Nara

Today our motor coach motored us a little more than an hour to the south to the city of Nara, which long ago preceded Kyoto as Japan's capital city.

The Todai-ji Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is said to be the largest wooden building in the world. It's built completely without nails, only joined wood.

It houses the Daibutsu -- the largest statue of Buddha in Japan -- a bronze that is 52 feet tall. The bronze was once covered in gold leaf, but a fire destroyed that.

In addition, there are several other huge statues, most made of wood, that stand as guardians to the temple.

There's also a giant bronze lantern on the grounds that is thought to date back to the temple's founding in the mid-eighth century C.E.

And there is a pillar with a hole in the base, said to be the same size as one of the Daibutsu's nostrils. Children climb through it and are supposed to earn good luck by doing so.

One wooden statue is a representation of a long-dead monk who was said to have had healing powers so great that just touching his statue can bring relief from illness. We're still waiting for the results.

The most unique feature of the park surrounding the temple is the herd of deer that roam free here. These deer are so tame that you can pet them. And if you buy some of the flat biscuits they love to eat, you can be very popular with them.

Unfortunately, they can be pretty aggressive if you happen to be feeding one when another thinks it's his or her turn, or when you run out of biscuits when one of them wants more. One followed Mark and grabbed his shirttail in her mouth to pull him back when he walked away after giving out his last biscuit.

The deer are thought to be messengers of the Shinto god Kasuga, so they get special treatment. They have their own "house" where they can go to bed at night, and another where does go to give birth to their fawns. It's also interesting that the messengers of a Shinto god reside on the grounds of a Buddhist temple. The two religions exist side by side here, with most Japanese practicing both.

We had to walk a bit to get to our lunch restaurant in Nara, but it was worth the trip. The narrow streets and old buildings are a lot like Kyoto, and as we crossed a bridge over a small stream we even got to see a stone boat!

But on the way back to the bus, three members of the group set off walking at a faster pace and got ahead of the group. They thought they knew where they were going, but missed a turn and got lost. Mariko somehow tracked them down, eventually.

We drove back to Kyoto and visited a museum dedicated to tea culture. A "tea master" and her helper staged a much abbreviated tea ceremony for us. Then we were equipped with a bowl and some "matcha," or ground or powered green tea.

We were guided in the mixing of the matcha. The only bad part was that we actually had to drink it. Whether prepared by the "tea master" or by us, it's pretty vile stuff. Definitely an acquired taste. We learned that it takes about 10 years of study to become a tea master, which made us appreciate grocery store tea bags all the more.

After tea, we were released for free time the rest of the afternoon. Some returned to the hotel, others went to an art museum. We elected to go to the Gion district of Kyoto, along the Shirakawa River.

Gion originated as an entertainment district to accommodate the needs of travelers and visitors to a local shrine. It eventually evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in all of Japan.

The district still caters to the needs and desires of travelers, but today more with bars and restaurants than with geisha tea houses. (The only geishas we saw were on the street, trying to entice tourists to buy tickets to a show.) From the district it was an easy walk back to our hotel.

Dinner in the evening also involved a bit of a walk, but it was one of the best meals we've had on the trip, including multiple courses of sashimi, tempura, sushi, and even ice cream for dessert!

Gardens & Temples

Motor coach travel across Kyoto, even on a Sunday morning holiday weekend, does not move quickly. Relatively narrow streets make for traffic congestion in all conditions. But we finally arrived at our first destination, the Tenryu-ji Temple and adjacent Sogenchi Garden.

This temple is on the site of the first Zen temple in Japan, established in the 9th century C.E. The Tenryu-ji iteration of the temple was established in 1339. However, it has been destroyed by fires eight times over the past 700 years. The most recent fire was in 1864, so most of the buildings date back to around 1870.

The gardens, however, remain much as they were laid out by the temple's founding abbot in the 14th century. A key feature of the garden is a number of stones in the pond, near the waterfall, that are set up vertically. Symbolically, they represent carp (or koi fish) attempting to climb up the waterfall.

According to legend, a koi fish that reaches the top of the waterfall turns into a mighty dragon. Thus, the carp represents striving for success in life. The carp flags flying on flag poles all over the country have the same meaning.

The garden is adjacent to the Arashiyama bamboo grove. This forest of bamboo is one of the most photographed sites in Kyoto. Our tour leader spent WAY too much time ambling slowly through both the garden and the bamboo grove. We spent two hours here, and could have seen it in 45 minutes, tops.

The bus drove us on to the "Golden Pavilion," or Kinkaku-ji, officially known as the Rokuon-ji Temple. Originally a villa for a Shogun in the late 14th century, the man got religion late in life and left the villa to Buddhist monks in his will. The garden pavilion, built to receive emperors and foreign dignitaries and covered in gold leaf, was turned into a temple.

At the site, absolutely no mention is made of the fact that the 14th century pavilion was burned by an arsonist in 1950 and rebuilt in 1955. Strangely, there seem to have been very few records of the exact specifications of the original. Some have argued that the present reproduction isn't accurate.

Entrance to the temple is reserved to the monks alone, so the crowds only see the exterior and the surrounding gardens. Again, we spent way too much time here. The only explanation was that it is usually much more crowded than it was today, and so extra time is allotted in the itinerary. We spent a lot of time sitting in front of the gift shop, waiting for the bus departure time.

Lunch was a bit of a drive away, in a tiny little restaurant, off the beaten track. The food was good, but nothing memorable. The best feature, however, was that the restaurant was just a short walk to Nico-jo Castle.

The castle, complete with moat and stone walls reminiscent of Medieval European castles, was constructed 1601-1603 on orders from the first Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Tokugawa united Japan under his rule after a period of civil war, reducing the Emperor to only a ceremonial role for the next 266 years.

Because the Shoguns ruled from Tokyo, and the imperial residence was in Kyoto, the castle's main function was to keep an eye on the Emperor. But the Shoguns actually only came to the castle personally on three occasions over that 266 year period.

The first visit was in 1603 when Tokugawa dedicated the castle and was officially proclaimed as the first Shogun. The last time was in 1867 when the last Shogun came to officially proclaim the restoration of imperial rule. The only other visit was in the 1620s when the daughter of a Shogun was married to the Emperor in Kyoto.

Photos are not permitted inside the castle, but what we saw was basically a series of large tatami rooms where samurai lords awaited audiences with the Shogun, and a similar series of rooms where the Shogun actually held those meetings.

The waiting rooms were designed to intimidate. The audience hall was designed to keep the Shogun above and beyond his visitors. Other rooms were occupied by various scribes and secretaries.

After the castle, we followed Mariko and several others on a short Metro ride to the Nishiki Market. This is the "Mall of America" for Kyoto, but with much narrower walkways and lots more people. We enjoyed a nice dish of ice cream (real, not fermented rice) and enjoyed free samples of everything from honey to bean paste.

From the market back to the hotel was a 20 minute walk, or less. Most of our group gathered for "happy hour" at 6 p.m. The 7-11 across the street sells cheap wine and beer, as well as various snacks that are a surprise when opened because the labels are in Japanese.

After happy hour, we walked up the street looking for a pizza joint. We found one on the third try. Two surprises were that there were so many pizza places, and that the first two were too full to be able to serve us at 7 p.m. on a Sunday night. Nevertheless, we ate well.

Michie's House

Checking out of our Kanazawa hotel rooms this morning, we tried checking our bags at the front desk. But the best they would do was to allow us to leave them in a corner of the lobby. Not very secure. However, when we came back a while later, we found that at least 50 other (mostly Japanese) hotel guests had done essentially the same thing. Theft, or crime in general, is not a big problem in Japan.

Our tour leader, Mariko, divided us into groups of two or three and put us into taxi cabs. Each cab driver was given an address for a Japanese home. Our driver wasn't entirely certain of the address, but he went to the door for us to verify that we were in the right place. We had no idea where we were going, other than that we were visiting the home of a Japanese person or family who had agreed to host us for a couple hours.

It turned out that our hostess was Michie, a retired elementary school teacher about our age. Her English was quite good, so we had no trouble conversing. We left our shoes at the door, of course, and she welcomed us into her very Western-looking living room. There were two small sofas, coffee table, a dining room table and chairs, and some other furnishings. We sat on the sofas and she served us cherry blossom tea and mochis with bean paste filling.

We talked about our careers, our families, and travel. Michie has traveled quite a bit herself. She has a son who, with his family, used to live upstairs. They now live in the house next door.

Michie was proud to show us her home, beginning with a nice galley-style kitchen. A unique feature was a storage cupboard under a trap door in the floor.

A second ground floor room is a traditional tatami room. It is the size of six mats and has almost no furniture other than a small shrine and a nook with a scroll painting.

Upstairs was a rather large room with a bed, small sofa, and kitchenette. This was the area in which her son had lived. Her own room was smaller and much more sparsely furnished -- only a bed and a desk. But she did have a spacious walk-in closet.

Finally, what used to be her daughters' room is now a guest room in which she stores her collection of kimonos. A formal kimono that she had purchased for her older daughter's graduation hangs on the wall as a decoration. She told us that she had paid nearly as much for it as she paid for her car. She uses the car almost everyday, but her daughter has only worn the kimono on three occasions.

Michi showed us several other kimonos and explained a great deal about them. Different kimonos are appropriate for different seasons and different occasions. A kimono she wore to her daughter's wedding would be highly inappropriate at the wedding of a friend or coworker, and a winter kimono would not be worn in the summer, etc. She probably has at least a dozen, and they are all very expensive.

Finally, Michi tried to teach us a sort of card game that is played with miniature cards with twelve suits based on the twelve months of the year. We only got through one abbreviated hand when the taxi arrived to take us back.

Lunch was included at a restaurant in the food court of a large shopping center very close to our hotel. We wished we had known about this place earlier, because there were all sorts of reasonably priced eating places in what they called a "food resort."

We had a little over an hour and a half to kill before we had to be in the station to catch our train. We spent some of that time in the shopping center. There was a big crowd around some sort of person in a cartoon character costume. We thought it was for kids to have their picture taken with the character, and some were.

But we soon discovered that adults also wanted their photo taken this way. People in their 20s and 30s had brought their plush toy versions of the character to "meet" the full-sized character. Some were in cosplay costumes related to the character. The adults were bigger kids than the kids!

The shopping center was crowded, but nowhere more than the Pokemon store. People of all ages were scooping up plush toys, shirts, caps, etc.

There was also a large music store with instruments of every kind, from grand pianos to Suzuki violins for little kids, as well as enough drum sets and guitars to outfit a number of rock bands.

Marveling at the interest in cute characters, we left the shopping center and returned to one of the venues for the music festival. We heard a pretty good cellist, though his instrument was more Asian in appearance than the cellos we see had home. It had a shiny lacquer finish, and the sound seemed less rich and mellow than a classical cello.

We also sat in briefly on a woodwind quintet that was definitely not professional. However, they were easier to listen to than the bagpiper or the polka band we happened to pass by on the way from one venue to the next.

The train to Kyoto was not a bullet, and we had to make one stop to change trains along the way. It's a holiday weekend, and the trains are as crowded as the shopping centers. When we arrived in Kyoto, the mass of humanity in the railway station was nearly overwhelming.

Our Kyoto hotel seems quite nice, and after a brief orientation walk around the neighborhood, we enjoyed a group dinner together before calling it a day.

Gokayama

The motor coach took up into the mountains outside of Kanazawa this morning to visit a UNESCO World Heritage site called Okayama. As we drove through the valley, rice planting was in full swing.

This is no longer done with farmers bending over to push the rice shoots into the mud. Instead, machines take over the back-breaking labor.

In the mountains, rice paddies gave way to vegetable gardens. Our first stop was the tiny village of Ainokura, known as "the village of the Gassho Style houses." A Gassho house has a thatched roof that is very steep -- what we would call an "A-frame" -- due to the heavy snowfall in winter.

We climbed up the hill to an overlook to get our photo of the village. On the way, there were thin ropes along the path with small bells attached. The sign probably made sense in Japanese, but the English read "For avoiding beasts: By swing the rope, bells ring." We didn't see any beasts, so we don't know what sort of animal problem they have here.

After walking through the village and getting some photos of the surrounding mountains, we continued by bus to Gokayama proper and what used to be the area elementary school. Due to few children, the school has been consolidated and the building turned into a community center.

A few locals here introduced us to the preparation of "mochi," a sweet, pasty rice cake that is made and eaten at the new year, as well as at significant family celebrations such as weddings and births.

Mochi is made with a longer grain rice variety than what is eaten day to day. After the rice is steamed it is placed in a large wooded bowl and beaten into paste with a large wooden mallet.

Someone has to reach in and turn the mass of rice after every mallet blow, so of course, men do the pounding and women put their hands in to risk getting their fingers smashed. We all got to take a turn pounding, and the poor local woman turning the rice hoped that we could all keep the rhythm.

Once beaten (literally) to a pulp, the rice blob is divided into bite-sized balls. Some are dipped in a sweet soy power, and others topped with a savory soy paste. Both were actually quite good.

After our goodbyes here, we moved only a short distance across the village to a washi factory. Washi is a heavy Japanese art paper that is used for calligraphy, for paper screens in homes, lamp and lantern shades, and for a variety of other purposes.

We were shown a video (thankfully with English narration on the sound track) explaining how Gokayama washi is made, what makes it different from other washi, and why it is in great demand across Japan (or so they claim).

The process begins with a particular variety of mulberry bush that grows in this region. The long stems of the bush are cut, steamed, de-barked, bleached, boiled, rinsed, cleaned, beaten, stirred into water, strained, shaken, pressed, and dried into sheets of paper. We wondered how anyone ever figured out such a long, complicated, multi-stepped process!

We were allowed to participate in the strained and shaken steps near the end to create a few little post cards. While they dried, we were of course welcomed into the shop where we could purchase the real washi paper. Some in our group did. We did not.

The motor coach took us to yet another small village in the Gokayama heritage region where we disembarked in front of a tiny restaurant where we were to have lunch. But just as we arrived, a group of young people came by in a dragon parade to celebrate today's national holiday.

The dragon was led by a pickup truck loaded with Taiko drummers, and it was followed by others in some other sorts of animal costumes. All of that was followed by about a dozen folks with video cameras. As soon as the videographers saw a busload of Americans watching the parade, they turned their cameras on us, rather than on the dragon.

Then the dragon parade stopped, and the TV folks pulled us over to interact with the paraders. It was rather chaotic, and it was unclear whether we were the celebrities or the paraders were. One of the TV interviewers pushed a microphone into the face of a woman on our tour and asked why we were here. She lied, and said that we had come to see this parade. That brought a cheer from the paraders.

There were photos and high-fives all around, then the dragon drove away and we crossed back across the street to the restaurant where our food was getting cold. It was a meal of soba, or buckwheat noodles, as well as a variety of other vegetables.

In this same village is the Iwase House. This 300-year-old house is the largest Gassho Style house in the area. The steep roof is pitched so high that there are five levels. Braving the steep and narrow steps in our socks (shoes are left at the door in Japanese houses), we were allowed to explore the bottom four levels.

The family and guests occupied the ground floor. Servants lived one floor above. The third floor was where silk worms were cultivated. And the top two levels were for workshops and storage. As many as 36 people lived under the roof here throughout its history.

The current owner is the 19th generation of his family to have inherited it. His 90+ year old mother still lives in one section of the house, but he and his family live in a more modern house nearby. Their  full-time occupation, however, is the maintenance and interpretation of the property.

Mr. Iwase performed a traditional Samurai hunting dance for us, and his wife served us tea. Their teenage daughter also helped. His English was quite good, and he explained his costume, the dance, the tea, the house, and the history with us.

After leaving Gokayama we returned to Kanazawa where the Gargantua Music Festival had gotten underway today. There are a bunch of ticketed concerts planned over the three days, but also quite a few free ones, mostly featuring amateur or student musicians. The theme was music from the U.S. and UK.

We were probably the only ones in our group who cared to participate, but were able to take it at least parts of five performances. Some junior high-aged kids and their teacher put on a pretty good Taiko drum show. A decent young adult saxophone quartet played George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, and John Philip Sousa. 

We heard a harmonica player trying to do Bach (but we didn't stay long for that), and a group playing Irish music on traditional Japanese instruments (also rather odd). But they finished off with some traditional Japanese music, which made more sense. And we came back after dinner to hear a piano recital performed by a young man who wasn't nearly as good as he appeared to think he was.

It was another full day. If we're lucky, we may get a chance to hear a bit more free music tomorrow.