This day was the most hectic day of my entire life. We visited four distinct places: Kinkaku-ji Shrine, which is known for the golf leaf covering the building and the phoenix situated at the top; Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, which was a beautiful area filled to the brim with bamboo; Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which is a Buddhist temple on top of a hill, making the view breathtaking; and finally, Fushimi-Inari Temple, which is a Shinto shrine known for its thousands of red gates. Every single place we went to was so amazing, but going to all of those places in the span of 12 hours was brutal. Still, I greatly enjoyed that day and am thankful for being able to visit every place we went to that day. After our long day, we went to Kyoto Computer Gakuin to watch Mugin Train in their auditorium.
Now, in terms of food, I started out the day with a boxed breakfast provided by the hotel we were staying at. The box came with a croissant, and muffin, bread with raw fish and onions, pickled beets, an omelet, and some ham. Every piece of this boxed breakfast was delicious. The croissant was buttery and flaky, the muffin was sweet, and the tangy pickled beets paired nicely with the sweet ham.
For lunch, I got pork tonkatsu with rice and eggs. This really hit the spot after walking around so much. Because it was so protein heavy, this meal easily got me through the rest of the day until we watched Mugin Train at KCG.
After watching the movie, we went to Aeon Mall to grab late-night dinner from the food court. I ended up getting Korean fried chicken which was supper good. It was just the right amount of spicy and filling including the bed of rice it was placed on. It was also nice to help wake me up after watching a two-hour movie late into the night.
Today was our busiest day. Although I appreciate being able to see and experience so much in one day, I am glad all of our other days here are less jam-packed than this one so I can get some rest and relaxation in the near future.
So after our temple day, we had another early morning wake up. I got up at 7 and headed down for breakfast at 730am. I’m started to get used to the time zone which is cool but I kinda liked waking up that early. It was nice to have so much time to relax and see empty places. Also it’s gonna make readjusting to New Jersey so much harder.
Now that I’m done with my tangent, our first activity of the day was a Zazen mediation with a monk. Zazen is a mediation style that has the participant cross their legs, breathe through their nose, have a straight posture, and eyes half closed. We walked into the temple to be greeted by the head monk who would direct us. We took off our shoes and walked into the temple. He told us some history of the temple and zazen, gave is a demonstration, and we started. Two 15 minutes sessions were planned for us.
The first 15 minutes went fine for me, however I lost feeling in my left leg since we were sitting with each foot on our thighs. Also the monk was walking around with this wooden stick ( that I’m currently forgetting the name of) and if you wanted you could bow down and he would hit your shoulders with the stick to refocus you.
The second session was better since I did a regular criss cross Apple sauce pose for my legs but my shoulder did really hurt near the end so I volunteered to get whacked. It actually felt really good on my shoulders. After our meditation we all got some goodies from the temple and left.
Here’s Ritchie meditating. ( Photo creds to Todd)
After mediation we headed back towards the Kiyomizu temple area ( from the day before) and had a tea ceremony! We had to split up into 2 groups since we’re a large group so half did tea first other did some walking and then we switched. I was in the walking group first and we got to see some more temples and cool old architecture. We also saw a Pokémon sewer cover! It was a 40 minute walk. I didn’t expect to be outside that much so I ended up with a little red on my face but it’s ok.
After our walk we had the tea ceremony. It was a fantastic experience where the host showed us the proper way to prepare matcha tea and how to act in the tea room. She was so pretty in her kimono and spoke very good English. After her presentation we got the opportunity to have some tea sweets and make our own matcha tea. I haven’t had matcha tea before but it was really good!
After the tea ceremony we headed to Nishiki market around 12:30. It’s a very famous market with a lot of food vendors. I got some snoopy themed taiyaki and some steak on a stick. This is where we were let free to explore until about 6pm.
In my free time, Kat and I decided to go to the nearby Pokemon Center. It was about 5 minutes away by walking but we had to wait 50 minutes to get into the store. Once we got in I grabbed some cool items and some plushies and waited 45 minutes to check out. It was a cool center because it was Kyoto themed with a traditionally dressed Pikachu and the legendaries from Pokémon Silver and Gold which was based in Kyoto.
After our Pokémon adventure, Kat and I met up with Belle and Chloe to head over to our next required activity, bowling at round One. Round One is a super large entertainment complex filled with arcades, claw machines, gambling, bowling, etc. We bowled 3 games with some of the Japanese students. I was in a group with Belle, Chloe, and one of the KCG students who was from Sri Lanka! Her name was Maruni. I bowled pretty bad the first 2 games. I was starving and hangry. Once I got some fries I was doing really well. We finished bowling, said goodbye to the KCG students, and went downstairs to game.
There was some really cool rhythm game machines that I played on for way too long. They had the classic DDR but they also had games I’ve never seen in the states. It was so cool and I even found a game that reminded me of a game I play on my own computer, Osu! I was pretty good at that one. We played for about an hour and a half then headed home around 10:30pm. We walked back to the subway and went back to the hotel. I went to bed around 12:30 and passed out.
What a cool day of traditional and modern things! I had a blast and am now very very tired and a little sunburned but it’s ok. See ya next time blog!
