Kyoto

Our first trip to another Asian city outside of Korea was Kyoto.  The city is close enough and airfare inexpensive enough that we could go to Japan for the weekend—as one does.

Teresa’s parents visited many years ago and loved it.  It’s a city of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and quiet streets. It seemed a good place to go before hitting the bright lights of Tokyo.

We saw almost no neon while we were in Kyoto—a big contrast to its abundance in Songdo. But we were fortunate that, even though it was early December when we visited, not all the trees had lost their leaves.  What we lost in neon we gained in fall colors.  Even the trees in Kyoto are graceful.

 Our favorite experience in Kyoto was walking these quieter streets, some of them paralleling little canals.  Teresa said that Kyoto reminded her of Oxford.  One particularly nice route along the east side of Kyoto is called The Philosopher’s Walk, so-called because a well-known philosopher from nearby Kyoto University is said to have walked the path in daily meditation.

We saw lots of temples and shrines as we walked around Kyoto, but we had time to visit just one, Kinkaku-ji, called the Golden Temple because its upper two stories are covered with gold leaf.  Most beautiful about the temple, though, I think, is its setting in a garden with a reflecting pond and little islands.

Near the Golden Temple, we visited a small but lovely bamboo forest. We had a funny incident looking for someone to take a picture of us there.  I’m not shy about asking strangers to take our picture, but Teresa was more reluctant.  She agreed that Koreans love taking pictures for other people (in general, Koreans love taking pictures!), but one could not be sure Japanese people would feel the same way. Nonetheless, I called out to a guy to ask if he would take our picture.  He did so enthusiastically (multiple snaps, counting down, etc.), and then asked if we would take a picture of him and his companion.  Of course, we said.  I took a couple of pictures and then noticed that the controls on his phone were in Korean.  Are you Korean, I asked.  They were, and in fact lived in Incheon, the same city where Songdo is located.  So we never got to find out about how Japanese feel about taking pictures for others.  (The next guy I asked was Asian, but he turned out to be from Austin, TX.) The Korean guy took an excellent picture.

We ate well. Teresa indulged Robert’s love of fish with visits to two different sushi restaurants.

Fortunately, they also had some good non-fish food, such as eggplant pureed with two different sauces.  At the same restaurant, I had a terrific salad with thin slices of tuna.  We both enjoyed the boiled-for-a-day ramen.

Notice the side of fried chicken.  Here Japan, like probably all nations, falls short of Korea, which has amazingly crisp and tasty fried chicken. 

Speaking of comparisons between Japan and Korea.  Teresa and I were tempted to make them from time to time, but had to remind ourselves that what we could really compare was Kyoto to the greater Incheon/Seoul metropolitan area.  That said, it was interesting to be back in a city with older buildings.  Korea’s rise has been so rapid that everything in Korea is much newer.  On this score, we were likewise surprised how many businesses in Kyoto did not take credit cards, including the add-a-fare machines in the subway, which we found out to our consternation when we were trying to leave the subway to make our train back to the airport.  Almost completely out of Japanese money, we had to throw ourselves on the mercy of the station manager to let one of us through without paying.

We stayed in one of the older areas, the Higashiyama ward, which is also near Gion, Kyoto’s old district for geishas and teahouse/taverns, and which still seems to have something of a red-light district. But it is also very beautiful–the cover photo to this post is part of Gion at night–and has lots of great restaurants. I’d recommend this area for anyone deciding where in Kyoto to stay.

Regular readers of this blog will notice that Teresa’s hand is no longer in a sling or splint.  It has not been since late October.  She has been doing physical therapy since then, and is gaining most of the mobility in her arm that she once had.  The last bits will likely come back slowly over the coming months.  Here is Teresa with her physical therapist, making the Korean “fighting” pose.

 We’ll be spending some of the holidays back in the US, and when we return to Korea it will be close to our one-year anniversary of our new lives here.  In the meantime, we wish everyone a time of healing, rest, and good cheer over this holiday season.