Year of the RABBIT...

2011 …!!!!…  Already ??  Me oh my, that was a very quick year.  Well, continuing on from our Osaka trip we took a quick 20 min train to Kyoto.  Kyoto is the original capital of Japan, but due to some emperors and shogunates being overthrown here and there it moved to Tokyo. Some even still argue this and say it was never official.  But how can one compare a city of only 1.5 million (Kyoto) vs. 35 Million of Tokyo??  Anyways, Kyoto is much more comfortable than the overwhelmingness of Osaka. Although, so so so many other foreigners.  We are so used to being the only white people of our city, but not here.  Our hotel was next to the Imperial Palace.  One thing should be noted: We were expecting to do a lot of “historical” things in Kyoto, such as museums, famous buildings, etc; yet due to the holidays all these attractions were closed from Dec 25-Jan 5.  Oh well.  We were able to see many beautiful shrines and temples.  New Years is the biggest holiday for Japan, yes both the Eve and the Day.  The Eve consist of a whole day of cleaning the house (spring cleaning style), and then prepare for a big big family dinner.  At midnight and on to the next day, one should visit a Buddhist temple then a Shinto shrine.  I asked a few people why would you go between two religions? But they said there isn’t much difference and its tradition.  

As for us we awoke on the 31st to almost 1’ of snow!  What a shock this was.  The preceding days were not at all that cold to forewarn such an event.  The snow made me miss skiing so bad.  Apparently there was a resort within a hour or so, but we would have no idea how to acquire all the equipment and clothes.  Maybe next year.  We then began the adventure of wandering the city in the snow from 12pm-12am.  How to kill time?  A Denny’s like restaurant was quite tasty, the Golden Temple in the snow was beautiful, and why not stop at the arcade.  We have been going to the arcade a lot because its always warm, a great place to rest, and we love playing this stupid coin pusher game.  Just like being a kid trying to win all those tickets for prizes, this involves Arcade tokens.  Its quite hard to explain, because its so simple, so maybe we’ll put up a video.  Anyways, around 10:30 we made it to the Gion area of Osaka (for those who’ve seen Memoirs of a Geisha, this is that area) and pushed our way through giant crowds and lines.  After being in a line towards a very large Temple, we were able to observe the monks ringing the bell between 11:40-12:30. Quite amazing.  The exactness of midnight doesn’t really matter here, no screaming shouting, pots or pans, no fireworks.  It is more about the ritual of the first thing one does is visit a sacred place and hear the bell 108 to wash away the 108 desire of human instinct.  

We also ate at a delicious Indian restaurant.  Its extremely hard being vegetarian here, so Indian food is the best thing ever for us.  In fact this one place was so friendly and good that we went twice while in Kyoto.  Mmmmm… mmmm…. We sure do love our curry and the fresh baked nan.  

I can’t really remember what else we did, but all in all it was a very fun trip. More to come.  Thanks for reading.