- Shinjuku-Shinagawa-Kyoto 新宿 - 品川 - 京都
- Gion Mitsuri 祇園祭
- Nijojo二条城
- Kiyomizu-dera清水寺
- Sannen Zaka三年坂
- Ninen Zaka ニ年坂
- Gion Kobu 祇園
Getting up early to go to Kyoto. We started from Shinjuku station, took Yamanote Line to Shinagawa, to catch the Hikari line Shinkansen to Kyoto. There are two stops for this line in Tokyo area, Tokyo station and Shinagawa station. We got to the station with plenty of time and Shinagawa station was much more relax than Tokyo station based on my experience. We wanted to leave early hoping to get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji after Nagoya. No such luck. The sky was getting darker as we headed west. When the train stopped by Nagoya, it was pouring. I was a little worried about our day in Kyoto as all of the planned activities were outdoor. 2 hours and 40 minutes after we left Tokyo, we arrived in Kyoto.
Kyoto station is a beautiful structure. There are several levels of shops, department store, restaurants, and many more. We were able to find out more tourist information and purchase bus passes.
Informed by the Tourist Center lady the traffic would be tied up due to the festival, Gion Matsuri, we decided to drop off our luggage at my hotel first. It was a small inn and took the taxi driver a while to find it. He waited for us to talk to the inn-keeper, then took us to Sanjo Dori Bridge where was the closest spots cars could reach near the parade route. Gion Matsuri is actually a month long of festival in July. On July 17 every year, it’s the peak event where 30+ floats go on parade in downtown Kyoto. There are two types of float, with people on them (big) or without (small). They are all pulled or pushed by men. Well, it’s a bit hard for women to participate in the parade in those pretty kimono.
Young boys participated in the parade playing flute and drum, or dancing.
The bigger floats carried the boy musicians. They sat at least 15 feet off the ground, with a pole on top of the float as tall as 50’. I saw a few young boys got off the float thru a ladder to use the bathroom in the middle of the parade. Pretty funny. Almost all big floats have a gold figure in the front center of the float, but only the 1st float carries a real boy dressed in gold (and wore make up). Rest of the floats just had a statue. I read the boy in the first float was chosen by some secret events. Weeks prior to the parade, he was to live in isolation from women and was carried around in a float or by people. His feet were not to touch ground. (Or terrible things would happen). Then the boy was to cut a rope with a single stork to start the festival.
My favorite was watching the two persons in front of the float using their fan to cheer and guide the 40-some pullers espeically when they tried to turn the corners. Turning corner was quite a production. First, a couple of guys in shorts put crushed bamboo poles in front of the wheels, then they poured water on it to reduce heat (?) or make the wheels easier to turn(?), then the ~40 started to pull the float the direction they wanted to go. It took roughly 10 minutes to make like 30 degree turn, so it took like 30 minutes for the float to turn.
After we saw one, we decided to walk to Nijojo, a historical castle. Although it was hot and humid, the walk to Nijojo wasn’t too bad. Everything in Kyoto is old. Nijojo was built in early 17th century. We had to take off our shoes before enter the main hall. Compared to where we just came from, the hall was very quiet – until we started walking. Every step I took the floor made squeaky sound. Then I read the pamphlet it is a special architecture feature in the floor joist to squeak as a security measure. Pretty cool. The hall had the “open floor” design in mind. Since it was some Shogun’s summer castle before, there were a lot of paper screen doors where the security guards waited. One never knew whether the guards were behind Door #1 or Door #3. Quite interesting.
The most interesting thing was the soup. It looked like a flower and bunch of weeds floating in the water. I had no idea what they were, but the broth was delicious.
Kiyomizu-Dare is a temple but I am not sure for what religion. At the main hall, we saw a line. Again, they wanted the shoes removed before we entered. Without a clue what was going on, I was shocked to find that I was in completely darkness as soon as I entered the hall. It was so dark, I immediately walked backwards. Sanjay offered to walk in front of me so I could hold on to his backpack. I held on to the backpack with my right hand, grabbed on to the rope made of beads with my left hand, then began to make small steps in the dark. I could feel the floor was sloping down, and before I could quit more people were behind me and making the same frightening noise. After it seemed like forever, there was a beam of light from the ceiling aiming at a very large, round, and smooth stone. I copied the people before me and rubbed the stone before I moved on into the darkness again. After I exited, I read the hand –out, the darkness symbolizes the womb, and the beaded rope is the guidance, and the stone in the room was the seed. Many people re-entered, but I had enough of surprises.
We came upon this building with three streams. The legend is, drinking the water from one of the stream gives you wisdom, one gives longevity, and one gives beauty. As a greedy person that I am, I drank from all three.
After we visited all the buildings in this compound, we started to find our way home. From the map, it’s walking distance from the famous stone slopes. It’s a good thing we were walking downhill because I was pretty hot and tired at that point.
The slops were famous for the history of the stone pavement and the many shops on both sides. I found some cool Kyoto souvenirs from the air-conditioned gift shops. Nice! 
After a long day, we returned to our hotels and freshened up for dinner. We read about the night walk in Gion district, so that was what we were going to do before dinner. But it was too hot, and we were too hungry to enjoy the path. We decided to eat first.
We walked in and I had this bad feeling. Because of my look, many people started speaking Japanese to me not knowing Sanjay speaks and understands Japanese better than I. The waitress spoke no English, and the English menu she showed us was not nothing like the one we read outside of the restaurant. Then the head chef started speaking English to us, and invited us to sit by the counter like other guests (all Japanese). He offered us an appetizer that’s just an 90% raw egg in a special sauce. It was amazingly delicious. I started to relax after some beer and raw egg. We started with a tofu platter. For the price (and the description), I was expecting this amazingly fulfilling tofu appetizer. Instead, this cost us 1400 yen, and they didn’t even make the tofu – they bought it!
Well, it was too late to back off because we already ordered other dishes. The chicken sashimi was heavenly. Yes, you read it right. They raised their own chicken with organic feed and was slaughtered on premise and on the same day to ensure its freshness. With little local sea salt, little onion, little ginger, or lime juice, each bite was unique and delicious. I don’t know why, but I did not get offered any wasabi when dining in Kyoto. However, the ingredients were so fresh, simply little lime juice or sea salt was just enough to bring out the best.
We also ordered some grilled chicken skews, again, only seasoned with little sea salt. No Teriyaki sauce!
The chicken and mushroom rice was also superb. The rice was plump and moist full of mushroom flavor. The chicken was almost unnecessary because the mushroom was so delicious.
Although we were almost full, we could not resist copying the people next to us and ordered the chicken and duck meatballs. The meatballs were fried then simmered in a Teriyaki looking sauce, but it totally does NOT taste like Teriyaki sauce! The chef suggested us we tried dipping the meatball in the raw egg yolk to cool it off. I liked it.
It was the most expensive dinner I had in Japan, but it was totally worthy. Except the tofu platter.Here is a look at the 1st float of the parade turning corner and with the live boy.
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