Kobe & Kyoto - 15 September

We pulled into the port of Kobe this morning around 7:30 and were greeting like royalty! As we pulled closer to the dock, a brass band started playing a John Phillips Sousa march. I was wishing that my colleague Fred O’Bryant was with me to appreciate this since he plays in a municipal band that plays a lot of Sousa. The band then launched into 76 Trombones from the Music Man. We loved that one too! Once we were at the dock the band continued to play a few more pieces and then left to great applause from the people on the deck. A dance troop then took over. They were dressed in traditional Japanese costumes but their routines were set to rock music and totally contemporary. Odd but it worked. I was so absorbed by the show that I totally missed breakfast and didn’t realize that it was almost time for my trip to Kyoto to leave. Oops!

I set off to Kyoto for the day with about 40 other students and faculty. Our tour guide for the day was Tomami, a young woman whose English was very good. It took us about two hours to get to Kyoto – longer than expected since we ran into traffic jams. This is a holiday weekend since everyone gets Monday off for the national holiday of Old People Appreciation Day – or something to that effect. They phrase it much better than I do.

Our first stop of the day was at the Golden Temple. It was a temple built in the 1220’s by a shogun who retired at the age of 36 (after being made a shogun at the age of 11). He had aspirations to be an emperor but settled for building himself a stunning temple. It was absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, we only had 20 minutes to spend at this temple since we had so many others to see during the day. So we took pictures to enjoy later and trooped back to the bus….and onto the next place.

The second stop was the Nijo Castle which was built in 1603. The shoguns ran the country from this castle from 1603 to 1867 until they returned the power to the emperor. (I’m not sure how they got the power away from the emperor in the first place.) The castle was a long complex of connected buildings with beautiful wall paintings. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the castle so you’ll have to settle for an exterior shot. It was stifling hot in the castle but we tried to ignore that and appreciate the craftsmanship of the buildings. One of the unique features of the castle was the floors. They are called “Nightingale” floors because they chirp like a Nightingale bird when you step on the boards. It was an alarm system to protect the Shogun from a surprise attack.

At this point it was 1:15 and we were starving! We drove to a park so that we could look at interesting surroundings while eating our cardboard sandwiches from the boxed lunch the ship provided. At that point, I was hungry enough to appreciate the fine quality of the cardboard.

We moved on to the third stop of the day at a Shinto Shrine called Heian. Shinto is one of the three religions of Japan – Buddhism and Christianity being the other two. One of my favorite features of this shrine was the tree outside the temple where people tied bad fortunes to it to get rid of the bad luck the fortunes might bring. The tree was totally covered in white. I guess there are a lot of bad fortunes floating around in Japan.

After Heian, we went to the last temple of the day. In English it is called the Clear Water Temple. Tomami told us the Japanese name which sounded something like Keyoinmesa but that can’t possibly be it. Whatever the name, it was beautiful. To get there we had to walk up a big ole hill with shops surrounding us as you can see in the photo. It was quite a spectacle. At the top were more stinkin’ stairs to the temple. In order for you to fully appreciate our dedication to a day of Temple hopping, let me tell you that the day was incredibly hot and muggy. We were dripping in sweat by the time we got to the top of the hill where the temple was located (nice image, isn’t it!).

This temple was known for its water – hence the name Clear Water. It had three fountains that people were to choose from for a drink. Each one represented a different fortune – health, knowledge and business. Most people drank from all three. It was a neat custom if you could ignore the fact that you were sharing the same cup with thousands of other people. I couldn’t ignore that fact so I didn’t partake of the water. I’ll just have to settle for being sick, stupid and unsuccessful.

This was our last temple of the day and Tomami allowed us time to do a bit of shopping on the way back to the bus. Everyone scattered like cockroaches and sprinted off for the shops. I did my own sprinting and scored a few mementos for myself and people back home. Once back on the bus we had a much shorter drive back to the ship and got there around 6:30. Just in time to wash off some of the grime of the day and get some dinner.

Kyoto was a beautiful city and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see it. I’m participating in a city tour of Kobe tomorrow and will have lots of interesting things to report – well, at least I hope I will.