We needed to get to Kyoto to meet up with Mom and Dad. We have a house there for the next week, and will be using that as our home base for mostly day trips (plus an overnight down to Miyajima and Hiroshima).
Four of the six of us had a JR rail pass, which allows us to take both local and regional trains. We'd used it in the metro-like trains around Tokyo, and now it would take us on a near-bullet train to Kyoto.
The train to Kyoto stopped at a station near us, so Valerie, Deanne, and I walked then took the train while the other three took a cab. No issues finding them, but the trip got complex once we asked about tickets.
See, you can get on any train, but you can also get free reservations that will guarantee you a seat. For a two-plus hour trip, seats would be nice.
Sunday is Spring Equinox, which is a national holiday observed on Monday, so it's a three-day weekend. There were no reservations left until noon, and we had a temple to see!
Instead, we decided to go to the start of the train at Tokyo Station, a fifteen minute trip away, so we could stand in line and hope to get a seat. A good plan, right until we exited the metro into the throng that was Tokyo Station. Six people and their luggage was caught in the swarm. We headed to what we thought were the right gates, and were turned away (as twenty people queued up behind us) without really any guidance.
But, we preserved, picked a line, found a different line, moved lines, reconsidered if we should have moved lines, and in general were stressed until the doors to the train opened.
Deanne and I were a few spots ahead of everyone else due to the shuffling, and scored two sets of three seats right within the train car. The stress was now over. At least for the next two and a half hours as we ricocheted toward Kyoto.
The slightly later arrival time meant that it would have been a tough, quick trip for all of us to get to the Golden Temple, which Deanne thought we could do while we waiting for Mom and Dad, who were getting in around 2:30 or 3. Since Ben was only around for the day and we couldn't check in until 4, he and Valerie took off while the rest of us had a nice relaxing lunch surrounded by luggage in a restaurant in the basement. I got the platter with ten different items - all were good (though the omelette and cabbage mashed potatoes aren't my taste). There were little fried fish that I ate whole - not actually realizing they were fish until halfway through. There were noodles, a sampling of the hamburger steak with lotus root that Grandma and Grandpa had, sweet flavored gelatin, some mushrooms in the miso soup... Definitely a sampling!
I also tried a ginger highball. I couldn't tell if the bite as the end of a sip was due to the ginger or the whiskey, but it was nice to relax and chat with the grandparents and Deanne.
Mom and Dad came and joined an hour later, and then Valerie and Ben came to find Deanne and were led to us. An easy taxi ride, and we were at our accommodations for the week!
The house is rented by a company that restores old houses in the Japanese style. Rattan mats cover the floors, all the doors slide, the shower and bath overlook the tranquility garden, and, best of all, there are two toilets and four different rooms! Luxury for the eight of us.
We chilled, since our late lunch was carrying us into dinner easily, and maybe got started a bit late for trying to get to a temple light up that ended at 9. Daisuri is a large department store that was "two blocks away"... If you only count the major streets. It was an easy ten to fifteen minute walk with all of us.
Shopping inside the downstairs was fun. Each ring of glass-fronted counters held a slightly different delicious-looking sampling. Salads to fried stuff, rice balls to sushi, and including some booths with ice cream, cakes, sake, and non-Japanese food. I've been excited about rice balls, so grabbed a pair of those to eat with my avocado and broccoli salad.
It was when we regrouped that the unlikelihood of our timing started to descend. It was 7:45 - a trip back and forth to the house, plus eating, then a ten minute bus ride and a walk... We weren't going to get to the shrine before it ended at 9.
A new plan was formed; Ben, Val, and I would head straight to the shrine, since he is leaving tomorrow. Want to give him the chance to see at least a bit of Kyoto before taking the train back to Narita for his flight out tomorrow.
I ate my salad, then we hopped on the bus. Immediately when we got off, we saw the hill with lanterns leading up. A bit of a festival-type atmosphere was at the bottom - booths with street food (yup - got us some yummy custard and red bean biscuit-pancake-bun things and a kabob for Val), lit up floats with moving parts, and some tables set up with geishas serving tea.
We took a few pictures, then were interrupted by a pair of men holding lanterns making way for a masked woman in a carriage. We followed the fox-mask and her procession up a few windy blocks, before getting distracted by a pretty path up the side of the hill.
We were lucky - without planning on it, we ended up at the Kōdai-Ji, a temple that had projections on its zen garden that included a dragon flying out of a gate, and spotlights on its cherry tree.
I loved wandering the lantern-lined paths, with meandering stream beds, bridges over the reflecting ponds, and buildings with artifacts from the 1400s.
A giant bamboo forest waved us goodbye as we sought out a "five story pagoda" that Val thought was another important thing to see.
We walked for twenty minutes, up, up, up stone paths with wide stairs. Lining the pedestrian street were shops with food, toys, and porcelain. I have really enjoyed the attitudes of the Japanese - when we were in the temple, two friends were singing and humming under their breath. As we were climbing the stairs, a young man was helping an older woman, making louder and louder amusing huffs as they got to the top of a set of steps. Maybe it's just because it's a three day weekend, but everyone was in a jolly mood - especially the woman who served Ben his sweet ginger lemon tea.
It was a quarter past nine when we reached a pagoda-looking building. After some Google searching post-hike, it was the Kiyomizu-dera - a UNESCO World Heritage Buddhist temple. Not sure if that's what Valerie was aiming for, but we got some very pretty pictures of the outside (the entrance was closed) before tromping down the same hill to get back to the bus.
The bus trip was easy, since it just went down the main street we had shopped and ate on. We hustled back in the night chill to let ourselves in to the house and get to sleep. Deanne certainly has an early morning, but we all need to be ready to get to her graduation!
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