Kyoto

After arriving in Japan on the evening of Saturday, 24 March, I spent two days tearing up Kyoto. I visited seven temples, two markets, a Samurai palace, two or three parks, several shrines, and walked down several tree-lined streets filled with old Japanese buildings that are now cafes, souvenir shops, and places where local artisans sell their goods.

According to my guidebook, Kyoto has over 1800 temples, so I guess visiting seven isn't really that impressive. However, I think that I have seen some pretty cool ones. Ginkaku-ji (the silver pavilion), and Kinkaku-ji (the gold pavilion) are on opposite sides of the city, but nevertheless they are related in that the former was built by the grandson of the man who built the latter. Whereas the gold pavilion's top two levels are totally covered in gold leaf, the silver pavilion is silver in name only (the silver leaf was planned, but never added). Kiyomizu-dera is one of the most famous temples in Japan as well. And at Ryoan-ji, I was able to see the original zen rock garden.

Possibly my favorite tourist activity thus far in Japan was a stroll down Higashiyama walk. Higashiyama walk includes several streets that are lined on both sides with souvenir shops, restaurants, and all kinds of Japanese crafts. My favorite store was a shop that sold nothing but different painted chopsticks. The chopsticks were beautiful, but quite expensive.

Of course, no trip to Kyoto would be complete without a trip to the Neko kaigi. What, you don't know what that is? Well, it's the cat cafe of course! For the low price of 800 yen, you can spend one hour sipping coffee in a room inhabited by about twenty cats. Had it not been at the insistence of Theresa, I wouldn't have taken the time to enjoy this rare luxury. When I was there, I was lucky enough to experience 'feeding time.' I've never heard so many cats crunching kibble at one time before; it was quite a sound.

In addition to the above activities, I also took a night-time stroll through some of the markets and more famous streets of Kyoto. I really liked seeing a giant illuminated mechanical crab attached to what I assume is a seafood restaurant in the market. The lanterns illuminating a street in Gion were also really pretty.

I'm at my conference for the next several days, but I am definitely happy to spend a few more days in this neat city.