It was our last full day and the schedule called for a visit to a temple and garden. It turned out to be one of the highlights for Granny. More on that later.
For our travel around Kyoto, we went primarily by taxi. Marico and Toshie had arranged the taxi service and always used the same company. The drivers were always dressed in uniform, including hat and white gloves. Not only did they look great, they were!
On the way to the temple, we stopped at a bamboo dealer for a short tour and a quick lunch. This gentleman's family has been in the bamboo business for many generations and they have a wide variety of bamboo of varying ages. He showed us how the bamboo can be split using a splitter ring. He also showed us various bamboo designs including some bamboo windows like the one shown below right.
This was an amazing experience on many accounts. All visitors must have a reservation and apparently visitation is scheduled for certain times. There were quite a few people waiting at the gate with the same reservation time that we had. We all milled around until the gates to the temple opened at the prescribed hour for our visit.
Upon entering the grounds, we are directed to the Temple where we remove our shoes and enter the Temple. We are shown to a large room where there are a lot of LOW desks setup. There are also some desks with chairs setup just outside the large room. We opted for the desks where you sit on the floor. At each desk, there is a set of papers, an ink supply and a pen. One of the papers is filled with Kanji symbols. Somehow or other we learn that we are supposed to use the pens to trace the Kanji symbols on this piece of paper. It might sound easy but it IS NOT!! I managed to invent a whole host of new Kanji characters. Instead of making fine lines, I made some large blobs. Don't get me wrong, I began to get the hang of it and was even able to trace a few of the characters adequately. I still have NO idea what they meant.
After an adequate tracing period, it was time for the chanting. There were 3 monks. The one in the center chanted ALL that was written on the piece of paper and it was a LOT! While he was doing the chanting, the monk on the left beat out a rhythm on some sort of drum. And every once in a while, the third monk would ring a bell. Sometimes it was a large bell with a bass note. Other times it was a small bell with a higher pitch sound. When the chanting ended, we assumed the service was over and we exited the temple for a walk around the gardens.
Our next stop was the Saihoji Temple and gardens.
The Temple building where we did our chanting.
No shoes inside the Temple, please!
A covered "porch" wound around the outside of the Temple.
After the chanting, we were on our own to wander the gardens. They were WONDERFUL!! This is what Granny thought was one of the highlights of the trip. The gardens were so beautiful and serene that each turn brought new enjoyment. Once in a while we saw a man cleaning or doing some gardening. On occasion we saw some fish. I'm going to display the garden as we found it without comment.
As Paul Harvey used to say, "And now the rest of the story."
Near the end of our stroll through the garden, we met a couple that were obviously Western and not Japanese. When asked the usual, "Where are you from?", the response was West Palm Beach. But that's not the end of the story. After a short chat it was discovered that Irina was a fabric artist. She had shown her work at the craft show in West Palm this past spring. It was at that point that the two ladies - Granny and Irina - said "You look familiar." Granny had bought one of Irina's beatiful hand painted silk tops. SMALL WORLD! Here are Granny and Irina.
On our return from the Temple, we were going to be on our own for the rest of the day including dinner. The seven of us decided we wanted to dine together, it was just a question of where. We were dropped off at the market for one last stroll. As seen below, I had a chance to take a few more pictures of the offerings.
We decided to head back to the ryokan and Lorayne joined us for the return. We took a somewhat circuitous route as I had seen some restaurants that I wanted to check out for dinner. We stopped by a French restaurant very near the ryokan and he was able to accomodate all seven of us at 7pm so we made the reservation. I'm glad we did, it was superb. Here is the group at our "Last Supper".
I was really taken with Kyoto. It is a wonderful mix of the old with the new. There are small streets to wander and explore and there are wide avenues with the big stores. We had a few minutes in the morning before we had to leave for the airport. As we strolled around a few of the streets near the ryokan, I took some last pictures.
A mixture of the old and the new.
Couldn't resist this funny bottle bug.
How do you store your delivery wagon?
<-- 2 examples of Green Delivery -->
This was our last stop. From here it was back to Tokyo for the night and then an EARLY morning flight back to JFK.
It was a GOOD trip!
