Miscellaneous Travels Around Kyoto

One of the things that I like best about being here is how easy it is for me to get to these amazing cultural places that seem almost magical. It is easy to get caught up with the routine of classes and going home, but it seems exciting somehow that if I wanted to, after school I could just keep riding the train past my stop, and in less than in hour I could step into a whole different world in Kyoto with temples and little shops with enticing sweets that look like food for fairies. I think the 2 main things that make me a little nervous about going home in a month is that I’m still not as good at Japanese as I wish I were, and that I won’t be able to have that proximity anymore.

Anyway, that’s not to say that I do actually end up going anywhere on weeknights generally, but I do have a couple of miscellaneous travels around Kyoto that I haven’t written about yet.



Me at the entrance to the Torii gate path

The first is Fushimi-Inari, a shrine on the outskirts of downtown Kyoto. Fushimi-Inari may be recognizable to some of you as the location where they shot the opening scene of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. It is about 4 stops along the railway before most of Kyoto, and I had been wanting to go there for a while, so I ended up going on a whim the week before spring break. (Yeah, that was a while ago.) Fushimi-Inari is a shrine for the fox deity (“inari” means fox), and it is most notable for its hilly and very long path that is completely enclosed by thousands of bright red Torii gates, which are usually only found at the entrances to shrines, and denote purification for those who pass through them. Shops in the area sell a lot of fox-related items, such as stuffed animals and fox-shaped foods, and restaurants sell inari-udon and inari-zushi, noodle and sushi dishes, respectively, that feature fried tofu, which is really good, and supposedly is a favorite of the fox.



Memories of Memoirs of a Geisha?

Foxes have an interesting relationship with Japanese mythology—legends tell of foxes that came to people disguised as women and wrought havoc on people’s lives, so one had to be careful to look out for them. As an interesting trivia bit, evidently one of the only ways to figure out that these ladies were actually foxes was to ask them to say “moshi moshi,” since apparently foxes are unable to make that sound, and that is why people now answer the phone not with “hello,” but with “moshi moshi,” to show that they are not a fox. Nonetheless, Japanese people seemed to hold the fox close to their heart, as evidenced by shrines such as this one dedicated to them, and I even remember reading a story in one of my classes about a woman who had a vixen and its cubs living near her house, and from time to time she would give it fried tofu and pieces of clothing as offerings. In fact, the Inari is one of the principle deities of the Shinto religion. I guess people liked foxes, just not when they were trying to mingle among humans.



A Torii with my name on it!

Fushimi-inari shrine as it stands today first began to be built in the 800's, but the number of Torii gates built up over a long time. The shrine is primarily a shrine for business, so a lot of businesses buy Torii gates with their name on them. Some of the gates were pretty old-looking, but many of them still looked pretty new, so I guess that the number continues to increase.



From Kiyomizu Shrine

Actually, the real reason that I was headed into Kyoto in the first place that day was because they were having a special celebration of spring’s coming with lanterns and under-lighting of some of the more prominent temples and shrines in the downtown area. I think that there was also some kind of performance that I missed, but I did see a procession going down a street with people dancing and making noise, and at the heart of it was a palanquin with the “fox queen” on it, a woman in a kimono with a fox mask.



A view of the structure of Kiyomizu

I had already been to the places that were lit up, but they had a new special feeling at night time. The first stop was at Kiyomizu temple, famous for the tall wooden structuring that holds it up.

After Kiyomizu, I followed a walkway lit up with lanterns that led through some historic shops in the area. Thankfully it was really warm that night, and there were a lot of people out shopping and sightseeing.



Downtown Kyoto

More recently, this past weekend I saw the Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion, for the first time. The Golden Pavilion is one of Kyoto’s most famous sites, and until recently was the building pictured at the top of this blog. (I kind of liked the cherry blossoms better, though, and anyway I figured I may as well use a picture that I took myself.) It was built by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the late 1300’s, and is predominantly meant to be a Zen temple. Unfortunately, like so many other famous locations in Japan, it was destroyed in the 1940’s, and had to be rebuilt afterward. Then, in the 80’s, they redid the outside of the main building and made the gold leaf covering much thicker, which made it really shiny. (In the words of Kurasawa-sensei, the much-loved Japanese professor at Oberlin, it is really “bling.”) I think I liked the Golden Pavilion’s sister, the Silver Pavilion, a little better, since it was more understated and peaceful, but it was pretty impressive, and there were bustling crowds all around the spacious garden.



The Golden Pavilion

On my way out, I paid 100 yen for an o-mikuji, or a slip of paper with my fortune on it. I guess since the Golden Pavilion is so famous, they have o-mikuji in several languages, meaning I could get mine in English (the Japanese ones were completely undecipherable). The way that it works is that you insert your coin into a little machine, and your fortune pops out in the bottom in the form of a small folded piece of paper, and if you get a good fortune you keep it, and if you get a bad one then you tie it to a tree or a piece of wire that they provide, leaving the bad luck behind. O-mikuji are often found at larger temples. My fortune was “very good,” (a step down from the highest “excellent”), and said that I should have the courage to give up old things and go ahead. (Maybe that means that I should get rid of the clothes and other junk that I brought with me to Japan and are STILL sitting in my suitcase, yet to be used.) It also had 13 sub-categories where it offered cryptic advice, such as “travel: dare to go,” “speculation: change your way of view,” and “love: see his/her heart, not his features.” Hmm...



On a different note, I got a haircut! I had needed one for a while. Actually my hair is still pretty long now, and a lot of people didn’t even notice I cut it, but there was a lot of hair lying on the floor when I left. Most Japanese haircuts seem to range around $50 at least, but I managed to find a place that would do it for under $15, although they did not give me the head massage or experience with the hair-washing-machine that I had heard about from friends. Still, not a bad deal. I now have bangs, and the guy cutting my hair was very friendly, and seemed amused by my comments about liking sushi.



Poppies

Also, for some reason, these red poppies have recently sprung up everywhere. Really they are everywhere that I go, peeking out between other flowers in people's gardens, and growing in the cracks along the sidewalk. They are pretty. I guess it's spring.


This weekend I am off to Iga, the hometown of ninjas, and after that I’ll be heading to Kobe for hot springs and beef. (Since I will be away from school, I probably won't have internet until next Thursday, so, yeah.) Up and out!