zen gardens!

There are plenty of Buddhist temples in Kyoto and thus several fine examples of zen gardens.  These intricate rock gardens are more complex and on a larger scale than I imagined.  It is said they are best viewed on a rainy day, so Kyoto nicely prepared one for us.

Remember, it's all made of tiny pebbles and sand!

Notice the very nice looking trees and well-kept mossy areas?  The rocks are not the only things they take very good care of - Jeff told me the last time he was here they were sweeping the moss!

I can't imagine the kind of time it takes to get this right.  It would drive my perfectionist self nuts!  Notice how the lines are so straight separating the smooth and rough bands.

Further along in the garden area behind the temple there were beautiful paths to wander.  (This one was blocked off, possibly because of the rain/mud?)

Oh, I guess I should mention that this was at the Ginkaku-ji or Silver Temple.  Do not let the name mislead you!  There is no silver here.  Having seen the gold-leafed storehouse I mistakenly assumed that this temple might actually be made of silver.  Turns out there was a plan to cover it completely in silver leaf, but it was never carried out.  Classic case of "don't count your chickens before they hatch."

Mata ne,
Melissa

gold leaf in Kanazawa

(So I said I would write about all the fun stuff we saw and did while we were exploring the wilderness rail system in Japan,  but I made no promises to do so in any sort of orderly fashion.)

On our way to Kyoto, we snaked our way around western Japan and visiting a city that had been (and still is) known for producing gold leaf.  This is the kind of stuff that you might see on decorative paper  or china.  

They apparently were quite successful and skilled at this craft, and decided to gold leaf everything in sight.  The outside of this store house (for what else - gold) was not immune.

 As it turns out, neither was the inside

We didn't get to see any cool gold leaf making facilities (from what I was able to gather, it is not, in fact, the most exciting process) but we did get to see a lot of places trying to sell us gold leafed goods.

Moving on..... to the train station.

Tracks 3 and 4 for McCain.

Mata ne,
Melissa

weather confusion

Tokyo, we have a problem here.

Today's weather in Syracuse, New York (observed):

86 and SUNNY!   

Today's weather in Tokyo (forecasted):

  

55 and partly cloudy.

For reference, this is 5 degrees colder than the average for Tokyo and 14 degrees warmer than the record for Syracuse.

I expect to see signs of improvement soon. 

In spite of this we are going out for a little Hanami party of two plus thousands of others in Ueno park this afternoon.


Mata ne,
Melissa

bathroom confusion

Admittedly, it is not initially clear as to which way one is supposed to face when making use of a Japanese toilet.  I, however, never thought to sit on it!  eeewwww!

The hood in reality is much closer to the ground that it appears in this drawing and I find it hard to believe that people actually sit on it!

Hint: To avoid finding yourself in this uncomfortable situation, avoid the public toilets in parks and look for the sign on the door that reads "Western Toilet."

Mata ne,
Melissa

embarking on the journey

Aaaannnnnd we're back.

We had quite the time exploring Kyoto and western Japan on our trip.  Our trip involved lots of travel guides and confusing train schedules (in Japanese no less) and included several long days of walking all over various cities and two overnight trains, so I think you can imagine we've needed some time to recover. 

Of course, as you'd expect from us, we were quite the explorers.  We did all kinds of fun stuff and scouted out some great places to take both sets of parents who will be gracing the island with their presence(es?) in the next two months.  There is no possible way that I could go over all the fun stuff in one post, or even two.  So instead, I'm just going to post the exciting things individually.

I like to call it building suspense, not laziness.  Ok?


I'll whet your appetites with a picture of Jeff right before we embarked on our first overnight train.  That's why he still looks happy.

More to come!

Mata ne,
Melissa

Jeff protested that there was a picture of him but no picture of me, so for my adoring fans husband....