Day 3 – Arashiyama: Daikakuji, Seiryoji, Gioji, Tenryuji
Monday morning I checked with the hostel again and a spot did open up so I quickly went and cleaned up the apartment and gathered my stuff and moved into the hostel. The room I was in had four beds and a little closet where you could keep your stuff. I just threw my stuff up on the bed and headed out.
This was our first day without Hiromi and Eri was very worried about getting lost, which we did end up doing very often. It was fine though because that’s when you find little neat things you weren’t looking for. First we met near the station again and then went to a nearby tourist help center to plan our day. The tourist center didn’t really have much information but Eri brought her laptop and can connect it to her phone for internet so we looked some things up. We were considering going to Hieizan or Arashiyama; both are mountains surrounding Kyoto. Because it was a rainy and foggy day, we decided Arashiyama would be a better choice.
Also this morning Eri brought her Engrish to show me. The shirt she was wearing was one (you can see it in some pictures), but it turned out to be just English, not Engrish. The others she copied down were pretty good though. I don’t have the exact quotes but one was something like, “If you want to learn to become a world-class chef, you must learn the special ingredient, that which is love. Love is the special ingredient…” That one was just kinda cute, but the second one was the best. It was something like, “I just wanted to let you know how great it was hooking up with you last night, and I’d really like to see you again. I know you have a girlfriend but I was thinking maybe I could come down to see you sometime this summer or maybe you could come visit me when you’re in town…” I felt sorta bad translating these for Eri because that means she’ll never wear the second one anymore. but I told her it’s fine for Japan normally; just don’t wear it when Americans will be around. Also, now that she knows, it should be fine anyway; if anyone laughs, she can say she knows what it says anyway.
Right outside the Arashiyama station was a pretty famous train museum I had heard about before. Eri asked if I wanted to visit, but I’m not really into that kinda thing so we didn’t stop. We just started walking up the mountain and I think we found Daikakuji fairly easily. Daikakuji was a big complex and I have lots of really nice pictures. Some of the areas had construction though, so I had to work it just right to get it out of the pictures. I took a few with the construction just to show what it really looked like. This is also where I noticed the fire extinguisher buckets. Fire has traditionally been a big problem for Japan with all their wooden buildings so that’s one thing they’re very serious and careful with. What was funny, though, was the red buckets of water that said fire extinguisher on them. Usually there was a real extinguisher nearby too, but I just got this funny image of a fire starting up and monks running to grab buckets of water to pour on it.
Daikakuji also had fancier and busier insides than most shrines. Some rooms were filled with tons of decorations. Oh, one other thing I noticed about Japanese shrines and gardens is that no tree grows on its own. The Japanese always tie other logs to growing trees to make sure they grow exactly how they want. You’ll probably see them in a lot of my pictures; there’re always long old logs with small T’s at the top tied to the trunks and branches of growing trees. Sometimes it’s annoying but fortunately it’s fairly natural looking and doesn’t stand out too much. And I guess if they didn’t do it, the gardens wouldn’t be so perfect.
Next we went to Seiryoji, a nearby temple complex. It had more beautiful buildings and trees and rocks of course. There were also cool statues of gods on the way in and some more fancy insides. I also saw two little elementary school kids, probably brother and sister, playing in a puddle. I thought that was such a classic scene so I took a picture but they’re too far away.
After we left Seiryoji, we headed for a small temple called Gioji, but the maps weren’t great and we ended up going way up the mountain where there was nothing. Eventually we saw a man that lived up there and asked for directions back to the shrine. It was nice to get to see a lot of the mountain and the town and we also found a really neat little shrine just tucked away beside the road. There was a little statue of a fox and a small cave that was blocked off.
We finally found Gioji tucked away around some bamboo forests. One great thing about all the places on Arashiyama was that they were completely empty. There was a little old lady somewhere in the shrines (sometimes had to look for her) you could pay to go in, but that was it besides us. I guess it because we were up a mountain on a rainy Monday (appropriate since Arashiyama means stormy mountain). Gioji was small but was one of my favorites anywhere. Everything was so green, and the drizzle just made it stand out even more. Lots of places in Japan have amazing moss and I’m already a big fan of moss, so it’s perfect. I think the moss covering the ground in the forests and gardens are what give them a distinctly Japanese feel. My pictures from Gioji didn’t come out too well since it was so dark (and flash made it unnatural), but I think you can get some idea of the place. One cute but out of place thing was I found a little cat play house/tree thing in a side-room of the shrine.
Gioji was closing on us as we left and we had to hurry to Tenryuji before it closed. Tenryuji was bigger and less cozy than Gioji, but is also one of my favorites in a different way. It’d be amazing to live near these places so I could visit them more often at different times of the year. I didn’t charge my camera the night before and the battery was dying so I don’t have too many pictures of Tenryuji, but overall it was a complex with a few different shrine buildings and lots of gardens with a lake. Eri asked if I would be bringing my family to visit sometime and I said I could definitely see myself coming back with Bennett, but my parents couldn’t really get there with an RV (and more importantly, dogs). I’d love to go back to a lot of these places in the Spring and/or Fall. The Japanese are big on seasons and most places have very different things to offer at different times of year. The appearance during all seasons is considered when designing shrines and gardens like these.
As we were leaving, for a minute we were worried we got locked into the gardens, but we just unlocked the gate and let ourselves out (we told them as we left). After this we headed back to the station and went back to Kyoto. We ate dinner at a nice place in the station and I remember people staring at me a little when I went in with Eri and then really staring at me when they heard me speak Japanese. I had a tonkatsu, which I really liked. After dinner we went over to the front of the station where they had some other shops and we got some amazing donuts and I showed Eri how to use some handy tools in Photoshop. That day I had taken a picture of a nice room in a shrine but there was a folding chair sitting in the corner. I said that was annoying but no problem I’d just take it out with Photoshop. Eri said she had Photoshop but didn’t know how to use it that well so I said I’d teach her. She was amazed to see how fast I could take something out of a picture. We hung out for a bit at the station and Eri called some friends and her sister to see if anyone wanted to go with us to Nara the next day but no one did. Eventually I headed back to the hostel, did some blogging, talking, and picturing on the super expensive but honor system internet, and then went to bed.
