Today was a pretty lucky, good day. The two buses I took showed up on time and got me where I needed to be, I somehow managed to get to all of my locations in between tourist buses (and I didn’t get hit by one like yesterday), and didn’t feel rushed at all for anything. Things just worked out. I was tired after yesterday so I slept in a little and headed out around 9am. Since I didn’t finish the northeast quadrant of Kyoto a couple days ago, I decided to pick up where I left off along the Philosopher’s Path at Eikan Temple. This place was pretty jammed, and the fact they were letting mega buses into the historically pedestrian walkway was stupid. If you don’t have the parking facilities for these dumb things you need to just ban them and send them somewhere else. At $10 to enter and hundreds of people per hour, the temple is making plenty of money without the bus tourists. But, that’s not my decision, and I already ranted about that yesterday, so I went inside and wandered around.
Eikan is a temple I never really got to when I lived here, it just never really interested me and was always crowded, so I figured I’d go see it now. It’s a pretty place, the momiji were everywhere and totally gorgeous. The walk inside the buildings and the little museum they send you through is neat too, they have quite a few artifacts and scrolls and really old books you can look at. The garden is also nice, and there was a walk up to the top of a hill with a pagoda that offered a nice view of the area. I ran into yet another couple from Chicagoland, which was funny, they are the third or fourth ones. It really is a small world.
After Eikan I got back on the Philosopher’s Path and stopped at Kumano Nyakuoji Shrine, just a little thing off to the side of the road. The Philosopher’s Path is full of little temples and shrines like this, but I didn’t stop in all of them. The good thing about the Philosopher’s Path is that along the mile or so long stretch there are only really tourists on the ends where the major temples are, the middle is mostly residents. Like everything else, there were far more tourists this time than before, but it was still manageable and I moved at a stroll pace to hear the birds, watch the fish and ducks, and admire the leaves and fall flowers both still on the trees and floating gently down the canal. When I got to the end of the path at Ginkakuji it occurred to me that I forgot to stop at an ATM to get cash and I only had 500 yen left with me. I rolled the dice and walked up, and lucky again the fee to enter was 500 yen so I didn’t have to double back and walk a mile to get money.
Ginkakuji itself isn’t all that remarkable, but the gardens around it are spectacular. I spent a good hour wandering around and admiring the nature around it. This place wasn’t my favorite as a 20-something, but I appreciate it now as an older person with bad knees. After leaving Ginkakuji (and passing three separate huge tourists groups coming up on my way down!) I only had to wait a little while for the bus to take me to the 7-11 near my hotel, but where it dropped me off was a Family Mart that happened to have an international ATM, so I didn’t have to walk all the way over to 7-11 then double back to Sanjusangendo. Funny thing about Sanjusangendo, this was a place that both times I was here before, for 14ish months I kept saying I needed to go there, but then somehow for some reason I never got to go. Wash and repeat at least 20 times, when I last left in 2004 I STILL hadn’t gone to this frikkin’ place even though it looked cool. So I made it a point today to go there, finally. It was pretty cool, although I think I appreciated it more now than I probably would have back then. The 1,000 statues are amazingly detailed, each one is different: different eyes, eyebrows (one had a gigantic unibrow), jewelry, what they’re holding, facial hair, you name it. So even though they look like they’re exactly the same at first glance, when you look closer you can appreciate allll of the little details. The 28 guardian statues were super interesting to read about, and the wind and thunder god statues at the end were neat (the thunder god if you kneel to it and look up its eyes turn thi bright orange-yellow color and no matter where you move they follow you and it’s kind of creepy but neat). The back side has a lot of information and artifacts from the 850 year history of the building, the largest wood building in Japan they say, and was interesting to read. I wandered the grounds for a little bit, then stopped at McDonalds for food, then headed back to the hotel early. As is becoming my tradition here, I showered and jumped in the soaking tub, and now I’m chilling and watching sumo wrestling on NHK. I really like sumo wrestling, there’s so much strategy to it and so much ceremony and pomp. Anywho, off to Osaka tomorrow!
