The Weekend
Saturday:
day trip to Kyoto; Sunday: a puppet show, museum visit,
and baseball game in Tokyo
Saturday . . .
. . . I took a bullet train called the Nozomi to Kyoto.
Japan rail's shinkansen, or bullet train, travels at speeds of up to 186 miles per hour. Nozomi, which means "wind," is the fastest bullet train and we were in Kyoto in two and a half hours (a distance of 513 miles), ready for a tour of temples, shrines, a palace, and gardens.
Kyoto
From 794 to 1868 Kyoto was the capital of Japan and the home of famous craftsmen, artisans, scholars, and religious leaders. There are nearly 2,000 shrines and temples.
Higashi Hongan-ji
First stop was Higashi Hongan-ji, a Buddhist temple for followers of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist sect. The shrine was built in 1602 and its altar is the largest in Japan. Ropes made of human hair were used to raise the beams while building the temple.
Golden Pavilion
Rokuonjui
Temple was originally a villa. It was converted into a temple in
1397. The temple is typical architecture of the Muromachi Period
(1333-1573).
Nijo Castle
The builders of the castle tried to blend warrior taste with that of the aristocracy. It was built in 1603 by Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. The roof of the entrance hall is covered with cypress bark, while that of the audience hall is tiled.
The main compound and the gables of the entrance and main audience halls.
This is how it looked during the time of the shogun, who you see in the distance, seated on a raised platform. |
Ninomaru
Garden is conceived around a large central pond and contains stones
in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. There are three
"islands" |
Heian Shrine
Designed
in the 8th century Chinese style, the
Heian Shrine was
constructed in 1894 to celebrate the eleven-hundredth anniversary of
Kyoto's founding.
If
your fortune is good you keep it. If it is bad,
you tie it to a tree for the wind to blow away.
Sanju-Sangen-Do
Inside
the temple are 1001 life-size statues of the Buddhist deity,
Juichimen-senju-sengen Kanzeon, which is often called "Kannon".
The statues were carved in the 12th and 13th centuries, and each one
is different.
Kiyomizu Temple
The temple was erected in 798. In the temple precinct there are 12 more halls and pagodas, many of which were built between 1631 and 1633 by order of Shogun Iemitsu Tokugawa. The gardens are very beautiful. The main hall has a platform projecting over a precipice, which has a panoramic view of Kyoto and its many cherry trees, which are especially beautiful in the spring.
Sunday . . .
. . . a group of us went to a puppet show, the National Museum, and a baseball game.
Puppet Show
The
puppet show was Rudyard Kipling's story about how the elephant got
his
tail. It was held in a small children's theater, with tiny
seats and a tiny balcony. After the performance the children got to
try on the puppets.
Tokyo National Museum
The
newly built Heiseikan Museum opened in October 1999. Its Japanese archeology gallery
tells the history of Japan in ceramics.
Here are two examples of Haniwa grave sculpture.
Baseball
Japanese baseball, like the puppet show, was the "real" Japan.
The Tigers played the Swallows in the minor league game. We sat with the Swallows and the crowds went wild when the Swallows made a home run in the sixth inning, waving their flags and raised umbrellas.
