Clear waters and the 30-ken-long gallery

Because my host mother had a day off, she offered to take me to see two of the most famous temples in Kyoto, Kiyomizudera and Sanjusangendo. We got up early (for me) and headed out by bus to Gion, got off in front of the Yasaka shrine, and took a long-ish but beautiful walk through the grounds and out the back, stopping at a Victorian-style ladies’ hotel for lunch. It was a bit expensive, but it was quite nice and the interior of the place was positively beautiful. After that we walked through some very nice streets lined with vendors of every sort of traditional Kyoto Omiyage to Kiyomizudera. Kiyomizudera is a Buddhist temple built up into the mountains around Kyoto, and has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s most famous for the way that large portions of it are built on tall platforms out from the side of the mountain, which are supported on series of wooden beams fitted together without any nails. It has remained this way for well over 100 years, though I can’t remember exactly how long. Even though it was no longer a holiday the place was mobbed with tourists and school groups, who were often recognizable by their brightly-coloured hats before their uniforms could be spotted. Below the main buildings there is a smaller shrine where a spring from the mountain is channeled into three streams of water, which people drink from by way of long-handled dippers, that are supposed to grant (from right to left as you face them) success in ones studies, health, and love. I drank from the studies one, since there wasn’t one for ‘ridiculous amounts of money.’ After this we hopped on another bus to Sanjusangendo, which might also be a world heritage site. This was another very old Buddhist temple, though of a completely different feel from Kiyomizudera. The main focus of this temple is the 1,000 carved wooden statues of the Buddhist deity Kannon, all incredibly detailed and plated in gold, carved by master carvers over a period of 100 years. They are joined by a complete collection of statues of 28 guardians of Buddhism, which are also incredibly lifelike, aided in that illusion somewhat by the fact that, although the statues themselves are made of wood, their eyes are made of crystal. The overall effect of all the statues flanking one massive statue of Kannon, all in wood and all in a single long room is very impressive and definitely worth seeing. After such a long day, we only made one more stop: the Minamiza Kabuki theatre in Gion, where the names of the actors and plays that were going to be shown at the biggest Kabuki event of the year had just been put up on the façade. Every actors name was written in calligraphy on a large plank of fresh wood, and every play was displayed with a full-colour painting to represent it along the top of the entrance. The tickets for this event are apparently all but impossible to get.
-Maiko experience shops, where any tourist can be dressed up like a Kyoto maiko and allowed to walk around the area for awhile, are myriad in the neighbourhood around Kiyomizudera. This means that if you see a ‘maiko’ walking around that area, they are almost certainly not the real thing. According to my host mother, maiko are almost never seen in such touristy areas unless they are there for a festival of some sort.
-Most places temples that I have gone to allow pictures, but not Sanjusangendo, so be aware.
-The temple building at Sanjusangendo was built on layers of clay and sand in order to protect it from earthquakes.
-Fall and Spring are the two most touristy seasons in Kyoto and it shows.
-I also bought Takarazuka tickets today by reserving them over the phone in advance and then buying them from a machine at the Lawson’s convenience store. I only ordered just over a month in advance, so it’s not impossible, and the woman on the phone was very nice and understanding of my language limitations. I was, however, extremely happy that my host mother was there to help me with the machine, since the entire thing was in complicated (for me) Japanese, though probably I could have gotten help from the girl behind the counter at Lawson’s.