Day 6 - Kyoto: East and West Temples

Today I left Osaka for the first time since my arrival. I figured that six days in, I was about due for a day trip. So, I went to the nearest major city, Kyoto, and decided to see some Buddhist architecture. I also wanted to try out a little experiment: to see if I could have a good time without spending any money at all.

Well, things did not go according to plan. First of all, it was about 90 degrees in Kyoto today, so I dodged in and out of shadows along the side of the buildings on my way to the temples, and the heat forced me into buying some cold soda from vending machines along the way, as my Nalgene was growing warmer the longer I carried it. My new favorite flavor of soda is Melon. Coincidentally, this is also my new favorite flavor of ice cream.

Anyway, when I got to the first temple, the smaller of the two buildings (but not by much) was under construction, which limited the amount of architecture that was available. The inside of the temple was amazing, but I couldn't take pictures and thus can't share it with you. Needless to say, it was very shiny.

This first temple, Higashi Honganji, was created by Tokugawa Ieyasu in order to weaken the existing Honganji temple. He was afraid of the support it was gathering and attempted to split the sect in two.

The other temple, now also known as Nishi Honganji, was also under construction, except this time it was the larger of the two that was under construction. I still saw the famous Buddhist architecture, but in both cases it was not to the level that it would normally be, so I was disappointed.

Around the Nishi Honganji, though, I noticed two interesting things. First, a small temple nextdoor to the Nishi Honganji was also open, and in truth I went there thinking it was the Nishi Honganji. This other temple was still extraordinary and so I had a great opportunity to look at a more modern construction that replicated the details of the Honganji temples. Both of these temples are free, by the way, so other than food I spent no money today.

Don't worry, I didn't forget the second interesting thing. In a shop nearby that was selling Buddhist prayer beads, there was a picture of none other than Ken Watanabe (the actor from Inception and The Last Samurai, among others) in that store holding some prayer beads. So I have a picture in a picture for you.

This makes a funny joke if you think about Inception

I ventured back to the shopping area in and around Kyoto station. There is a food floor here. You read that right. An entire floor of a massive building. With nothing but food vendors. And they all had free samples. Multiple free samples. That was basically going to be my lunch. It wouldn't have been unhealthy, though, as there were plenty of fruit and vegetable vendors in addition to the myriad of sweets that were available. I really could have gone all day without buying anything.

Until I saw the bakery.

Now this deserves some explaining. Since my arrival in Japan I have been fascinated by these Japanese bakeries that are quite literally everywhere. You can't ride a train in Japan without finding one, and there are many trains in Japan. They have rows and rows of various treats not found in the US, and you go around with a tray and a pair of tongs and you pick what you want and then go pay for it. They have little egg-custard tarts with marmalade and they have sort of cinnamon bun croissants with maple frosting. And they have tarts that instead of sweets have eggs and bacon on them. These people are culinary geniuses. So I caved and bought some treats that you can see in the gallery for today. Here's the link.

Before I went home, I ventured up the escalators to the top of the Kyoto station, to a rooftop garden and observation deck called the skybridge. I got a few good pictures of the cityscape and a great view of the Kyoto Tower.

I liked Kyoto so much that tomorrow I'm going back to visit some more temples.