Two weeks have passed since Cassidy and I went to Hiroshima and Fukuoka, so we decided that we were finally rested up enough, and we put on our traveling shoes once again, this time to visit Kyoto. Because of the event that I had attended at the Kyoto Women’s College about a month back, I had met quite a few people, and so for this trip I was going to be meeting up with one of them (Megumi), as well as her friend from Nara. Getting up around 7:45am (entirely too early, since I hadn’t been able to get to sleep until 2am the night before), we hopped on our bikes at 8:25am to make sure we had enough time to get to the train station to catch the express at 9am. And this is where my day started to go bad. While on my bike, I noticed my one and only, favorite pair of gloves that I’ve had for many many years finally decided to die on me. My right index finger was poking out the end of my glove. Not having any other choice, we continued on our way to the train station, which we were actually got to early this time (sometimes we end up having to rush to put our bikes in the parking lot and then run to the station to catch our train). We bought our tickets and were on our way. The weather report had told us that there was only a 20% chance of rain in Kyoto, but all the way there on our trip the rain started getting heavier and heavier….making us very worried.

47 minutes later we were in Kyoto station once again, and the familiar smell of Belgian waffles assaulted us as we stepped into the train station, forcing us to stop and buy some. Then we found our way to the big Christmas tree that is set up inside of Kyoto station, and waited to meet Megumi and her friend. The Christmas tree is up on one of the higher levels of the station, which while it is covered by a roof, is still open to the outside, and consequently it was FREEZING COLD up there. Winter had finally arrived in Japan. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long before Megumi and her friend Saki met us. We went down he escalators and into the rain once again to buy our one day bus pass (for 500yen), and then caught a bus for Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. I have visited Kinkakuji once before, when I came to Japan last year with my Mom, and since it was such a cold rainy day, it made the visit slightly boring. I also didn’t take very many pictures, since I already had some and because of the foul weather. What few pictures I took didn’t come out so well either. (Interestingly enough, Kinkakuji survived the US bombings from WWII only to be burned down in 1955 by a mentally disturbed monk.)

After leaving Kinkakuji, we had planned on going directly to Kiyomizu Temple, another famous place in Kyoto, but first our guides suggested that we should go to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. But, first we stopped at a little noodle restaurant that was incredibly warm inside, for which the four of us were very grateful. After eating my fill of tenpura udon (and then having to use a bathroom of which you had to go outside to use….seriously I hate Japanese bathrooms with a passion), we made our way up a row of shops to Ginkakuji. Ginkakuji was built about 100 years after Kinkakuji, by the grandson of the builder of Kinkakuji. It was originally going to be coated in silver (thus, silver=gin, gold=kin), however either because of war breaking out or because the builders ran out of money, the coating was never placed on the building. The grounds around Ginkakuji also feature a famous Zen garden, with a pile of sand supposedly left by the temple’s builders, which was preserved and now is said to resemble Mt. Fuji. We paid our 500yen entrance fee, took some pictures of the place, and then wandered around for probably less than 10 minutes. The best part of the place to me was the moss covered forest floor, which had red and yellow leaves everywhere. By this time it was about 1pm, and we were cold and it was still raining (though, mostly just sprinkling), so we had to keep moving.

Since Ginkakuji was fairly close to the Kyoto Handicraft Center, which Cassidy and I had planned on going to after we parted our ways from our new friends, we asked if they would like to go there with us instead. They said they would, so we caught a bus and headed for Marutamachi-dori. Unfortunately the bus we were on was an express bus to Kyoto station (express busses, who knew), so we had to get off at a stop that was somewhat of a ways from the Handicraft Center, but luckily by this time of the day the rain had stopped! Still, it took us about double the time that it would have to walk there if it had been just me and Cassidy, since these days every Japanese woman wears high-heeled boots. So we had to slow down our pace a bit for our new Japanese friends….but that was ok. After at least 3 blocks we finally found the Handicraft Center, which was thankfully heated instead, and so we took the elevator to the top floor and worked our way down. I was on a mission to find a specific obi for my Mom for our new house. Eventually I found 2 stores that were selling obis (though, they only had antiques), so I leafed through them a bit. I found a couple that seemed good, but they were a bit on the steep side for their price, so I passed. Cassidy had to buy some last minute Christmas gifts, so for once on an outing she was the one buying things while I had nothing.

After leaving the Handicraft Center, we walked for a bit before catching another bus (this one we had to run for, but luckily the bus driver stopped for us), and after a short bit we got off in the famous Kyoto district of Gion (famous for its geishas), where it was now raining again, only this time harder. We walked through some shrine with a name starting with A (Akusa? Akasaka? dunno..), as the rain was steadily getting worse and worse. We walked through the back streets of Gion for I don’t even know how long, probably 30 minutes, in the pouring rain, with about 10 bazillion other people and their umbrellas whacking against us. Why people want to go to temples when its pouring out is beyond me. At this point, I had pretty much lost all my patience, as my backpack as well as my shoe, feet, and legs were completely soaked. Our other two companions were walking very slow, so at times I tried walking ahead of us at a quickened pace, although that didn’t seem to help very much. I would have liked to just turn around and go back to Kyoto station at this point, but we didn’t since it wasn’t just the two of us. (The only highlight of our wet hike through Kyoto was seeing three Maikos, or geishas in training, they were very beautiful.) Eventually we got to the temple, and Cassidy and I stood under a gate and tied our ponchos around our backpacks so that they wouldn’t become more soaked than they already were. We paid our 300yen and went inside, along with a bunch of other people. The highlight of Kiyomizu Temple is looking out off its great deck onto the city in the distance. But, since it was pouring, you couldn’t see much. Cassidy and I took some pictures, and then basically hurried through the place as fast as possible. At this point, I did NOT want to walk alllll the way back down the hill to get on a bus to go to Kyoto station, so I whisper “taxi” to Cassidy, but since we were with others we didn’t want to impose on them having to pay part of the fare. So, back down the hill we went, getting wetter and colder. When we finally found a bus stop, we had to wait about 20 minutes for a bus to pass by that wasn’t jam packed with people. They were so jam packed that maybe one person could squeeze on. Sometimes they stopped and didn’t even bother to open their back doors. Eventually, we were able to get on a bus that would fit the four of us, and we headed back to Kyoto station, about as slow as molasses (longest bus ride EVER).

FINALLY getting back to the station (we were so relieved to be INSIDE a building), we were originally going to look for a department store called Daimaru, which I had gift certificates for (I got them as compensation for my train tickets to Kyoto on the day I came to the women’s college). Megumi had told me there was a Daimaru in Kyoto station, but once we got back to it she remembered that there actually wasn’t one. At this point my poor index finger on the right hand was practically frostbitten since it had been sticking out of my glove all day long, and so I desperately needed something new. Luckily, Megumi looked at my gift certificates and told me that I could actually use them at *any* department store. So, we stopped by a store called Isetan (its supposedly a famous chain of department stores in Japan…or something), where I quickly headed to the ‘Women’s Accessories’ section, gawked at the $130 designer gloves, but eventually found a par for about 3500yen that fit me fairly well (my fingers are extraordinarily long even for gloves in the US so I was a bit worried that I might not be able to find something that fit me, which is one reason why I had my old pair of gloves for so long). Unfortunately, after buying them, I had no way to cut the tags off so I still had to wear my old ones on the way home.
At this point, we told Megumi and Saki that we had a few more shops to visit in the underground mall of Kyoto station, so we parted ways. So, able to walk at our own pace (fast!) again, we headed down to our favorite store, Mother Garden aka Sirotan Town. Cassidy was still Christmas shopping, so she picked up a few cute keychains, as well as a little bunny Sirotan for herself, while I, shockingly, left the store without buying anything. Then, since it was about 7pm at this point, we headed over to the McDonalds and grabbed ourselves some grub (but, not before visiting a bakery…). After eating I grabbed a gorgeous piece of fruit tart from a dessert shop (Japanese desserts are really pieces of art), which I intended to eat on the train ride home. However, when we got into the actual train station part of Kyoto station, we saw a very strange thing. The board listing all the incoming trains actually listed delays for some of the trains, some up to 60 minutes late. This was shocking to us, because I once read that trains in Japan are always on time, to the point that if you are on a train that is actually late, you have to get a station attendant to write you a note, because otherwise when reporting to school or your boss, they wouldn’t believe an excuse of “my train was late”! So, flabbergasted, we walked to our train platform and waited. The 6:35pm train was 60 minutes behind schedule, and since it was about 7:30pm by that time, we figured we’d be able to catch it. But, we waited and waited, and eventually around 7:45pm, a rapid train (not the one that was supposed to go at 6:35pm) pulled up, and we got on it, along with the 58434 other people waiting for the late train with us. All the while that we were standing on the train platform, there were announcements as to the reason that the trains were late. Unfortunately, the announcements were never translated into English, so the only word that we could pick out and understand was the word for stop lights. So we figured that obviously something was wrong with the train traffic lights, so probably they had to stop the trains for an extended period of time to make sure there were no accidents. When we finally got on the express headed for Maibara (where we had to stand up for most of the trip), at one point the train stopped dead in its tracks, and they made an announcement saying again that something was wrong with the traffic lights (shingo). Luckily, we were only stopped for a couple minutes, and were soon on our way again.

Getting back to Hikone station around 8pm, we were welcomed by the cold and gale force winds. It was almost enough to blow us over when we were just walking. But, since our bikes were parked in a pay lot and we had no other way to get back to JCMU, we had no choice. The winds were so strong at points that we could actually move faster by walking instead of biking. It was insane. When I got back to JCMU, I threw my stuff into my room and took a very hot, very long shower. While going to Kyoto and meeting some new people, and hopefully making some Japanese friends was fun, for me the day was pretty much ruined by the cold and the rain. The next morning, I got up to go to class and felt completely exhausted and not so well, probably because I had spent the whole day walking around in the rain. So instead of going to class, I slept until noon, and even then I woke up feeling exhausted.

So now, a few pictures:

Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji:

Interesting Zen garden at Ginkakuji, and fallen maple leaves on top of moss:

Crazy people going to visit Kinkakuji, and the famous view of the temple on a not-so-nice day:

Late trains?!? And Cassidy said this picture is for her “Nikki’s Obsession” page of her Japan scrapbook (I guess it will go with the Totoro store pictures…(and by the way that is Sirotan dressed up as a bunny, its so cute and I almost bought it….)):