From Golden to Geisha

The next morning, Bjorn announced on the bus that due to the weather, we were going to change the order of events for the day. Instead of going to the Golden Pavilion at the end of the day, we were headed there first to see it in the SNOW! He went on to explain that in the 15 years he and his wife have lived in Japan, this was their first opportunity. So they were just as excited to see it as we were. 

We realized after arriving that many other people had the same idea. Thankfully our group was able to bypass the long lines. It reminded me of the crowds on the Vatican tour. But it was worth it! I took so many pictures, it was almost impossible to take a bad one.

Amazing, right?! The top two floors are completely covered in gold leaf. It was originally the retirement villa of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. According to his will, it became a Zen temple after his death in 1408.

I give full credit for the photo below to assistant blog editor, Ira. I think he captured the reflection in the water, perfectly.

I later learned that each floor represents a different style of architecture. The first floor is built in Shinden style used for palace buildings with natural wood pillars and white plaster walls. The second floor is built in the Bukke style used in samurai residences. The top floor is built in the style of a Chinese Zen Hall and is gilded inside and out. Finally it is capped with a golden phoenix.

From here we went to see the internationally famous rock garden, said to be created around 1500. It consists of only fifteen rocks and white gravel. Though we would have to take the brochure's word for it, since although the snow created a wonderful effect for the Golden Pavilion, not so much for the rock garden LOL.

Bjorn took us for a walk on the island, which was accessible to the public in this garden. This is the Torii gate looking back towards the mainland from the island.

Isn't this grove of trees below interesting?! Bjorn explained that they were an example of daisugi style trees, an ancient method of pruning and harvesting. If you're interested, you can read The 600-year old guide to Japanese sustainable forestry.

Lunch today, wouldn't you guess, was shabu shabu! So I didn't miss out after all. And what do you think of this robot that was roaming around the restaurant picking up dirty dishes. I decided she was a "she" and a very cute helper.

In the afternoon we headed to the gardens of Tenryu-ji Zen Buddhist temple to see the dry waterfall designed by Muso Soseki in the 14th century.

Through the placement of the stones, the artist mimics a waterfall, without using water. I think the effect would be better without the snow. Afterwards we walked through the bamboo forest and spent the remainder of our time window shopping and nursing a latte.

We had a little downtime at the hotel before heading out again. Dinner that night was to be kaiseki, a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner, usually for special occasions. I found out that it's also a term that refers to the collection of skills and techniques that allow the preparation of such meals.

The kitchen

There were nine courses in total. I include photos of a few. The one below was particularly colorful. The blue bowl on the left was cabbage soup with pine nuts. The yellow square at the top was octopus over beans. In the turquoise leaf was a marinated sardine. I don't remember what the other items were.

Course # 4

This was the duck course, with mushroom cream and what I call fiddleheads. I can't remember what they called it.

Course #7

I snapped a shot of one of the chefs using a very sharp cleaver to make paper-thin sheets of this mystery vegetable. Maybe that is one of the kaiseki skills?

After dinner, David suggested we walk around a bit as the restaurant was located in the Geisha district. It wasn't difficult to find them, there random geishas walking all over the area. But they were moving pretty fast and not stopping to let their picture be taken. Ira gets the credit for being persistent. The picture below was the best of the bunch.

I found out later, that Gion is the name of Kyoto's most famous geisha district. It is filled with shops, restaurants and teahouses where geisha and geisha apprentices entertain. Due to the fact that property taxes were formerly based upon street frontage, the houses were built with narrow facades, but could extend up to twenty meters in from the street. This explained why the entrance to our restaurant was a non-descript curtain in front of a very long corridor ending in a non-descript sliding door.

That ended our time in Kyoto. Tomorrow we would be headed to Nagoya.

A dopo!