I’m sorry for the radio silence! Honestly I am trying, as much as possible, to stay away from the web, and enjoy this beautiful country the best that I can. I will of course post a couple of photos on Instagram. I’m trying to check in every place we go on Foursquare, but for personal purposes… If only Foursquare hadn’t migrated to swarm? Or has it? I don’t get it…
Being in Kyoto last time was somewhat of a reality check. I went in thinking the city would top off the busy Tokyo, but that wasn’t the case. I felt like there were too many people, specially tourists, in one place. Kyoto is smaller than Tokyo and all tourists go to the same places, and, inevitably, you will bump into much more people. I didn’t feel the calmness I longed and dreamed of…
This time, however, things were different. We didn’t go to the same places as everyone, because we had been there already and, instead, we strolled around the entire city, just taking everything in.
And it was wonderful.
From my bike I saw the everyday lives of many Japanese, saw their homes and how they behave, and that’s precisely what I love most. From my bike, looking at the real Kyoto, I felt reinvigorated, inspired and peaceful.
We started off with an excellent breakfast, western and traditional Japanese.
And headed to the nearest temple, Sanjūsangen-dō. It features a stunning display of a thousand armed Kannon, and also 28 guardian deities. It was very impressive, to say the least. All guardians have their eyes in glass, as most deities’ statues in japan, and some of them felt almost too real.
To make the day even more relaxed, we headed to Ryōan-ji, which is the Zen garden you see in the photos. Quite a sight. Definitely worth seeing and feeling.
When we got back to the city, the Gion matsuri was already on. The floaters were set in each street, little places with delicious food were everywhere and Japanese were happily living the moment in their yukatas.
It was quite a happy zen day.
PS: no amount of little updates can apparently improve the wordpress app. I try to upload the pictures in one order, but it seems to have a mind of its own. It takes me twice the amount of time to reorder them, or upload them one by one, which goes against what I want at the moment (less time online), so I’m sorry for that!
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