Miyajima
By my 6th day in Japan, I had enough of temples and Kyoto was full of them. So for my last fully day in Japan, I sped to Hiroshima by Shinkansen and took a quick ferry to the island of Miyajima. After unboarding the ferry, I was encountered by “wild” deer that greeted the visitors to the island. They have become so used to humans, that the deer take naps in public parks and sometimes try to sneak into shops if incentive in the form of food appears unguarded.
I took a cable car to the summit of the island’s mountain Mount Misen where there were wild monkeys lounging around like a bunch of drunk teenagers on spring break in a summer beachhouse. With bright red faces and butts.
All round the park there were also brightly colored lizards, freshwater crabs in the streams, and cicadas that had a chant much different than those on North America’s east coast.
Most of the day was spent hiking in the forests, or cooling my feet in streams in the public parks. It was probably the only remotely-blue-sky day during my whole visit to Japan.
Kyoto
Vermillion Torii of Fushimi Inari temple complex in Kyoto
So, I’ll admit that my dad’s right. I’m getting a bit “hefty”, no thanks to long hours and fatty food at work. But after today, I should have lost at least 2 pounds. I woke up at sunrise and took a local train to western Kyoto to a neighborhood called Arashiyama. I took a morning walk through a bamboo forest and then along a river.
I made it back to the Shunko-In temple for the 9:00 AM meditation class led by Rev. Taka, who explained 2 types of meditation and led us through two 15 minute meditation exercises. It was pretty cool. Although I lost some blood flow from crossing my legs like a contortionist, I was able to hear a dragon fly amongst hammering and chirping and feel a fly weave its way through my leg hairs. (Sorry for the gross imagery?)
Hopefully to the relief of my crusading super-catholic parents, I didn’t become zen-buddhist. After the class, he took us on a brief tour of the temple grounds. Taka explained that some of the 300-yr old screen paintings in the temple’s possession belonged to Japanese christians that were living in hiding from persecution, and who hid Christian symbology in the paintings. The temple also has a bell from the 1700s, which has the Jesuit stamp “IHS” on it. As the story goes, Taka’s grandfather buried the bell during WWII to hide it from the Japanese army who sought metals to melt for weapons. An inter-faith delegation from the Vatican is scheduled to visit the temple to view the bell.
The class and tour ended with Macha (green) tea – like the tea in Japanese tea ceremonies, which is very different to what I drink day-to-day and some interesting tea biscuits. I was quite sad to leave the temple, but more of Kyoto awaited me.
Unlike my earlier experiences, my journey to my hostel in central Kyoto was pretty smooth. I didn’t get lost! I rented a mountain bike with good brakes (this time), and went to yet more temples called Kiyomizu Temple and Jishu-jinju Shrine. They were at the top of a very steep hill filled with tourist souvenir shops for good shopping. I had actually gotten lost in Kyoto’s Women’s University for about 1 hour and got lost for about 1 hour going up the steepest hill for about 2 miles before I decided I was lost.
I ended the day riding to Fushimi-Inari, which is a huge Shinto Shrine complex on a hill. Thousands of vermillion-red Torri gates arching over the paths that lead to the summit of Mount Inariyama. “Inari” was the shinto god of rice and sake, so to occasion I brought some Inari-sushi to eat along the hike amongst the many statues of foxes, which were Inari’s messengers.
