We took the train to Kyoto which
was about an hour or so. The Kyoto train
station was enormous! It was very modern
looking and was about 11 or 12 levels high.
We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant that was on the 11th
floor and planned out our day. We first
went to Kiyomizu Temple (I think that is what it is called) which was located
at the top of this giant hill. I felt
like it took forever to get to the top, but luckily there were little shops
along the way that occupied my attention.
As the slope of the hill started to level off, I was met by the vision
of a collection of vibrant, red-orange accented buildings that would make your
jaw drop in awe. It was absolutely
beautiful. There were many people doing
certain practices of their religion.
Some people would take these long stemmed looking spoons made out of
bamboo and fill them with water and pour the water over their hands. Other people would be praying and then would
ring this giant gong, that was high above their heads, using an extremely thick
rope. It was really interesting and cool
to watch the people who would come to these temples, not because it was a
touristy spot, but rather because they were there for their own personal, spiritual reasons. After exploring the grounds a bit we decided
we should probably start to head to the next temple if we wanted to see some
more before we had to leave. We started
walking down a different street where every open door was filled with
knick-knacks, t-shirts, food, and everything in between. My attention was constantly being grabbed by
little things here and there, things that I wanted to buy for myself or for
family and friends back home. It took a
good hour or so just to get down to the bottom of the hill.
We then jumped on the bus and
went to the next temple. I think it was
called the Gion Temple. It, just like
every other temple I have seen thus far, was stunning. This temple was surrounded by a vast amount
of grounds, and unfortunately I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked
to explore each and every corner and crevice of the space. We did get to walk around and just look at
the gorgeous buildings and watch those who practice the religion pray in
temples and shrines. Being in the midst
of all of these old buildings I completely forgot about the world of
skyscrapers and metal buildings that awaited me outside of the grounds. Being here made me think about what the world
looked like back in the day when these buildings were newly built. Were all of the buildings this gorgeous? Why didn’t we keep this kind of architecture
around in these places? I wish I could
have seen first-hand what the city of Kyoto looked like years and years
ago. After we finished walking around
this temple we decided that there wasn’t enough time to go to any more temples
which made me kind of sad because there were so many incredible temples in the
area that I didn’t get to see. Some
people have the feeling that every temple looks so similar that once you see
one you’ve pretty much seen them all; even though they do look very similar in architectural style, I feel like I
could spend days looking at these buildings and not get tired of it. We took the train back and made it on the
ship with time to spare before getting dock time. We left the port at 8:00 (like usual) and,
just as we were greeted into Japan, we left with the same showcase of
hospitality and kindness. There was a
small band playing songs with breaks in between where they would wave to all of
us on the outside deck. There were also
a good amount of people there, some had signs telling us farewell, others were
giant cutouts of hands and others used their arms to wave to us goodbye. It was such an amazing act of kindness in my
book. There were so many people in Japan
who went out of their way to help us or make us feel welcome in their country;
it was a very cool thing to see that something like that exists in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment