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Posts tagged “Shinkansen

Kyoto – Day One… from Sad to Glad (Japan – Autumn 2018 Day 17)

Ahhhhh Kyoto. The quintessential picture of what people conjure up in their minds when they think of traditional Japan… they aren’t wrong to do so because Kyoto is just that… and much more as well.

Kyoto was first settled in the 7th Century… by the year 794, it became Heian-Kyō, the capital city to distance it from the clerical establishment in Nara… in those times the Buddhist clergy was very powerful and quite involved in the Imperial government, so the Emperor Kanmu wanted to relocate the capital there. Tokyo would not become the capital city of Japan until 1868, but that is a long story better served in a separate blog post.

Back to current times… all of us were up fairly early to get ready to go to Tokyo Station  this morning to catch the Shinkansen. Everyone was pretty excited to go to Kyoto… except for me. I was feeling quite overwhelmed with the serious nature of a few things that I am dealing with in my life right now, things too personal to write here, at least at this time. I felt quite lonely and isolated and confused about decisions that I am facing in the near future. It was all too much, once I settled in and got still on the Shinkansen… tears flowed and I was concerned that someone would notice… thankfully no one did.

I dug deep to find some strength to move past the thoughts and feelings that were taking the forefront of my attention… by the time we arrived in Kyoto I was less emotional, but definitely subdued and not excited. The walk to the apartment that we rented was only a half hour, but the roads that we went over sent two of my luggage wheels over the edge – after 10 years of use and abuse, two of them had been threatening to half fall apart, and fall apart they did… about mid-way through this walk. (now I have to get a replacement set while I’m here)

Walking up the hill to our apartment – this is actually some of the easier terrain that we traversed – some of the streets were in rather poor repair.

The last 15 minutes were mostly uphill, and by the time we got there my back and arms were a little sore from dealing with faulty luggage wheels and a heavy backpack… but the apartment was REALLY nice – while the others went upstairs to claim their beds and take a nap, I claimed one of the sofa beds in the living room as my own and hooked up my Playstation 4 – priorities!

It was a nice apartment – AND it didn’t have a mold and mildew problem!

Since I hadn’t been online in 16 days, updates needed to happen… a system update and a game update took around an hour and then I was feeling energetic and refreshed so I set out to one of the nearby temples for some much needed recharging.

Imakumano Kannonji Temple was literally just up the road and a hill away from the apartment, so I set my path toward that destination. It was not terribly long before sunset and I wanted to make certain that I could go to a peaceful place before I went back to the apartment.

At the entrance stood a nice bridge to welcome me in:

Imakumano Kannonji Temple Bridge welcomed me in…

This temple is not one of the temples that is frequented by tourists, so I was fairly certain that it would not be crowded… I was correct, as there was only three other people who seemed to be locals there, who left shortly after I arrived.

This was a beautiful place. I did not take a photo of the main shrine out of respect, even though there were no signs prohibiting it, but here I have a photo of the base of a statue that stood just outside of the shrine:

I love the details of this statue base!

A path from that point lead to mini shrines to pray and reflect at, all in a small bamboo thicket

Small shrines in a small bamboo thicket.

I slowly walked up the path and I noticed there was a large beautiful building at the top – I wanted to hurry up and get to the top of the hill because I could see the light of the setting sun, but I did not hurry my steps… I decided to bask in the serenity of this place and let the pains and stress of the day melt away as I slowly ascended.

My patience rewarded me with peace, and a beautiful view:


From this point you could see across the valley floor and the mountains on the other side too. So perfect. So peaceful. So beautiful. Exactly the sort of thing that I deeply needed and had been seeking for weeks was right here… I savored every moment.

I was standing there and looking out over the the valley when I heard a friendly voice calling out… I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying because he was a little far away, but when he got closer I realized it was one of the monks asking my forgiveness for interrupting but could I please come with him because the shrine was closed!

I was so embarrassed and apologized profusely (in Japanese) and he responded that it was okay, and asked me to please have a good evening and come again. He had to unlock the gates to let me out  – they allowed me to view the sun go fully down before they retrieved me – so kind. I’ll never forget both the embarrassment that I felt and the kindness that man expressed even in his humble apologies for interrupting me.

Exiting the shrine, I walked back down the path toward the bridge and paused, planning what I might do next because I was not ready to go home yet. I was a little hungry, but I decided to make my way to Fushimi Inari-Taisha, since it was only just over a mile away from the house, and some further distance from where I was exactly standing. I was hoping that perchance the food merchants would still be there since it was Sunday night but I also know that around sundown some of them close, so I wasn’t hopeful. I chose a wooded path that looked inviting and slightly scary, but I knew there was nothing to fear. Through the woods I happily walked, and at that point pulled up a map on my phone to plot a more sure course.

I went through a quiet neighborhood in the first of the twilight hour, then through another small wood, over a hill and back into a neighborhood. Around a tiny shrine, through another wood and another neighborhood, then over another hill – the moon was making an appearance, well on it’s way to being full in a few days.

Suddenly, I was on the approach to the shrine and HUZZAH! Food vendors! About half of them were still set up, and they were getting a lot of business from the throngs of tourists exiting the shrine. I was lured by a heavenly smell to one particular stall…. it was some sort of crepe-ish looking thing on a stick, covered with sauce and drizzled with mayo like Okonomiyaki, but clearly wasn’t Okonomiyaki… I still don’t know what this thing was called, but I DO know that it was made of… Yuba Yam flour, stuffed with a chunk of cheese – it was so delicious! Finding out what this was and finding a recipe for me is now going to be an obsession, because that was so very delicious!

Hunger satiated to an acceptable degree, I continued on up the mountain… there were still quite a few people there despite being dark, but I made my way up the first section of Torii Gates anyway in hopes that a zillion people would not be taking the full hike to the top of the mountain.

I got to the point where the path starts to get steeper, the section that leads to family shrines, but it was CLOSED. Oh, I was so very disappointed! Every time I have been at this shrine I have not had the time to go to the top of the mountain, and now that I had the time… no entry. Sadness! Perhaps I will try again tomorrow!

I consoled myself with a small photography session:

No matter what time of day or night, the Fushimi Inari Torii Gates are an impressive sight that I will never find boring.

 

This kitty ignored a guy wanting it’s attention, but he posed for me and then insisted that I give him and three other ladies ALL of the loves!

 

Night Doge

 

A regal dog watching over one of the shrines.

 

Peeking Boo is looking at YOU!

 

Exiting the shrine

Main Fushimi Inari-Taisha Torii Gate – if I were to magically make this photo pan down, you’d see the long approach to the gate… and at the end a Daily Yamazaki conbini!

I waked the 1.2 miles home, happy and peaceful, thankful and determined to continue my week in pursuing good things in my life.

Once I arrived home, then I spent time with some of my Destiny clanmates playing the new Festival of Lost Souls content for Halloween – I have missed you all so much! (we need to raid when I get back to the US!)

 


Last Minute Shinkansen Tickets (Japan – Autumn 2018 Day 15)

It had been planned all along that my group and I would travel to Kyoto toward the end of their stay here in Japan, and the beginning of the middle portion for my own stay.

In talking with them about getting the tickets, for an inexplicable reason I thought they told me that they would be purchasing the tickets this week… as it turned out, they had ALREADY booked their tickets and had to pick them up from Tokyo Station! I started to get worried, because they used a booking agency to purchase theirs and I was concerned that the number of non-reserved seating would be sold out by this time.

So, after I finished working this morning, I traveled to Tokyo Station with them to see about tickets. They started the procedure to pick up their tickets and once they had all of the pertinent information, Joy explained the whole process to me, and showed me how much I could save by booking through the same website.

So, I walked up to the kiosk and had a number assigned to me.

My ticket for my place in line – 608 was the number but not indicative of how many persons were waiting!

Since I knew there would be a bit of a wait, I went ahead and booked my tickets online, right there on my phone. Now, I know that smartphones are clearly not a new or novel thing but it still delights me that you can do practically anything anywhere, and it was quite convenient to already be in the queue to pick up tickets, purchase tickets while waiting and then picking them up minutes after! The process online took merely 2-3 minutes and my wait in the queue was around 10 minutes, plus another 3 for the tickets to print. They must have a slow printer!

Tickets in hand and much relieved to actually HAVE shinkansen tickets… at a 22% discount too! We then took a stroll into the Minato Ward… I was feeling the nostalgia hard at that point because I recognized so many places that I would walk past or visit during my time here in 2015- definitely not a touristy area and I love that it’s sparsely visited because there are fewer people.

Paulina needed to visit Daiso, and I stopped along the way to take some photos. I caught up with them a few minutes later and we decided on eating Burger King since it was near and burgers sounded delicious. I hadn’t eaten Burger King in 3 years and it was also in Tokyo (Odaiba) … I can’t even tell you how long its been since having BK in the USA!

Not an eventful day for adventures, but certainly a day of getting things done.