The flight was boring. Shut up about it, because nothing much happened. Except that I had the pleasure of flying from Tokyo to Kobe on a plane that was, judging by the way it shook, two or three flights away from retirement.
My first day there, though, me and the group went to Kyoto, which is some twenty minutes away. We arrived in the Kyoto station, which is sort of a mall, albeit one that is, for the most part, not what I would consider "indoors." "Under roof," yes, which is an important distinction when it's raining, which it was, but not so much when it's cold, which it very much extremely was.
Anyway, there was a cultural festival going on, in celebration of the thousandth anniversary of The Tale of Genji. It had on offer a number of cultural delights, including nature-themed mochi, carefully hand-made by an old man who was, himself, the careful handiwork of two other people.
And a picture that demonstrated how soy was processed in the olden days. This excerpt shows how pure happiness is processed as part of the procedure.
In the old days, human happiness was used, but today soy products mainly make use of humanely extracted clam happiness, hence the term "happy as a clam [before the extraction process]"
And some figurines from the Tale of Genji itself:
And this period scene, which is entirely edible provided you are willing to go to jail for gastro-theft.
Seriously, it was entirely made of food. From the station, we went to Sanjusangen-do Temple, where we were very lucky to see Toh-shiya, their annual all-Japan archery contest. Unfortunately, we got there after the female competitors had all done their thing. This was disappointing to me personally, because the only thing hotter than a girl that can kick your ass is a girl that can perforate your lung.
Then we went inside, where there was a Buddhist ceremony in honor of Kannon, the Thousand-Armed Goddess of Mercy. I wish I could show you pictures, but Kannon is still a little burnt about that camera company that kinda-sorta stole her name and consequently photography is prohibited. It's damn impressive, though, with a thousand statues of the Buddha, each with forty-two arms, each one holding a different tool, ready to help with any task. I sort of expected to see some modern versions of the statue holding Blackberries and computer manuals and such, but no, that shit does not fly in Sanjusangen-do, not one bit.
To reiterate: ONE THOUSAND STATUES OF THE BUDDHA. That's a lot.
From there, we went to a local shrine, which is different from a temple in, uh, a number of ways. Trust me on this.
I prayed for several things, and tossed in a hundred and fifty yen. On the way out, our guide pointed out a sign warning that people of my age should be careful of bad luck this year. I'm not sure I would have prayed at the shrine had I known that bad luck was part of the deal. I'm a little conflicted about it in retrospect, but as long as those Japanese deities can deliver on the lifelong love and prosperity I paid a whole 150 yen for, I'll weather a short-term storm.
And I capped the night with a green tea cappuccino at a local sweetery.
Tasty!
No comments:
Post a Comment