Japan - Day 5

Day 5 - 10/13/2016

We woke up bright and early to catch our shinkansen (bullet train) to our waiting adventure in Kyoto.  This is the old capital of Japan before Tokyo.  It was Japan's capital from 794 to 1869 so it's also known as the thousand-year capital.  And we got to take a crazy fast train going over 180 mph to get there!

 M&V forgot their passports to exchange their rail passes and so they raced back to M&L's house in a taxi to get them and still were actually only one train behind us.  We were impressed with their speediness and also their cool-headedness in dealing with a traveling crisis.  So kudos to them.  We had just enough time to scout out this great place to rent bikes before they caught up with us.

 Oh our bikes!  We loved riding around all together exploring Kyoto.  It was the perfect way to travel and totally made me feel like a missionary again.

While riding the shinkansen - Joey had strategically mapped out our plans  so we could get the most out of our Kyoto trip.  So we hopped on our bikes and were off to our first stop.... Nijo Castle

The caste was surrounded by a moat and wall.  Inside the perimeter walls was another moat with a smaller island containing additional buildings. The castle had really impressive buildings and beautiful grounds.  {The next lovely pictures were taken by the photog extraordinaire - Victoria Malmborg.}

The highlight of Nijo Castle were the “nightingale floors.”  These were specially engineered floors that created a high pitched squeak when stepped on.  It sounded like bird’s chirping.  The Shogun created the floors that way so he could hear anyone coming.  It was fun to hear the music created by the many visitors walking the halls.   (we got to walk through the main castle without shoes and hear the floors but couldn't take pictures inside the castle)

Joey and Mike got the guided tour with headphones and then gave us the readers digest version.  Here is some Nijo history brought to you by Joey:  "Nijo Castle was the Kyoto home of the Tokugawa shogunate  (tokugawa = family name, shogunate = dynasty of shoguns).  Shoguns were feudal military leaders as opposed to emperors that ruled Japan at other times. The Tokugawa shogunate was the longest ruling shogunate, in power for over 250 years  starting in 1600 until the Meiji restoration, the modern emperor family of Japan. Nijo castle was kind of a vacation home since the Tokugawa shogunate's main residence was Edo (Tokyo). "

these guys

 Next we took a long bike ride and along the way saw some cool and random things... like wrestlers picking up cars - stuff like that.

And Joey took us along the scenic route where we didn't have to dodge as many people.

We chugged up a mountain as best we could on our little bikes, found parking for them, hiked a little more up a narrow, people-filled, shop-filled street until we got to our second stop - Kiyomizu Dera. 

we are standing on the balcony of the main temple with the spring water below us

 Here's a pano Joes took us on the balcony.

History corner with Joes; Kiyomizu temple is a giant temple complex built on a mountainside. In the 700s a monk in Nara, a city to the south, had a dream about a magic spring and where to find it. When he found it, there was an old man there who gave him a block of wood and told him to carve a statue. The statue was enshrined at the spring and the temple was founded. It became a major pilgrimage site where many came to drink the water that gave long life. Kiyomizu means pure water, an apt name. It is now known that this spring is an artesian well with water coming from 4000 feet below the ground where there is a crack in the fault. What was once a waterfall is now channeled through a stone shrine that splits the stream into three cascades that pass overhead as you walk through the shrine. You can choose to drink from one of the streams that offer health, wealth or beauty.  The central attraction of the spring is surrounded by a sprawling  temple complex that beautifully frames this special site. 

We weren't really sure if it was health, wealth and beauty but if it is...  looks like Joey got health

 Troy - Health,  Mike - Beauty

And I can't tell which stream Vic is drinking from - but let's give her wealth.  

mmmm - health tastes so good

It was getting dark and they were closing but we ran over to this cool little pagoda (the one you can see across form the main temple in the other pictures)   We got to see this and an amazing night view of Kyoto before they kicked us out. 

We had a fun ride down the mountain on our bikes.  By this point we were pretty hungry and needed to stop and eat.  Joey found this little joint and got to try tacoyaki - which were on his japanese food bucket list.  It's little pieces of octopus in the middle of a pancake ball - which happened to be hot lava and burned our mouths.  Joey liked them and it's a good thing because he had to eat them all. :)

We didn't know where to eat so just picked this random place across from the tacoyaki.  It was our culinary fail of our Japan trip.  (actually my tempura was good but nobody else liked their food)  The dude stuck us back in this private little room and then I swear he totally forgot about us.  We kept having to go out and remind him we were there.  It took us over an hour to get our food that wasn't good.  (but honestly it was nice to have a place to rest and hang out)  But - yeah, not sure why we are smiling because we weren't impressed.

  When we passed it the next day I made everyone stop and get a picture of how they really felt about this place.

Next we got to do some night hiking at Fushimi Inari Taisha. It is famous for its thousands of torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari.  Inari is the god of rice ... so kind of a big deal.  His messenger is the fox so we got to see lots of fox statues.  It was really fun to be hiking around late at night under these lit up gates. 

We made it about half way up the mountain.  We would have liked to go to the top but realized how late it was and how tired and jet-lagged we all were and decided to head back down.  

We took a train to our bikes and our bikes to our hostel - Costa Del Sol.  It was an awesome hostel - we slept on futons and it had the traditional tatami mats and sliding shoji doors.   This was probably my favorite night in Japan.   We shared a room with Vic and Mike and it was so fun to have a sleepover and just hang out in our little japanese hostel.  We had a prayer and fell asleep to each other singing songs from our missions. 

pic taken by troy the next morning

It was a very special and memorable night.