After saying goodbye to Korea in Jeju, we flew to Japan to
spend a week in Kyoto. Having spent a year in Korea, going to Japan was quite a
culture shock for us not being able to read or speak much of the language. We
were staying in a townhouse in the heart of the Gion district, famous for being
home to the geishas, and it was everything which we had imagined Japan to be
like. Kyoto was the capital of Japan for almost 1000 years before it was moved
to Tokyo in the 1800s. As a result, it has thousands of important shrines,
temples, castles and zen gardens all dating back hundreds of years. As our
first day was a Saturday, we thought it would be a good idea to see Nishiki
Market at its busiest and visit the manga museum where you could have your
portrait drawn in the manga style! Manga is a very popular form of Japanese
animation that has been used in TV shows, films, comics and even books not only
in Japan but all over the world. It has a very distinct style and we even had a
go at drawing some ourselves. We then had a portrait done by an authentic manga
artist which came out great! After the museum, we made the short walk over to
Nishiki market which sold everything from fresh fish to geisha shoes. In the
market we all wanted to sample as many different foods as possible, so we
bought some rice cakes and tasted some authentic sake. Then we spotted that you could buy
a mini octopus on a stick with a quail’s egg inside the head! It wasn’t
terrible but I don’t think we’ll be craving that anytime soon. As the market
was closing, we went to get some dinner and had our first taste of Japanese
Ramen which was delicious.
The
following day we made our first visit to some temples and zen gardens. We
decided to visit the Northern Higashiyama area in the North-East of the city.
Unfortunately it rained quite heavily all day but it didn’t stop us seeing some
incredibly beautiful gardens. As we went in early November, the autumn colours
were incredible and made taking pictures quite easy! After the first temple, we walked down the 'philosopher's path' and stopped to have some apple cake and tea before heading to the second temple. The rain eventually got to
us and we made our way to a small restaurant to try tempura and sashimi. On the
Monday, Nick had organised for us to have a traditional tea ceremony at a “sensei’s”
house. We were met by our friendly interpreter Shuji who put us in a taxi to
the teacher’s house, before cycling halfway across the city to meet us. Somehow
he arrived just after we did, although he was severely out of breath! The tea
ceremony was really interesting and our teacher and her apprentices were very
friendly. The only problem was that the tea was disgusting! We all sat in a
line passing the cup to one another after trying and, as Nina was last, she was
the lucky one who had to finish it all off! Some pictures:
We had spotted a place in Gion where you could rent Kimonos
and as it was a lovely sunny day, Nina and Frances decided to dress up!
Although there was also the option for the men to wear Samurai outfits, we
didn’t want to steal their thunder so we gave it a miss. After an hour of
pampering, Frances and Nina had been transformed into apprentice geishas and
were ready to walk around Gion and receive lots of attention! We went to Kiyomizu-dera
temple which is one of the most famous sites in Kyoto as it overlooks the
entire city. This provided us with the opportunity to take some great photos
with the colourful backdrop of the trees against the temple and the city!
Afterwards, we walked around the small shopping streets surrounding the temple
and looked around some more temple gardens before going to the “most beautiful
street in Asia” according to our guidebook. When walking through one park, a
group of about 50 elderly people passed us all pointing, clapping and giving
the thumbs up! It was quite bizarre. Here are some pictures:
On our penultimate day in Kyoto, we decided to go to the
Arashiyama district of the city which is home to a famous temple and a stunning
garden joined by a bamboo grove. We used the very efficient bus system and
headed over to the west of the city. The Tenryu-ji temple was beautiful and as
we got to the back of the garden a huge bamboo grove opened up for us to walk
through. At the end of the bamboo was an old villa of a famous samurai film
star. Over 50 years he developed a huge garden that overlooked the entire city.
It looked especially beautiful with the autumn colours. The entrance fee
included free tea so we made our way to the cafe and were delighted to find the
same green tea from the tea ceremony!
The next day we went on a tour of the
Imperial Palace which housed the emperor when Kyoto was the capital. It was
extremely interesting to hear about the history of it and how difficult it is
to upkeep.It was extremely grand and definitely fit for an emperor. We also visited Nijo Castle which was the main castle of the Tokugawa Shogunate that dates back to 1601. Shoguns were essentially military dictators who, although appointed by the emperor, held most of the power. Nijo castle was the main residence of the shoguns throughout this period until the mid 19th century. One fascinating feature of the palace within the castle are the 'nightingale floors'. In order to protect himself from sneak attacks and assassins, the shogun instructed that all the floors in the palace be built so that they squeak like birds whenever anyone walks on them. Useful as this was, we all thought it must have been really annoying if someone just wanted to go to the toilet in the night! After the castle we headed back to the market that we had visited on the first day to stock up on souvenirs and christmas presents.
We then had a day to kill in Osaka before we went home so we decided to go the aquarium and go bowling before catching our flight. We flew for 1 hour to Tokyo, had an 8 hour wait then a 12 hour flight back to London! We were very tired when we got home but just about survived. We were very sad to leave Korea and we had an unforgettable and amazing time there. It was slightly strange readjusting to England after being away for so long but now we are fully focused on and excited for our travels next year. We hope that you've enjoyed our blog as much as we've enjoyed writing it!
