Contains Traces of Buddha Nature

A few weeks ago Mari and I went to Kyoto for the weekend. A couple of hours on the bullet train got us to Kyoto Station.

We went straight to one of Kyoto’s most famous temples – Kiyomizu.





Kiyomizu is so beautiful. In summer the surrounding forest is verdant, which made the walk around the temple grounds pleasant, even though the morning was becoming increasingly humid. The weather report had promised 27 – 31 with very high humidity. Although those temperatures were never reached (in fact Saturday night was cool), for a couple of hours around lunch time on Saturday the humidity was uncomfortable.

From Kiyomizu we walked to the Gion area. Along the way we saw Koudai Temple…





and Yasaka Shrine…





and at Heian Shrine saw the most beautiful garden in what would be 2 days of exquisitely beautiful gardens.



We ate the most delicious tempura for lunch. The accompanying green tea ice cream was sublime.

The afternoon saw us at Ginkaku Temple, which also has beautiful gardens…





and an infestation of bizarro ant lions.



After Ginkaku we made our way back into central Kyoto to check into the hotel and get ready for our dinner reservation. Unless you want the excitement of traveling with the bus driver who is so behind on his schedule that he decides to ignore the traffic signals, push his way into the already crowded intersection (thus causing a hail of horn blowing) and so also blocking the way for pedestrians who then smack the side of the bus in anger, I suggest you take the subway. Actually Kyoto inner city seemed to become one big traffic jam in the mid-afternoon of both days, so my advice to travelers is to use the subway to get out of the city, and then change to the bus to get to where you want.

Dinner was a wonderful experience. We were picked up by the courtesy bus and taken into the mountains. There we got out of the big bus, and got into a smaller bus to take us along the windy road to the restaurant. The restaurant was outside on a veranda that was next to a mountain stream. It was a traditional Japanese-style dinner that consisted of many small dishes. But this place had 2 special features.

The first was that maiko came to talk with us. Maiko are trainee geisha. The 2 girls in the pictures are 16 and 18 years old. The six or so maiko went from table to table and politely answered questions that they have probably been asked a thousand times before. After that they did a couple of dances. The dances must have been hard work under the lights in all the makeup and with the heavy costume, because even though the night was by now quite cool (thanks to the weather report I’d taken no jacket on the trip), they were sweating quite freely.





The second feature was that just before the dessert course all the lights were turned off, and we could watch fireflies. This was another first for me, and I was amazed at how bright they were.

The second day was more of the same jaunts to temples, with the two most famous being Kinkaku Temple…



and Ryouan Temple.



By about 4 we were suffering from temple fatigue and decided to go somewhere that had the harsh and unnatural glare of fluorescent lights. The last few hours were spent ambling around in the department stores at Kyoto station and eating a scrumptious dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

A quick whoosh home on the bullet train and we were in bed before curfew.