In which the gang finds a garbage can and trips over a lot of things

Kyoto already seems like a promising city due to trash receptacles. Shizu looked pretty embarrassed when we all got excited over these cans and started taking pictures but I don’t know how she could expect anything more from the same group that sprinted off to the McDonald’s instead of shopping for Japanese delicacies for dinner.

We spent the day touring Kyoto and seeing a lot of shrines. For purposes of my laziness, none of the shrines that are covered in this blog entry are going to be named – you’re just getting pictures. If you want more depth, you’ll have to do a little research on your own.

Here’s the first one we encountered. I’ll give you one tidbit of actual information – they are painted orange to ward off evil spirits.

One thing I notice as we tour around is that we are clumsy, in general. Without naming names, I’ll tell you that Grace, Ron, Cooper and numerous other people on our tour have injured themselves. There has been a nice variety of injury incidents. Ron and Cooper like to hit their heads on the low ceilings. Grace likes to fall over the raised entryways. Ron is a little complicated because, in addition to enjoying numerous head hits everyday, he also likes to miss curbs and, last night, fell due to misjudging a handrail. Grace and Ron are sporting some nice bruises at this point and I’ve gotten to use my first aid kid a few times. We’ve got one tour member who’s not even leaving the hotel due to a fall.

Lest you think us totally inept walkers, here’s a sample of various raised entryways I captured on camera in less than 5 minutes and we encounter an endless variety all day long. I know they look minor but they are slaying the Gate One troops.

But back to the traditional Kyoto details you’re looking for. We toured the Gion district where the Geisha congregate and then more temples. I’ll go ahead and name one for you as I have the brochure in my purse: Koda-Ji temple. I feel like temples are supposed to be relaxing places but Grace needed to talk me through this one, due to my fear of monkeys, developed in Costa Rica years ago. I was so nervous about the monkeys that I wasn’t afraid of the wild boars. (Disclosure: no actual animals seen, happily)

In front of this temple, we were approached by a group of Japanese teens, who were set out onto the streets of Kyoto with questionnaires. Their job is to approach tourists and ask them questions about nationality and travel plans. Their English was pretty limited and they were pretty shy, but it was fun to talk to them.

One thing I’m noticing in Japan is that there’s really not a ton of English spoken. This is the first country I’ve ever visited where I feel like there’s not a real way for me to communicate. I can do the basics, like buy a rice stick or an ice cream, but if I really needed something, I think I’d be in trouble. And it’s not that the Japanese people aren’t nice – they are extremely courteous and friendly – but they just don’t speak very much English.

We also got to participate in a tea ceremony today. Like everything else in Japan, the tea ceremony has very specific protocol to follow. We’ve now learned some of the paying for things protocols, the bowing protocol, the Onsen (hot springs) protocol and the eating protocol. Ron says he’s had enough. In regards to the tea ceremony, Ron remarked something along the lines that we should just go ahead and drink the damn tea. Luckily (?) for me, I was chosen to be the person to do the actual ceremonial drinking, which is a very stressful 5 minute process with rules about picking up the cup, holding the cup, turning the cup, appreciating the cup and more.

Here’s a couple more shrine pictures for you. They’re beautiful in the way that European churches are beautiful: they all look alike after awhile and I’m mostly looking for a place to sit down and so all relevant detail provided by Shizu is immediately forgotten.

Shopping Ron continues his quest for a large laughing Buddha to ship home at exorbitant cost. He liked this one but didn’t want to deal with the arrest/incarceration issues involved in acquiring it. He’s having similar trouble finding an actual donut in this country but we keep trying.

We have one more day of touring Kyoto tomorrow and then a road trip to Nara. After that, our tour is over and we’re on our own for three days. For those of you who keep asking, we ate at Tony Roma’s last night. I had a Caesar salad and it was wonderful. We’ll be headed back over for another meal there in a few minutes.