Beautiful Kyoto, Japan

Dear lovely reader,

This will be my third series blog of beautiful Japan: Kyoto. Kyoto carries a reputation as Japan’s most beautiful city. However with any highly populated city, urban sprawl continues to expand, which isn’t per se a bad thing. It’s just more of a challenge to get to one place to another. The vibe is a lot calmer in Kyoto and so is the transportation too. I think finding our way around with bus stops and subway stations was a little more difficult than it was in Tokyo. But that doesn’t depreciate the awe and richness Kyoto has in its temples and shrines.

I left off my last blog stepping foot onto the Willer Overnight Bus from Tokyo to Kyoto. 10 hours later, we made it safe and sound. Still heavily sleepy, we got off when the sunlight hadn’t broken out yet. You could see we were dazed and groggy to say the least. But an easy cure to morning sleepiness is a good breakfast, which is exactly what we had as we saw fellow voyagers dine in all in one restaurant. Backpacking is not easy but it’s worth the discomfort. It forces you to cross so many comfortable boundaries you set for yourself. And once you open your heart to the unknown, break out of those boundaries, you can do anything, see anything, and feel anything you want to.

Our first temple was recommended by Abby, named Kinkaku-ji or Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Kinkaku-ji is a Zen Buddhist temple with its three-story Golden Pavilion as its main attraction. The temple functions as a shariden, housing relics of the Buddha. The top two stories of the pavilion are covered with pure gold leaf. A calm pond rests in front of the pavilion where you could see an entire reflection of the pavilion and the trees behind it. Tourists, voyagers, Japanese school students will take pictures of the scenery from afar. The Golden Pavilion is set in a magnificent Japanese strolling garden. The garden design reminds me of a classical age of Japanese garden design, abundant in its forever green trees and color. If you just close your eyes, breathe, and then open your eyes, you would see not only a golden pavilion, but the perfect capsule for the Muromachi period, preserving the beauty and purity of Japanese architecture and design. There are some really great pictures of Kinkaku-ji, ones that I didn’t catch but I found online. One where the morning sunlight catches the entire setting and the Golden Pavilion looks completely youthful. There’s another where you could see white snow fall upon the roofs and white snow covering the tops of the tree branches behind. And then the color of gold is what you only see as the evening light surrounds the garden.

But there was one shrine in Kyoto that I wanted to see no matter what it took. Fushimi Inari Taisha sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is 233 meters above sea-level and includes trails up the mountain to many other shrines. Statues of foxes will be seen all over the shrine, as they are the messengers of the shrine. ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ is one of my all-time favorite movies. For those who don’t know the story, it’s almost like ‘Cinderella,’ but one where love doesn’t come as easy and naturally in stories, but is still the driving force of will and inner strength. The book and the movie capture one of my most favorite stories. There’s a scene in the movie, where the main character Chiyo, after she meets the kind and generous Chairman, runs through Fushimi Inari Taisha, and makes a prayer to become a geisha and see him again. You see red orange when you walk through the paths of Fushimi Inari Taishi. But the color doesn’t bother you nor bore you. Instead it almost intensifies your path and makes you long for more as you keep walking. The pathway seems boundless but reachable all at the same time. I think that’s the main reason the shrine is so easy to fall for. You could imagine anything you desire as you walk through the gorgeous color of red orange. It was definitely my favorite experience of all of Japan. I will never forget it.

After we saw everything to our heart’s fulfillment, we had to take a train ride to Kobe, where we spend our last day tomorrow in Japan and meet our ship. This would be one of the more important train tickets we would buy. Our heads looked up at the subway map at the station, where we also asked for a local on which train paths to take from Kyoto to Kobe. He was a light-hearted man, smiled, and laughed as we handed him our map. If a local couldn’t see through the complexity of a map, how could a tourist? But the best thing was that he still wanted to help us even if he couldn’t at first. And then suddenly, a man dressed in a long black coat asked us, “May I please help you?” I don’t know about you, but that phrase doesn’t show up very often in Japan, let alone the States. So we jumped at the opportunity and calmly asked him to get to Kyoto to Kobe. And just when I thought Japanese locals couldn’t be any kinder, this man was far beyond kind to walk us upstairs to show us how to buy the cheapest fair from Kyoto to Kobe. I think it was about 15 minutes from his time but he made sure we were heading towards the right direction made sure we knew what to do when we got on and off the train. He gave us his contact information in case we ever did get lost, we could always call him domestically. After we understood what to do, we gratefully expressed our thanks, and parted ways. Who knew when we would run into him again? His name was Kouji.

Thank you for reading, lovely reader! It does get a little tiring to keep up with these blogs as the days and ports keep flying by. I’ve actually just left my first port in China and using the time in transit to write everything I want to. But I know these are my most important memories of my young life, they must be written no matter what. It’s fairly late, so sleep well, lovely reader. I’ll see you in Kobe, Japan.

All love and hope,

Kimmy

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”        

– Cesare Pavese