Japan, Kyoto part 2

16 July 2014

We have moved to another hostel in the outskirts of Kyoto. Our first hostel was booked full for the coming Gion Matsuri festival. The Utani youth hostel is a lot bigger and close to some temples we still want to visit.

Yesterday night we walked along the festival route together with maybe half a million others to view the floats. A show of clothing of all sorts from expensive kimono's with their even more expensive bands and elusive knots on the back to punk clothing and very fashionable business suits. For us that was enough of a crowd and we decided to skip the big parade tomorrow morning.

We spend a whole morning in utter stillness in an old Zen cloister, build initially as an imperial palace in 12xx and converted to a cloister by the zen-emperor of that time. You will recognise the iconic raked gardens. I discovered the secret of the raking while meditating: you only see the pattern if you focus less, too much focus shows you all the detailed intricacies of the stones, but the overall pattern is lost. A true insight as it applies to everything!

Julie is buying a hash pipe from the vice-abt of the cloister. They explained that they used the pipe only as a stand for the chopsticks when eating the hash... We graciously believed them but Julie did smell the smoke....

We were quite surprised how few people visited these gardens, world famous as they are. And even the few passing by did so in haste. This gave us plenty of opportunity to absorb the atmosphere created by subtle and artful gardening over centuries of time.

Next stop a visit to the botanical gardens of Kyoto as Julie is still hunting for the Ginko Bilobia Horizontalis. We do not think we found them there. On the way home we bikes along the river enjoying herons, ducks, cormorants and eagles. Right in the centre of Kyoto, along the river we stumbled on a deer feeding in the riverbed. Even the local people had not seen that yet!

Sunday, 20-7-2014, Takayama

We had decided to go into the mountains of central Japan: Takayama. This would also allow us a ride on the famous Shinkansen bullet train and travelling with a speed of up to 300 km/hour. Our next stops will be Hiroshima, Tokyo and Nara (an old capital, never destroyed by war). Again giving us plenty of time on the bullet train.

Takayama as a small mountain town did not stand out on our list of highlights and must see places. It does have however the tranquility of a more remote little town, an old quarter with wooden houses bustling with Japanese tourists, the inevitable tourist shops and rikshas. The area is known for its woodwork, sake makers and hot-springs. Out of time poverty we skipped the last one. Tomorrow at seven we will grab our bags, walk to the station and reserve our seat on the local stoptrain to Nagayo and hopefully also the two Shinkansen trains that will take us to Hiroshima. Breakfast will be something we hope to squeeze into this scheme.

Sold on the morning market besides pastes for curries, miso soup and rice cookies.

Even the gutter covers were artful.

These ball would open and fold back to a new ball when thrown in the air. You could not do that while holding it in your hand.

Just some plastic bottles..

And this is the 'normal' view of Takayama. We would not like to disappoint you when you come to Japan expecting to see only the sights on the other foto's. Still it is fascinating to see the mix of old and new, chaos and order, eye for detail and creativity amidts the buss of a mordern 'western' society.

A playfull windwill to enjoy the passer-by.

Our last two days in Kyoto were spend in a large youth hostal on the outskirts of town. A one hour bus ride took us there, an are with many famous temples, including the 'golden pavillon'. Indeed fully plated in gold. It missed the essentail ingredient of enhanced nature, the subtle improvement of natural landscaping over centuries. These gardens and buildings missed a humbleness of a non-identity, instead they imposed the designers idea on the environment and the visitors.