All right, I understand this is late, but, anyway, I have a few pictures from my trip to Kyoto a few weeks ago to share.
Kyoto was Japan's capital for about a thousand years until the 17'th century when the Shogun Tokugawa moved the military government to Edo (modern day Tokyo). The Imperial family remained in Kyoto during this period but moved to Tokyo in the mid-19'th century as the country began reforming and opening to international influences. Because of its historical importance and many cultural heritage sites it was spared from the US bombardments during WWII that destroyed many other cities. Unfortunately, in an effort to be more "modern" like the Western nations that won the war, the Japanese went on to destroy much of the traditional architecture in the city on their own. What was once one of the most beautiful, skylines in the country is now a mesh of ugly buildings that resemble nothing Western or Japanese. Still, a few decent spots remain.
清水寺：Kiyomizudera. More than a thousand years ago a priest heard a prophecy telling him to build a temple near a stream of pure water. Pilgrims can come and drink this water even today.
清水寺： Cultural heritage sites like Kiyomizudera are some of the last places in Japan to find thatch roofed buildings like this one. As you can see in the picture, this temple is rather crowded. Basically every important spot in Kyoto is overcrowded. Even to the Japanese this feels like one of the last places to see old Japan.
In a small Shrine next to Kiyomizudera you can find the "love rock". Anyone who can walk blindly along a short path to this rock and find the rock is promised swift good luck in romance. Anyone who tries and fails, however, is promised a lot of painful waiting.
The highlight of the weekend for me was this forest path. I wandered away from Kiyomizudera and the love rock shrine into some lovely scenery that was surprisingly completely vacant. The rustle and obnoxious chattering of the crowds faded and I could hear someone playing traditional Japanese flute in the distance. After a few minutes, however, someone from the group called me to see where I'd gone.
蓮華王院（三十三間堂）： This temple's official name is Rengeoin, but it is more commonly known as Sanjusangendo (Hall with 33 spaces between the columns) The main hall is Japan's longest wooden structure and is home to a thousand life-sized statues of Kannon, the thousand-armed deity of compassion. It has also statues of nearly 30 other deities such as the gods of wind and thunder. The statues inside are all around 7-8 hundred years old. The influence of Hinduism comes across very clearly in the naming of the deities and the forms they take. Although Japan certainly gave its own twist to Indian-born Buddhism, of all the deities represented in this temple only the god of wind appeared to be originally Japanese. They don't allow photography inside, so, I took a picture of a couple girls from the group staring at their guidebooks instead.
I show all these photographs of temples, but the true story of Kyoto lies in the Philosopher's Path entry that I wrote shortly after the trip. Basically, I spent a weekend getting lost. Be it the 1 hour hunt for an Irish pub for fish and chips that should've taken only 15 minutes (only to arrive and find that England was playing in the rugby world cup that evening leaving no room for dining), or the elusive Philosopher's Path, we spent a lot of time just wandering aimlessly. The worst came after fish and chips. The Artist (he is an actual artist) pictured above, his wife and I, sad to be unable to eat fish and chips (after an hour of hunting one does tend to develop a craving) were lucky enough to happen upon a cafe near the pub that served fish and chips. We enjoyed our dinner, and then the two other girls with us came all the way across town to join us for the evening. Unfortunately, the evening was already getting late, and, apparently, all public transportation shuts down by midnight. This is something we discovered the hard way. As the girl nicknamed Mana quipped,
"Kyoto is a city that never sleeps because everyone misses the train". Thus, we ventured 2 hours on foot to return to our hostel stopping by conbinis (convenience stores) along the way for fuel.
Some people go pub crawling. In Kyoto, we went conbini crawling.
Don't think I ever saw a Halloween decoration that grand in the States.
Kanazawa has some very scenic side streets. This particular non-descript alley leads into the secretive temple that has come to be nicknamed, "The Ninja Temple". It has no connection to Ninjutsu, the secret art of the ninja (or so they say), but it is an amazing piece of architectural trickery.
