Happy Holidays!
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| Beautiful foliage at Toji Temple |
My hope is to post to this blog once a week, but it's turning out to be more like once a month, BOO! It's almost resolution time... any guessing as to what one of mine will be?
Ok! Kyoto! Jackson and Jacob had a week off from school over Thanksgiving so I forced Joe to take a few days off also, basically so the boys and I wouldn't go crazy at the house or figuring out what to do around Tokyo. We had an amazing week on our trip and a fantastic time at our first destination, Kyoto. We arrived around 2pm and instead of resting and relaxing in our great little hotel room near the station, this "slave driver" as Joe lovingly referred to me, found the nearest Buddhist Temple and off we went. We found Toji Temple, which was beautiful. As one of my friends stated, "we hit the timing perfectly" to see all of the beautiful red, orange and yellow foliage. We saw a huge five-story pagoda and other ancient structures there, all were breathtaking among the beautiful backdrop of not only the trees, but ponds full of koi and zen gardens also. Very zen, indeed.
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| Five-story pagoda at Toji Temple |
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| One of the koi ponds at Toji Temple |
After that, we walked in the direction of an aquarium and a locomotive museum only to come across a massive park called Umekoji Park that housed them both. There were hundreds of kids playing on the playground equipment and running around and even I, the slave driver, couldn't resist letting our boys join in on the fun. They loved one slide in particular and it was a lot of fun for Joe and I too, watching them interact with the other children and with each other, looking out for one another, while going up and then down that slide.
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| J&J on the slide at Umekoji Park |
Just as we were all getting hungry, we spotted a restaurant called Bossche. The sign outside said, "Bossche" obviously and it also said, Frenth Toast. That's not a typo. Frenth. Yes, oh yes, that is the place we are eating tonight! We thought it was hilarious, while being very grateful to Bossche for having any English on the sign at all; whether it be French Toast or Frenth Toast, we knew it was going to be good! No surprise, it was! And the boys loved eating Frenth Toast for dinner, too.
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| Best Frenth Toast ever! |
Day 2 in Kyoto began with a bus ride to the beautiful Ginkakuji Temple. I think Ginkakuji Temple was my favorite temple of the whole trip. It was so breathtakingly beautiful with all the red Japanese Maple leaves, the perfectly manicured zen gardens, the ponds, the bamboo, the moss-covered rocks; oh my gosh, I really could go on and on. Two college-age guys approached us and asked if they could give us a tour of the temple since it would give them a chance to practice their English. Since we wanted to learn more about Ginkakuji Temple and we are all about helping students better themselves academically (on a Sunday!), of course we said, sure! Feast your eyes...
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| The beautiful grounds of Ginkakuji Temple |
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| I found Mt. Fuji in Kyoto! |
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| More of the gardens |
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| A mossy pathway at Ginkakuji Temple |
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| Bamboo graden at Ginkakuji Temple |
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| The Temple through the trees |
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| Us with our awesome tour guides and Ginkakuji Temple |
From Ginkakuji Temple, a World Heritage Site, we walked roughly 1.75 miles on "Philosopher's Walk" seeing two more temples along the way. We passed by Eikan-do Temple and briefly stopped at Nanzen-ji Temple. The thing about hitting the timing perfectly to see the beautiful Fall colors is that, everyone else wants to see them at that time too! So the path that was Philosopher's Walk was really crowded! While the walk was very pretty, it wasn't exactly the serene experience we were hoping for.
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| All of us on Philosopher's Walk |
After that, we caught a train to the modern Gion shopping area and walked along blocks and blocks of covered streets lined with shops.
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| Gion |
After eating some lunch and exploring Gion, we walked to Kyoto Station which, which had a giant Christmas tree lit up and an illumination on 12 stories of outdoor stairs. It was so cool! From there, we walked toward our hotel and found a delicious ramen shop nearby... dinner!
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| Kyoto Tower near Kyoto Station |
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| Merry Xmas from Kyoto! |
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| The illumination on the stairs at Kyoto Station |
We began day 3 in Kyoto similar to day 2 in that we hopped on a bus from Kyoto Station. This time we headed about an hour north to Sanzen-in Temple. The quaint pathway from the bus station to Sanzen-in Temple was lined with shops selling homemade jams and pickles, Japanese souvineirs, and Buddhist prayer beads and cafes serving traditional Japanese foods like steaming hot udon noodles, tempura, rice and mochi, which is hammered rice made into like gummy dough balls. So good! There was even a post office that sold special stamps! Pen pals, look be on the lookout for some fancy new stamps! We had a nice time at this temple taking off our shoes and entering the simple temple and then exploring the grounds. I loved all the little Buddha statues hidden under the moss. There were also rows and rows of small statues of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of compassion, that I thought were really cool.
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| Gazing at the pretty zen garden from the Sanzen-in Temple |
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| Jacob and Jackson's zen moment at the Sanzen-in Temple |
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| Little Buddhas in the moss and leaves |
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| Statues of Avalokitesvara |
After taking the bus back to Kyoto Station, we realized there are only so many zen gardens that a two year old and a three year old can take. Kicking and picking up pebbles are usually no big deal where ever we are, except in a zen garden obviously where everything is perfect thanks to hours and hours of hard work by meticulous Buddhist monks. (We are sorry for messing up your gardens, Buddhist monks!) So, we decided to take the boys to the park again. After all, it's their vacation, too! Boy, they had a great time.
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| My zen moment at Umekoji Park |
It's on to Osaka next.
Thank you so much for reading. I love you.
XOL
