This didn't help with my melt down. Most restaurants had a ticket machine outside the door where you could buy a ticket for whatever you wanted to eat. Then you got in line for the restaurant - a long line. While we were waiting, a waitress came out and checked what we were going to order so that everything was cued up and efficient. Another waitress brought us all tea. After about 15 minutes in line we got a table in the restaurant and our food came out within 3 minutes of sitting down. The whole lunch was as efficient as you could ask for. We topped lunch off with some matcha and hogicha ice cream. Matcha is a green tea made by whipping powdered green tea in water. It is the traditional tea used in the tea ceremony and is oftene used to season foods and desserts. Hogicha is a wheat tea with a distinctive flavor - you'll just have to try it. Both ice creams were delicious - and didn't involve corn flakes or soft serve!
Since it was already 2:00, we decided to skip over several smaller stops we wanted to make and go straight to the top recommended temple in Kyoto - the Kinkakuji. The Kinkakuji, as Russell do deftly noted, is not painted yellow. No, that's thick gold leaf covering that temple. The temple and grounds were originally the home of the third Shogun of some era I forgot who began building on and landscaping this area after he abdicated. After he died, the temple and grounds became a Buddhist temple - as per his wishes. Russell and I were uncertain whether he originally had it covered in Gold leaf, or if that came later. Apparently in 1950, an angry monk burned the original temple down, but it was rebuilt 5 years later and has since been re-gilded in the 80's. There were many other buildings on the premises as well, including a traditional tea ceremony building. The site is now listed on the UNESCO world heritage sites list. Towards the end of the tour around the grounds we had the option of sitting for some traditional matcha and a small dessert. Neither of us have ever had real matcha in tea-form before - only the flavoring. We couldn't really pass that opportunity up. We hot matcha accompanied by a white cube with two flecks of gold on it. The outer white coating was a finely compressed sugar powder, and the inside was sweet red bean, probably mixed with the same sugar powder. It was tasty, but the tea was the best part. Now I want to be a tea nerd and go get the cups, whisk, etc we need to make matcha at home...hmm.
After visiting the Kinkakuji, we decided to follow the walking map we had gotten from the tourism office. We didn't think there were any other big attractions in the area - the Kinkakuji is a bit farther afield then the other sights I was hoping to get to. It turned out our assumption was totally wrong. After the modern art museum we ran into another temple - the Ryoanji Temple and we decided to go in. Turns out its a UNESCO heritage site too. We didn't know what to expect, but we went in anyway. This place was even more gorgeous (in my opinion) than the Kinkakuji - though not as golden. There was extensive landscaping that was just beautiful and a building we got to explore with one of the most renowned white rock gardens in the world. Russell and I don't quite get the white rock gardens, but there was a large crowd of people - young, old and in between, taking pictures and sitting to just contemplate the garden. The atmosphere was very pleasant.
We continued from the building (which was under construction for a new roof) and explored a different part of the garden. There were trellises and wysteria everywhere. As we were going around the lake, we spotted three turtles sunning themselves on a rock. There was some debate as to whether they were real, but if you watched them long enough they would move their heads. Definitely alive. There was a fourth turtle floating just beyond the rock - you probably can't see him in the picture - he was hard to spot in real life.
We left the temple and continued to the last place marked on the walking tour - another temple just down the road. We thought we had come upon it when we saw a temple with tons of cars parked outside. It had closed, though, so we kept going. We were just commenting that it was odd how all the other sites that were on the map had signs in English making it clear when you had found them, when we rounded the corner and saw the ACTUAL temple we were looking for. The gate was enormous and there were two statues outside easily twice my height. It was truly impressive. Unfortunately, it was after closing hours, so we will have to go back another time.
While we were on a walking tour designed to take you to the biggest and most historic shrines and temples in Kyoto, we definitely got the sense that you could walk in any direction and bump into temple on a regular basis. Maybe not a UNESCO heritage site temple, but not a tiny little neighborhood temple either. Keep in mind that Kyoto was the capital of Japan before Tokyo - and has been carefully preserved over the years. I knew it was a hotbed of history, but it really is impressive to be in the middle of it - and to see the mixture of cutting edge modern and ageless history.
We will be going back tomorrow (and likely many more times in the future). Stay tuned.
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