Kanazawa to Kyoto

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

We spent the morning traveling to Kyoto, stopping just outside the city for lunch at a highway rest area overlooking Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake.  The food court was very interesting – several different stations with food items described and displayed pictorially, given a numerical designation and a price.  At a sort of vending machine, you selected the number of your chosen dish, inserted cash, and received a ticket to show to a counter person who gave you a beeper which sounded when your food was ready for pickup.  It was quick and efficient, though the chirping of beepers throughout the dining room began made me want to seek them out and hurl them into the nearby lake!  The rest area contained a large shop, a McDonald’s (with some selections not found in the USA), at least four places (including Cold Stone Creamery and Baskin Robbins) to buy ice cream (which seems to be ubiquitous in this country), and – of course – amazing rest rooms.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we bade farewell to our wonderful guide, Kathleen Brennan, and greeted Nami and Kay, who will be with us during our four days in Kyoto; Chiaki, who has been with us since our arrival at the airport in Tokyo, remains.

We rode to the Nijo-jo Castle in our bus, then said goodbye to it and the driver who has been with us for four days.  On an unusually warm afternoon (temps in the high 80s), Nami guided us through the Castle, which was the home of the Shogun, the military leader who for centuries was more powerful than the Emperor.  In 1867, the castle was the site of the transfer of power from the last Shogun to the Emperor; this historical significance makes the castle an important destination for school groups and other Japanese visitors, as well as tourists.  We walked through the five buildings of the castle (no interior photos allowed), each one more exclusively limited to visitors of a progressively more trusted status, until reaching the private rooms of the Shogun, which were much more intimate than the salons that preceded them.  En route, our attention was drawn to the “nightingale floors,” whose special construction made them chirp (loudly and often!) as we traversed them; they were designed as a security system to warn of the approaching presence of…???

Outside, we were able to wander through the castle gardens, whose beautiful pond, trained palm trees, lanterns, artfully placed stones, and manicured lawns made a stroll very rewarding, even in this afternoon’s hot and humid conditions.

We took another caravan of taxis back to the hotel, checked in, and had some time to recharge before walking together to dinner tonight. We were not the only ones surprised at what a busy city Kyoto is, and the main commercial streets we were on were wide, clean, brightly lit, and lined with very attractive commercial buildings, both modern and well-maintained older structures.

Dinner was at a restaurant with a generous buffet, with a great variety of dishes, and it was fun to sample things whose Japanese labels didn’t give us a clue as to their nature.  I don’t think anyone went hungry, and we were all grateful that we had a little bit of a walk back to our hotel to begin the long, slow process of working it all off!