Kyoto and Nara

Friday - March 8

Our origami handy work.  The card say "Ted" and "Beth"

Our day today was packed with activities! 
We were met this morning by a guide dressed in full kimono from the Women's Association Of Kyoto who took us to our host's home by taxi for a lesson in origami.  What fun to actually see a typical household and to spend some time with several local women folding paper.  The instructor's "It's easy" was not quite true but we ended up with some reasonable creations.  Our guide spoke excellent English, her husband had been a middle school English teacher (now retired), our instructor and the other observer spoke reasonable English; definitely more than we spoke Japanese.

Our guide and observer then took us by taxi to Nijo castle where they left us to explore on our own.  The castle was built in 1603 as the official residence of one of Japan's first shogun leaders.  It is famous for its "nightingale floors"  that squeak as you walk across them.  They do sound like birds, but were actually designed so no-one could sneak up on the occupants.

After a lunch in a local cafe, our next stop was Nishijin Textile Centre - a museum dedicated to the
weavers who for decades created the textiles used by the Imperial family.  We took in the kimono show, which showed kimonos for the four seasons.

It was then a walk to the subway and back to the hotel before heading out with an evening tour with Peter MacIntosh.  He is a professional photographer and world-leading expert on geisha culture.  Peter is probably most know as working as a location scout for the movie "Memoirs of Geisha".  The walking tour of about 90 minutes took us through the giesha districts.  Peter is a characher himself and had great stories to share.

Peter was raised in Nova Scotia and had a short lived professional soccer career 25 years ago.  So before joining the everyday work world, he decided to tour several countries which included Japan before settling down.  But as fate would have it, he never made it past Japan and has lived in Kyoto since.  He became a bar owner with an ex-gisha, then a professional photographer and is one of the few foreigners with personal knowledge of the gisha culture.  He knows many of the people in the district and is frequently used to photograph the gisha for ads or promotions.

He plans the tour so that we may have the opportunity to see some of the girls as they head out for dinner appointments.  His timing was impecible and we were able to see several gieko/maiko leaving the houses to go to their evening's engagements.  We learned that a maiko is a gieko in training and that it takes 5 years to make the transition.  Most girls begin their training around the age of 15 (the end of compulsory education in Japan).  They must interview with a "house mother" who will invest close to $500,000 dollars in a maiko's training, kimonos and education.  The young girl must sign a contract turning over all of her earnings for the 5 years to the "house mother".  At the end of her training, the now gieko can choose to work for herself or, more typically, request sponsorship from any of the house mothers or tea houses.  This is a true job, they have a union and a pension plan.

Saturday - March 17

Beth gave this girl some rice crackers to feed the deer.

Our schedule today was a day trip from Kyoto to Nara.   We are seeing Japan's capital cities in
reverse order.  Nara was the first capital of Japan.  While the guide book says that Nara is relatively unchanged, in our opinion, Nara is a major of a tourist trap.  Nara Park is famous for the Sika deer, supposedly wild, but really tame and fed so much by people that they are quite determined you feed them if you've purchased the deer rice cakes.  The deer are considered quite a "must-see" but if you wander anywhere in the park you can't miss them.  Inside the park are many temples and shrines, the most famous, the Todai-ji Temple, which has the world's largest Buddha.  It was quite impressive.

Why do Japanese hold up the "V" or peace sign in photos?
Google it.... but they all do it all the time!

As we walked around Todai-ji Temple, there was a massive support post that had a hole cut in the
base.   Mostly it was kids that would get down and crawl through the post but there was the occasional adult who felt the urge to see if they could squeeze through... frequently with embarrassing photos being taken as they tried to squeeze through.  Maybe they were reliving some childhood memory or something?  Beth did catch a great photo of a very young girl who just peaked out of the whole before she backed up to the other side... too many strangers out there!

Where's mom????

Really big Buddha!