Week 3: Kyoto Trip!

And it's time for another blog post! To be honest this one might be delayed by a day simply because of a lack of time on my part, but not much to be done about that, I make no excuses about being lazy.

Now that I'm crossing the one-month mark since I left, I've noticed myself taking fewer and fewer pictures of my immediate surroundings. I suppose this should be a good thing, because it means I'm finally settling into a routine and becoming comfortable with my surroundings, but it's a also a bit sad. Waking up every day knowing I'd see a new part of campus was really nice, and it's a shame to lose that wanderlust with regards to the place I live. Of course, I've still only explored a fraction of Kanazawa itself, and with a couple more trips planned as well, there will be plenty of chances for me to continue experiencing the unfamiliar. 

Classes have officially started, and since last week was orientation, we didn't do any travelling through my own program. Thankfully, that worked out just fine, because I stayed in Kyoto from Saturday through Sunday afternoon! I'll preface this by saying that I do very much enjoy Kanazawa but wow, Kyoto was absolutely stunning. It used to be the imperial capitol of Japan, and thus not only is it bigger than Kanazawa but it also has just as much (if not more) history! I'm also lucky because my good friend Avni Rajpal is living in Kyoto with a host-family, and she was kind enough to ask if I could spend the night there, which meant I got to avoid paying for a hotel/hostel for the night. I'm usually not a cheap person, but I guess Japan is changing me, because avoiding the $30 hotel fee made me way happier than it normally would've! 

With Avni as my guide, out first stop would be the Shinto shrine 伏見稲荷大社 (Fushimi Inari-taisha), located on Mt. Inari near the center of Kyoto. Inari, wtitten in Japanese as 稲荷王神, is a Shinto 神 (kami), or God, and is associated with a number of things including foxes, rice, prosperity, and merchants. That's where my knowledge ends, but Wikipedia mentions that some modern corporations still revere Inari today, and asserts that a few of these corporations have shrines dedicated to Inari at their headquarters.

The entrance to the Temple

One of the best pictures I took; the sunlight gives this torii an ethereal and beautiful look

Inari may be revered as a god of merchants/business, but you wouldn't know it from visiting Fushimi Inari, the head shrine of said kami. Avni navigated us around Kyoto's train system, and after emerging from a stop whose name I of course forget, the entrance to the shrine was literally 20 feet in front of us. The pictures more than speak for themselves, but overall the place was huge. After passing through the main gate at the entrance, we walked towards the main shrine, which was then connected to smaller shrines further up the mountain by paths lined with 鳥居 (torii), traditional Shinto gates that are almost always red in color. Torii can symbolize a few things, but most commonly signify a change from the mundane to the sacred. In the last few hundred years, Japanese people have also begun to donate torii to shrines in order to either help a wish come true or give thanks for a wish that came true. With quite literally thousands of these gates throughout the shrine, it was hard not to feel like the air carried the hopes and dreams of people from around Japan, and the fact that we went in the afternoon made for some really fantastic pictures, too.

Another torii; while impressive in picture, in person they're truly awe-inspiring

One of the many walkways lined with torii

Credits to Avni for this photo! Here, the setting sun frames our exit back to reality

Afterwards, we wandered around some touristy parts of the city near the temple before heading to our next destination: a cat cafe! For anyone who doesn't know about them, cat cafes are exactly what they sound like. You pay for a certain amount of time in the cafe and are provided with a small snack or drink, surrounded by cats the entire time, of course. All of the cats in this particular cafe were rescue/shelter cats, and I can't emphasize enough how amazing it was to sit down, drink tea, and play with some cats for half an hour. Unfortunately, they aren't that common in America and as far as I know there are none in Boston, so I'm real glad I got to experience this! Also, it doesn't get much more Japanese than tea and cats, so I was beaming by the time we left to continue on our way.

Clearly we weren't the only ones in love with the cats

Next was a stop at Avni's host family's house for dinner, which was both very delicious and incredibly filling. I don't have any pictures because I figured it'd be kind of rude to wander around taking photos of their house, but her host family was gracious and totally okay with my mostly unintelligible Japanese, so needless to say it was nice to stop there for dinner. 

After dinner we decided to head back into the city and look for somewhere we could grab a quick drink, which somehow became a 45 minute search for a restaurant that had outdoor seating by one of the rivers in Kyoto. On paper those some like easy criteria, but almost every place had a cover charge, or wouldn't only serve drinks, or was too expensive for cheap college students, and it's a miracle we found a place in the end. But find it we did! Avni and I were able to find a traditional Japanese restaurant that let us sit outside and only order sake, and probably the best part of my night was looking out across the river, with the buildings on the opposite side aglow and a gentle breeze enveloping us in its touch. Very poetic I know, but we'd already had some sake so I remember feeling fantastic as we took it all in! Side note, we also sat on cushions with our shoes off; this was my first time sitting in the traditional Japanese way, and I can't decide if I liked it or not, although I felt like I was breaking some sort of unspoken rule by eating in a restaurant without shoes on!

It's hard to do Kyoto at night justice, so here's a half-decent attempt 

We ended the night by walking to a 7-Eleven (along with a store chain called Family Mart, both are very popular here), grabbing some more drinks, and heading to the riverbank to relax for a bit before we headed back to Avni's house. What I realized in that moment is that Kyoto feels a lot like Boston, both with regards to how walkable (making that word up for sure) it is along with the general feel of the city. It's hard to explain, but I'm really glad I made the decision to go, because I got to see a good friend and was reminded a lot of the best things about home. There's nothing quite like feeling as though a city is both foreign and familiar, and this bittersweet mix was just the thing to propel me into classes this coming week! 

The next morning, after I slept in way too late, Avni and I headed back to river and walked along another touristy section before grabbing lunch and buying a few souvenirs; after that, it was time to head to the station, and before I knew it I was back in Kanazawa. It may have only been for a day, but what little I saw of Kyoto I loved, and I hope I have the chance to go back before I return to the States.

One of Kyoto's many bridges (this time clearly visible)

I think that's gonna wrap up this week's post! I know I went a bit heavy on the description, so next post will be geared a bit more towards offering some more insight into my own opinions and feelings. Knowing myself, I'll probably complain about my classes, in all honesty, heh! Next week we have our trip to Osaka, so I'll probably combine the following two blog posts; be on the lookout for that in a week and a half or so. As usual, thanks for reading, and until next time, さよなら！

Thanks to Avni for making this a fantastic weekend :)