Tea ceremony

Day 13

Some months ago, when we were planning the trip and booking accomodation, to find a room in Kyoto was the most difficult of all. It took a couple of days. All due to the cherry blossoms. The end of this week was supposed to be the predicted time for them to bloom and so all rooms were booked except for the very expensive.

We were saved in the end by a small hostel that offered us 2 nights in one of their hostels and another 3 nights on another, just accross the road. They would move the bags for us. Not ideal but perfect under the circumstances.

So the first one we stayed has a small kitchenette, this meaning we can have warm milk and bread for breakfast for a couple of days. Great!  

We had booked a tea ceremony for 11am in a tea house inside a ryokan not very far from our accomodation so we had a bit of time to sightsee near us.

Hogashi-Hongan Temple (Eastern Temple of the Original Vow) and Nishi-Hongan Temple (Western Temple of the Original Vow) were the first ones. They are separated by not many streets.

Each had one of it's two halls (Founder's Hall and Amida Hall) being refurbished so it was as if we saw one only.

The halls are absolutely huge, the biggest having more than 900 tatami mats. The lamps are guilded and impressive. Hogashi-Hongan's Founder's Hall has a sign saying that it is the 'largest wooden struture in Japan' but the guidebook says it is 'one of the largest'. (?!?)

The following sign was on the wall of the temple. As you can see it is translated in portuguese. According to wikipedia, portuguese speaking imigrants, mainly brazilian, are the 3rd biggest group in Japan after chinese and koreans.

Tea house Ju-An is a small wooden japanese style tea house. A delightful old lady saw us in and we joined two tourists that were there already. Two more joined in later and so we were a group of 7 to watch the ceremony up close. We were also explained it's meaning and history and then made our own tea the same way accompanied by typical Kyoto sweets (sickening sweet, probably just made of sugar) which are supposed to be eaten first to cut the bitterness of the tea. It was informative and fun! The tea was great (Jorge is not a fan of matcha tea)! The most difficult was to seat in a tatami floor for an hour without getting the legs numb and painful.

Before we left, with great surprise from us, we were given a packet of Maria tea biscuits. These biscuits are very popular in Portugal and Spain and, as far as we are concerned, the best tea biscuits ever. Japanese have good taste in biscuits!

Have a look at the tea house website: http://www.teaceremonykyoto.com/m.index.html

We then headed to the castle, not to go in as by now our experience tells us that there is usually nothing to see inside. We wanted to see the exterior. When we got there we realised that the castle is not on a hill, this meaning we couldn't see inside the castle walls, we had to pay the entry fee. The boys weren't keen on going in so we kept going north to the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

All imperial palaces and villas need special permission to get in and only during guided tours on specific days. Tourists must go to the Imperial Household Agency office at the northwestern corner of the palace with their passports to book themselves on a tour. The next available english tour we could attend was in 2 days time at 10am. You are issued with a timed entry permission and must be at the palace gate at least 20min before the tour time. Ok then, all booked!

Today we found another japanese fast food joint. It sounds quite cheap of us when you think Kyoto is supposed to be the most refined japanese city but we want to experience the full picture.

So this one is opened from 5am to 2am. Almost 24h. Same style as yesterday's but the food is better and the price is similar. Main difference is that you have to order your food at a machine, which will give you a ticket per request. The ticket is then taken by the waitress to the kitchen. Employees don't handle money at all. 

We took a while to learn how to work with the machine. It had an english button but all it did was to change the names of the menus to english, there was no other translation. Eventually a customer stood up from a table nearby where she was eating and told us that we had to put the money in first and then order. Ahhh! 

                       Mixed grill:

                     Beef grill:

                     Katsudon:

After lunch we kept heading north, now trying to get to Kinkaku Temple before closing time. We tried to get the bus but Google maps directions weren't making any sense with bus stops so we kept walking. I have no idea how much we walked today but we were knackered by the end of the day!

On the way we crossed Nishijin area which is known for craft workshops. We passed a tatami workshop and managed to see how they are made. It's pretty much a huge amount of rice straw compressed together.

Also a woodwork shop with tree trunks waiting to be processed and some panelling already made.

Kinkakuji Temple is known for it's Golden Pavilion, it has two of it's three floors covered in gold leaf. It is a sparkling and impressive sight and it is reflected in the waters of the lake, called Mirror Pond. At the top there is a small phoenix, which looks like it's rising from the fire. 

Obviously, it also has a lot of tourists, though more manageable than in Himeji Castle. It is worth the visit.

Why the tourists keep throwing coins to every budist small statue is a mistery. Luck? Good fortune? Note as the statues have a cloth underneath to help removing the coins at the end of the day!

There was little energy to walk any further but the bus queues were more than 30m long and we couldn't cope with that either. So we walked some more kilometers to the nearest subway station and were drawn into Kyoto's rush hour. Manageable. I wonder how the rush hour in Tokyo is.

After a rest at the room we were in no mood to leave again or walk anywhere. Unfortunately, as the food doesn't come to Maomet, Maomet must go to the food.

Walked, again!, northwards, looking for Pontocho-dori, a street alleged to be very lively at night with restaurants and night entertainment, on the west side of the river, across the bridge from Gion. On the way there we walked through a street lined with iluminated cherry trees. As soon as I setup  my tripod the camera's battery died. How typical! No night photographies today then.

Pontocho-dori is a narrow pedestrian street close to the river with plenty of tourists looking for somewhere to have dinner. Clearly, we all must have read the same guidebook!

We have been wondering what these signs are for. In Fukuoka there were sexy dressed women at the door holding signs  of the same kind. A certain amount of money for 30min. In Dogo Onsen there were pictures of the women at the door.  But what are they offering? 

There are usually several in the same street with a man at the door, who doesn't look like a bouncer but acts like one. They never interacted with us. In the same streets you can also see groups of young man just standing on the side walk or smoking.

Manuel has done extensive online research and he believes that they must be gentleman's clubs of a non-sexual nature, aka in portuguse 'bar de alterne'. Japanese translate it to 'hostess clubs', to be entertained by a pretty and young woman whilst consuming the house's alcoholic beverages. Apparentely foreigners and tourists are not welcome at these clubs because the hostesses don't usually speak english and there is a protocol to follow that foreigners are not aware of or are not keen on. Basically, if you want to try this just make sure you go with a local. 

Restaurants were a bit on the expensive side and there wasn't anything we hadn't tried yet, apart from Kobe beef. Apparentely the cows in Kobe are extremely well treated, fed with beer, massaged with rice wine and listen to classical music. I have no idea if this is true or a myth but the bottom line is that it is extremely expensive. The meat has a marble pattern which is very distinctive. I really want to try it but I haven't been able to convince the boys yet. Scrooge McDuck they are!

We decided on a restaurant on the first floor, it promissed Kyoto pork on the menu and we hadn't tried that yet. It was a very small restaurant, one table and a counter. There was no one in so we sat at the table.

Jorge had barley Shochu from Oita (as opposed to the potato shochu from Kagohima) and I had plum liquor. The shochu was strong as expected but the taste wasn't any different. The plum liquour was diluted in soda as per the restaurant manager's suggestion and it was delicious.

(Yuba - soybean curd, a delicatessen. Soft and sweet. Delicious!)

       (Caeser's salade japanese-style)

             (Katsu with Tokyo pork)

            (Tokyo pork nabe, a hot pot)

As we walked back home after dinner we saw a Maiko (Geiko apprentice) walking down Pontocho-dori in high wooden clogs in a very quick (an noisy) step. We tried to keep up with her as it was the first time we were actually seeing a Maiko but she was going fast! She said hello to a group of people in the street and then went into a tea house, probably a work engagement. Yes, we were just like stalkers!