around your head while you sleep! Yay! Depending on your mood you can get the best night's sleep of your life with your head cocooned in a world of beadlets.

DOD: The moss garden. Beautiful, peaceful, sublime. It's as if someone said let's make our church the world and create conditions for the world to show us how to live. And in came the moss making oxygen, teaching silence and coexistence and humility.

JT: The Illumination Festival. There was a Spring Festival in our neighborhood where the streets and parks and temples were all illuminated at night. We went to one big temple to see it. Very beautiful and simple--the trees illuminated not in a flashing way but just so the branches stood out against the dark sky, or were perfectly reflected in a pool. A lit path through a bamboo grove. It made the trees look like poems, like pictures of trees, like symbols of trees. Also, a fantastic projection show on a small temple garden. And we saw a bit of the illuminated ritual procession called the Foxes Wedding.

WM: The little poem day

One morning the three of us went to a little cave with a tiny waterfall and a statue of the Buddha to meditate. When we were done, my dad decided that it would be a good idea to think of poems based on what we were hearing or seeing. My mom's was "why is that one bird so funny?" My dad came up with "rumble of the city, sound of water in a cave, the crow has reached the top of the mountain"

When it came to be my turn some very strange music had started to play from the bottom of the little mountain that we were on, it sounded like a loon on steroids with a lute as backup vocals.

A lone hiker walked by a little faster than one would expect a hiker to go. As a result my little haiku consisted of only two lines that went as so: "Is that man running from the eerie sounds below? (Pause) I don't know"

DOD: The Tanuki!! This little fox statue - pudgy, bemused and (on second glance) sporting huge testes, is ubiquitous at shrines, temples and restaurants. An ever present comic relief to the formal and severe peacefulness of the statues of Buddha. We plan to learn more about him but what we know now is that he is the Prankster god native to Japan and we think he must be the deity our dog Lucy prays to.

JT: Fushimi Inari, the largest Shinto Shrine with tunnels of orange Tori gates ⛩, and a huge temple at the bottom of the sacred mountain, with smaller shrines scattered all the way up. All shrines and sacred stones guarded by Kitsune, Japanese fox statues. Always in a pair on either side of the shrine. Lots and lots of people there, like a big festival, but as we got farther up, WM and I were alone in a maze-like moss covered areas of ancient stones, carvings, shrines and fox guardians. It was quiet and very mysterious. As other people joined us, we headed back, feeling like characters in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

WM: Trains: I am sitting on a train right now, and I'm very tired so this will be nice and short, I hope you enjoy.

I can see the mountains covered with trees with all kinds of leaves like the fur on the back of a chameleon (if they had fur that is, just because I am now being homeschooled by my dad does not mean that lizards are covered in bristles in my brain).

Now I see farms, they are peaceful in the sunlight with orchards of trees that are on the verge of blossoming with color and fruit. Oh! There is a man standing by the edge of the forest, I wonder what he is doing....what do you think? The sunlight is hitting my water bottle, making streaks of ever shifting light dance off of the seat in front of me. Ok, David Bowie just started to play on my phone and I am really starting to loose consciousness. Sleep now! Talk later. Love you guys ️

DOD: The complete alien-ness of it all. So different from Italy who's architecture and meanings were unique but familiar. When you'd walk out of the old city where we were staying which is soaked in a history beyond me to the more modern streets with their snub nosed vehicles and oddly middle-school science fair like tangle of overhead phone and electric wires and crossing guards wearing shiny helmets and plastic vests with flashing lights. I'd stand there and feel that any moment a fight between Ultraman and some offspring of Godzilla was about to break out any moment.

JT: The woman who gave Willa Marie 3 colorful origami cranes and said "Welcome to Japan, these are for your family" right outside the tea shop with the enormous gorgeous koi swimming in a pond. The biggest looked like it could kick Lucy's little butt in a fight.

WM: The weird desert On the day of the kimono, we stopped at a fancy little tea place. The first thing to do was figure out a way to sit comfortably in a dress that cut off more than half of ones breathing supply. Then we ordered tea and cakes. My dad, being the rebellious man that he is, got the traditional Japanese dessert. It resembled a pile of mini stingrays covered in a tan powder. It happened to come with only one chopstick and when I timidly poked the pile with the feeble piece of wood, it wobbled stubbornly. After a lot of discussion and a rather stressful taste test, we decided that it was not actually that bad although it did have the texture of a sea anemone.

DOD: The prevalence of water. At the entrance to most temples and shrines for the ritual washing of hands, in the large and small canals lined with exquisite stone work that ran throughout the city, and in the little fountains and ponds at the entrance of most restaurants. Water.

JT: We also saw two apprentice Geisha perform in a public performance, and attended a tea ceremony. All these things felt like extremely beautiful, very very concentrated culture. So much focus on the beauty and the presence of each thing, each moment.

We say Farewell to Kyoto and head up into the mountains.