Week 30: Kyoto

Konnichiwa from Japan!

We began the Asia segment of our trip in the city of Kyoto, Japan. We were able to fly directly from Kona to Tokyo on Japan Airlines, which I found amazing. This was my first time flying on an Asian airline, and it was very pleasant. There was real silverware for our meals, real flowers in the bathrooms, and so many flight attendants to offer help when needed. Because of the date line, our nine and a half hour flight left Kona Thursday morning and arrived in Kyoto Friday afternoon. Because we knew we would have to stay awake anyway to help our bodies adjust to the time zone difference, we decided to take the bullet train to Kyoto upon arrival to Japan. This was a wonderful theory, and worked out really well come Saturday, but made for a rough Friday evening.

Walking through the airport, we learned that Asia was going to be more different from our “norms” than anywhere we had yet been. Finding the train and getting tickets to Kyoto was our first challenge of the evening. After overcoming that challenge, we boarded the train from the airport to Tokyo city center. This train ride should have been a little less than an hour. However, we were stopped using the emergency brakes partway into the city. According to the train screen, there were around five lines all stopped due to a “human related incident.” According to my quick google search, that is the phrase usually used when someone commits suicide by train, which is apparently relatively common along this particular train route. After about an hour, the train began moving again. When we arrived in Tokyo, we had already missed our train to Kyoto. Fortunately, we were able to switch our tickets and board the second to last train of the day to Kyoto. Kyoto is a two hour bullet train ride away from Tokyo. We arrived in Kyoto at around midnight, which felt like 5am to our bodies. This was much later than the 9pm we expected to arrive, but set us up well for adjusting to the time change.

I intended to spend Saturday relaxing and making final plans for Audrey and Maurene’s field trips for the next few weeks. Unfortunately, Saturday turned into a less than relaxing day. Josh and Kris had opened the downstairs bedroom advertised on Airbnb with the key left in the kitchen, and we left the heaters on in the house as it was very cold and I was home. Kris, Josh, Audrey and Maurene had gone to look at a nearby temple and I was in my room working. I heard someone in the house, so I opened the door to ask the girls how the temple was. To my surprise, it was our Airbnb host in the house. She began screaming at me, telling me how disrespectful and uneducated we were. It was an incredibly uncomfortable situation. The family came home moments after she left, and I told them what happened. Kris logged in to Airbnb and found a message from the host telling us to get out of her house and threatening to come “beat us” if we didn’t. We called Airbnb and they offered to pay for a hotel room for the night to get us out of the situation. We ended up staying at a traditional Japanese Ryokan, which was a very cool experience. The rooms in a Ryokan are multi-use. When we got to the Ryokan, the staff made out our traditional Japanese futon floor beds and moved the tables to the side for us. After our rooms were ready, the staff brought us bedtime tea which was a great end to a rough day.

On Sunday, we began our day with a traditional Japanese breakfast at the Ryokan. This was very different from an American breakfast. There were multiple fish options, rice, seaweed, and miso soup. It was actually really pretty good! The soup was excellent. After breakfast, we found a new Airbnb to stay in for the remainder of our week in Kyoto. While we were waiting to be able to get in to the Airbnb, we left our luggage at the Ryokan and went to see Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion. The Golden Pavilion is a buddhist temple covered in gold leaf. It is absolutely stunning, and is one of the most popular sights in Kyoto. We enjoyed a lovely stroll through the gardens and then went to warm up with a cup of coffee. (Spring time in Japan is definitely colder than winter in Hawai’i.)

After finishing our coffee, it was late enough in the day that we could go move in to our new Airbnb. The second Airbnb worked out very well, and was closer to city center allowing for easier access to school outings for the girls. Plus there was no screaming host, which was a major upgrade.

After a really pretty rough start to our Asia segment of the trip, things turned around well on Monday. Audrey, Maurene and I spent the day on a walking tour exploring Kyoto. This particular walking tour was a long one (five hours!), but the time flew by and at no point were the girls bored or tired of it.  The first location we visited on the tour was Higashi Honganji Temple, a Pure Land Buddhist temple. Higashi Honganji temple is one of the largest wooden buildings in the world, and was built in the traditional style without using nails. While stopped here, we had the chance to learn more about religion in Japan. We watched part of a Buddhist ceremony and had a discussion with our tour guide about Buddhism and Shintoism. Learning about these religions and how many of the Japanese people use both faith systems was fascinating. Our guide explained that Buddhism helps the Japanese people cope with the negative aspects of life, and Shintoism is for the positive aspects of life. We learned that many Buddhist temples in Japan contain Shinto Shrines, and many Shinto Shrines in Japan contain Buddhist temples. We practiced how to cleanse ourself before entering a Shinto shrine so as to please the deities, and learned how to make a wish to a deity.

After our lesson in religion, we continued the tour exploring the local side of Kyoto. We visited a folding fan shop where we had the chance to watch folding fans being made in the traditional style. Then, we tried fried tofu made by three sisters in a local tofu shop. We practiced how to make origami cranes and learned that 1000 cranes is the customary gift to wish someone healing when they are sick. Audrey and Maurene decided they want to make 1000 cranes for their grandfather, who has been battling cancer for a few years now. Next, we stopped in a local recreation center to learn about Kyoto’s history as the former capital of Japan. As we walked on, we found our first cherry blossoms of the season! Our next stop was the original Nintendo Headquarters from when Nintendo was just a playing card company. The current Nintendo Headquarters are still in Kyoto! Next, we took a tea break in a local tea and sweets shop, where we tried a smoky herbal tea (two votes no from Audrey and Maurene, but I liked it!) and watched a local candy craftsman make different candies. The craftsman has been making these candies for over 60 years and glowed with pride showing his work. After resting our legs and eating several sweet samples, we moved on to a local pottery shop. We met a darling 90 year old pottery painter who has been working on hand painting pottery her whole life. She was so focused- it was mesmerizing to watch. The walking tour ended at Kiyomizu-dera Temple. This walking tour was my favorite walking tour from the entire trip. Audrey, Maurene and I went to explore Kiyomizu-dera Temple on our own after thanking our tour guide profusely. The main hall was under renovation, but we spent a little while exploring some other areas of the temple and observing all the tourists and Japanese high school graduates that had rented Kimonos to wear for photos around the temple and with the cherry blossoms. Monday was a very full day, but we loved every minute of it.

We had two activities scheduled for Tuesday. We spent the afternoon at the Kyoto International Manga Museum before watching a Samurai show in the evening. The Kyoto International Manga Museum is a mixture of a museum and a library, where we learned the history of manga before reading some ourselves. There are around 50,000 manga books available to read in the Kyoto International Manga Museum, including a selection of manga in foreign languages – including English. After browsing the English selection, we took our books outside to the museum lawn to read in the sunshine. Maurene loved reading manga and decided she’s going to get some more to read on her kindle later. Without the Samurai show, I think the girls would have never wanted to leave the Manga Museum. We walked from the Manga Museum to the location of the Samurai show, and on the way we bumped in to a couple that we had met during our walking tour on Monday that was going to the same show! The Samurai show was a series of short plays introducing the history of Samurai as well as different Samurai traditions, weapons, and famous Samurai stories. The girl’s favorite part was learning about the differences between Samurai and Ninjas, who were the Samurai’s secret assassins. The girls each got an origami ninja star, which made their night.

On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to participate in a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. We learned about the different steps to the tea ceremony – how to make the tea, how to bow in each direction and thank those around you before drinking your tea, how to turn your bowl before and after drinking your tea and how to slurp correctly during your final sip of tea. After watching our tea master make our tea for us and practicing each of the tea ceremony steps, we had the chance to make our tea on our own. Audrey and Maurene were both good sports about trying the tea both times, even though they did not like the taste. Traditional Japanese tea ceremonies use matcha tea powder that is not sweetened, and it was definitely more bitter than our American palates are used to. We also had a teachable moment about the importance of respect even if others are not being respectful, and I was very proud of how well the girls handled being around a few tourists who were not as respectful to our tea master and did not seem to appreciate the importance of the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony to the Japanese people. Overall, it was a great experience. I would love to participate again with a different group of people alongside the girls and I.

Thursday was our final day in Kyoto. After packing up, we went to the Kyoto train station to find luggage lockers for the day. This was more exciting than it would normally have been, because the Japanese Emperor was arriving on a train at the same time we arrived at the train station. Our taxi driver pointed out the Emperor’s car waiting in the same parking lot we were dropped off in. At first, the situation seemed extremely relaxed compared to when the U.S. president visits somewhere in the U.S. After observing all the guards and policemen throughout the train station, I would describe the scenario as trusting, but not foolish. After finding lockers to store our luggage, we went to visit Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine. Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine is the head Shinto Shrine devoted to Inari, the deity of business. It is famous for having over 10,000 red torii, or gates. The gates have been donated throughout history by Japanese business people who have made a wish to Inari, and then had business success. The shrine is massive, and beautiful. We spent hours walking through and did not see the entirety of the shrine. After spending our afternoon exploring as much of the shrine as we could, we went back to the Kyoto train station to catch our train back to Tokyo. Once arriving in Tokyo and figuring out how to get to our Airbnb, we settled in for our week in Tokyo without any issues.

Our time in Kyoto definitely started out on a rough note, but I ended up adoring our time there. Practically everyone we met was so kind, and showed just how much of an anomaly our first host was. Kyoto is a beautiful city full of so much history, and I hope to go back to explore more of it in the future.