Yesterday was amazing – just wow! It was a jam packed day of the most incredible sights. We headed off in the bus at 7am for drive to Kyoto. The weather here is much hotter than I expected – 28 C yesterday. Our wonderful tour guide, Matsako, gave us a commentary the whole time we drove about the history of the area and of the Shogun whose castle we were going to visit. He was the Shogun that the book of that titlewas based on. His castle at Kyoto, Nijo castle, was not his main one – but it certainly was impressive! We walked in over the moat to the first courtyard, then through a beautifully painted main gate into the second courtyard. It was huge and it’s easy to imagine hundreds of samuri lined up there.
We were only able to visit one part of the castle as the rest is being restored. The section we saw consisted of about 30 partitioned rooms used for visitors; the rooms used by the shogun and some of those of his concubines. The rooms have no furniture as people sat on the tatami mats but each room is decorated in beautiful paintings with scenes chosen depending on who would use each room and what impression they wanted to make. It seems that nothing in Japan is just decorative, every image is chosen because it means something specific.
Around the outside of the rooms is the famous nightingale floor. Built to squeak when walked on so that intruders could not sneak inside. The sound is just like a lot of birds singing. The best I could liken it to is when you are in the mountains and the bellbirds are all singing. As there were lots of people inside when we visited it just sounded like lots of birds. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside but it really has been one of the best things we’ve done so far!
Then we were off to the Golden Pavilion. This was originally owned by another shogun, but in his will he gave it to the Buddhists’ to be converted to a temple. The top two stories are covered in gold leaf from the Kanazawa region we visited yesterday. Just beautiful! Visitors are not allowed inside but we walked around the grounds and saw the workers sweeping the moss clean and also gently sweeping the top of a small stream with handmade brooms. Its easy to imagine how tranquil it would be if all the tourists were not present – they even had traffic ‘cops’ directing people there were so many.
Next up was another Japanese lunch which was really nice. This time we ate with chopsticks and mine was beautifully prepared – no problems with the gluten free and I had a nice big sign with my name and gluten free written on it stuck to the back of my chair so I knew where to sit.
Then we visited a Shinto shrine and happened to be there when a baby was having a ceremony for ‘long life’ – probably the equivalent of our baptism service. It is held when the child is one month old. So we were able to watch part of that. The shrine was impressive! There are no statues as Shinto is about the divine in nature, not about a ‘god’ type figure, but there were some beautiful buildings around a large central courtyard and huge gates.
As we were leaving a young couple came in dressed in their traditional clothing including a beautiful kimono, ready to receive a ‘blessing’ from the Shinto priest. The last stop of the day was another shopping trip and then a 2 hour bus trip back to the ship. We arrived back just after five, happily exhausted. The ship was farewelled from the port by Japanese drummers.