Jap Blog 19th of July 1996

Wayne and I stayed up until 2:30 am talking last night after watching “Aladdin”. This morning we went to the Gion area and Maruyama-koen (park). Walked to Kiyomizu-dera (temple). There are some famous love-stones there which Wayne managed to walk between with his eyes closed. I just missed so will have to wait a long time for love. [author's note - Doesn't everyone have a photo overlooking Kyoto from Kiyozimu-dera or inside?] We saw some quite crowded streets in our travels today where the motto must be love thy neighbour.

Our next stop was Sanjusangen-do Temple. It is the longest wooden building in Japan at 120m and houses 1000 buddhas which took 70 sculptors 100 years to make. Absolutely fascinating.

Caught a train north and had a two kilometre walk to Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion) on the Path of Philosophy. Quite beautiful gardens surrounding the pavilion. We managed to get a bus that took us directly to Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion). Beautiful. Two Japanese girls, Miyoko Yamahata and Aki Yoshida, both 1st year uni students, were interviewing people on their thoughts on the Golden Pavilion. Wayne did his interview in Japanese (the show off). The girls just went silly when Wayne told them that I was from Australia. We seem to be very popular here. I gave Miyoko a kangaroo and she just had to give me something – another curious Japanese custom. It turned out to be a very strange item – her comb. Both girls were only 18 and quite chirpy. They wanted our addresses and they gave us theirs in Kanji form. I think that we did quite well in our sightseeing. Iwaoka and his wife, Kazumi, took me out to the best ramen shop in Kyoto, near the main train station.

- posted by Hammy @ 8:38 am