Better late than never

So, after a 4 1/2 month hiatus, I have finally returned to fill you all in on what we did that last month we were in Japan. Since we finally have high speed internet at home, it'll make it much easier to post all kinds of fun pictures for you to see. And I know the pictures are what you like the most (don't lie; you know it's true). Now, without further ado, let's get back to our vacation~

When we last left our heroes, we were in Kyoto, enjoying the festivities of the Gion Matsuri. With that little party over, the next day we decided to check out some of the historic sites, namely some of the temples, as well as a castle. We began the day relatively early and decided to first head up a lo~ng, steep hill to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which means "pure water."

Even though it was early, it was already really hot out. Hot enough, even, to make Cinnamon break down and buy some "expensive" 130 yen water. ...Only to find 110 yen water at the next vending machine we passed. Oh well. But finally, we made it to the top of the hill!

That, obviously, is a 3-story pagoda just outside the temple itself. It's one of the first things you see when you're walking up to the temple grounds. The other thing you see is this:

You have to pass through this huge, bright vermilion gate to get to the temple itself. It looks pretty new, but that's just because they periodically repaint them. Still impressive, though.

Once we had paid our admission fee, we went up to the temple and checked out the building, as well as the spectacular view of the city below.

I guess it's a little hard to see here in the picture, but beyond the trees is the area around Kyoto Station. Almost in the middle of it is the (rather lackluster) Kyoto Tower, which is directly across from the station. Look at how high we climbed!

Right outside the main hall of the temple is a display with a ton of these "ema" wish boards. The idea is to buy (I think?) one of these boards, write a wish on it, and hang it up in the hopes that it will come true. It seems that most of the time, these wishes are anything from good health, to finding love, to being able to pass a big test in school. If you click on the picture to make it full sized, you can see that some of these wishes are even in English. However, neither Cinnamon nor I made one.

We walked away from the crowds a little to explore the rest of the area, and found a small shrine with a bunch of these little Jizo statues. Apparently, Jizo is the guardian of those who suffer, especially sick children and pregnant women (or so says my guidebook).

Here's the view of the temple from a little further away. You can see the main building on the right, and (obviously) the pagoda on the left. The temple itself is over 1,000 years old, and was built with no nails. How's that for excellent craftsmanship?

After taking a little walk around the woods, we came back and drank some holy water, just like these people are doing. You go through this line and grab one of these long-handled cups, catch some water, and drink it. When you're done, the cups go back into this little area, where they're sanitized by ultraviolet light. (You can sort of see it in the background there). The water was nice and cool and refreshing and comes straight from the mountain~

While walking back to the temple entrance, we spotted a geisha! Unfortunately, this was the best picture I could get of her, but it was interesting to see a little bit of "old" Japanese traditions mixed with the modernity of all the other temple patrons. She had some seriously high shoes on, too. I don't know how she managed to make it all the way up that hill!

After leaving the temple, we decided to get some lunch, and walked what felt like forever, until we finally made it to Coco's. Ahh~ familiar curry in a new city. I love that place. Once we had cooled down a bit and filled our tummies, it was back out into the 90-something degree heat and on to our next destination--Nijo Castle.

We took a train from Kyoto Station to Nijo, then proceeded to spend 15 minutes walking in the wrong direction before we finally found it. We came upon it on the wrong side and had to walk aaaaaaaall the way around the outside of the walls to get to the entrance. And it was a very long walk. With only about half an hour to spare until closing time, we hurried and paid our admission, took off our shoes, and toured the castle.

This is the castle with the famed nightingale floors, which kind of squeak and make sort of a chirping sound when you walk on them, to guard against possible intruders. Unlike some other castles in Japan, this one is all one story, and very long and winding. But they don't allow photography inside, so all we have are pictures from outside.

Here's one of the castle gates... pretty obvious. Naturally, the bridge goes over the moat.

The walls of the interior grounds are built with a "fan" shape, which purportedly makes them harder to climb. Cinnamon and I aren't buying that. They don't look so impenetrable to me.

Cinnamon took a bunch of pictures of the castle grounds and this very garden... but apparently set her camera mode to black and white unknowingly. So here's one of the few color pictures she took.

We climbed up one of the lookouts and snapped this fantastic shot of the castle. The sky looks incredibly blue here! And it was nice because you could really feel the breeze from the higher perch--a very nice, if still warm, change from the stifling 100 degree heat that day.

Before we had even finished making the loop around the castle grounds, the castle had closed and it was time to leave. So we went back to the hostel to chill out in the air conditioning. Of course, we first made a pit stop at the conbini for some ice cream, and Cinnamon discovered the joys of a little thing called a Coolish. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try one until the next day.

Basically, a Coolish is... like a milkshake in a Capri Sun-like pouch. They come pretty frozen, so by the time you thaw it out enough to drink it, you're feeling much cooler. Oh man, I miss those so much. Here's a quick little commercial for them:

Once we had sufficiently chilled, we decided to check out Fushimi Shrine, with its 4km path of torii gates. I had heard it's supposed to be pretty creepy at night, so this seemed like a great idea. And off we went!

Here we are (a rare full shot!) standing in front of the shrine. We chatted a little bit with a taxi driver who was there, and he was kind enough to take this picture for us. Don't we look happy~ (And me with my dorky tennis shoes, hahaha.)

There were a few of these dog statues around, and we don't know what they were for, but Cinnamon said they looked evil. ...So she made me take pictures of them.

Check it out, in all its bibbed, evil glory.

And here's the start of all the numerous torii gates. We made it through one little row of them, and it started sprinkling, and there was thunder and lightning. After taking shelter under a little canopy until the rain stopped, we started to head back toward the next path with bigger torii. ...Except there were spiders. Lots of spiders (a little bigger than a half dollar) that looked sort of like crabs. They were all over the torii and were really creeping us out, so we did what any logical person would've done... and turned around and left.

We decided we'd come back in the morning before leaving the city, so we headed home and somehow managed to NOT get caught in the rain (too badly). But that, my friends, is a story for another day~