I love being with the local people whenever we travel.  It takes sometimes to figure out how to do this.  But this day in Kyoto was filled with local color, people, food and places.

Our day started early with a 6AM Buddhist worship service at Chishakuin temple.  We were first introduced to this temple’s at early morning service while attending an Eddie Soloway’s photography workshop in 2016.  This was our first solo adventure.   Our Kyoto guide Tomoko gave us some general directions, like don’t walk up the main steps as those are reserved for the monks and ordered a cab for us at 5:30AM. Then we were on our own.

As we approached the temple, one monk walked towards us and wordlessly guided us to where we needed to go, asking us, not verbally, to remove our shoes and walked us to the main hall.  We listened to the chanting service which is very meditative and when the time came for worshippers to give thanks, the monk again approached us and showed us how.  We were the only westerners in the service and there was only one other lay person attending.

After the chanting service “our” monk took us back to our shoes and directed us to an adjoining building where the fire service was about to take place.  Unlike the quiet chanting service, the fire service is filled will lots of drumming and is highly energetic.

It was like you went to the chanting service to find your center and then went to the fire service to energize you for the day.

Again we were shown by “our” monk, how to give thanks and she greeted us after the service to show us out.  At the door we received a small card on which was a blessing.

It was an ah-ha moment. I have had a blessing card in my travel wallet for years but couldn’t remember where in Japan I had picked it up.  At the service in 2016… Now I also have a blessing card for my everyday wallet and my travel wallet.

We were not allowed to photograph or record any of either of the two services, But we were free to photograph on the grounds around the temple after the services.  During our first visit we had little time to explore, as we were on a tour, so we took advantage of our less rigid schedule and looked over the grounds.  Taking time to photography might also have been a way to delay figuring out how to hail a cab on the main street, and “telling” the cabdriver the name and location of our hotel. But Timothy figured it out quickly and we were soon on our way to the hotel to clean up for remainder of our day touring Kyoto.

Chishakuin Temple

Chishakuin Temple

 

 

Chishakuin Temple – notice the lotus blossom symbols, these are the symbol of Buddhism. Lotus grows in very muddy water but produces this white pure locus flower.

 

 

Chishakuin Temple

After breakfast and meeting Tomoko, we set out for Ohara district within Kyoto.  The area is rural with many some dying craftsmen. In 2016 we had visited a persimmon dyer which was fun to photograph as everything was done by hand and there were many interesting objects to photograph.  What surprised me about the persimmon dying was that the result was brown not orange as I expected.

This dyer was closed so we visited another dyer that used other natural roots, etc to produce the dye.  They not only dyed but did some hand weaving.

After the dyers, we walking into the west area of Ohara which felt less touristy than the east side. We walked through the streets and recalled our last visit.  At one of the stands in 2016 we had photographed a toddler with his grandmother.  It was a very touching scene, as the grandmother’s love for her grandson was written on her face. This year her grandson was in school and not at the stand.

One item I had hoped to purchase was a small ceramic of several frogs.  I had not purchased it when I first saw it in ’16, thinking I would see it another place in Japan and I still had four weeks of touring to go, and I didn’t want to carry it.  Well… lesson learned, products are not ubiquitous in Japan.  If you see it in one place, you might never see it again.  And, I didn’t.  And, it clearly was not mass produced as I couldn’t find one on this visit.

Hugh had the same problem with the raccoon dog he hoped to purchase.

After our walk through the streets we went back to a restaurant that we had visited on our first trip…Wappado. This was one of Tim’s favorites.  The restaurant had a local feel with few tourists.  The table of local people behind us were celebrating a class reunion, given their age it was a long ago class. The food was a set menu with seven courses and all the food was local.  When I went there with Eddie’s tour, they served us fresh rice from the current year’s harvest.

At lunch Tomoko gave me a kimono handmade by her mother. What an honor to be given something so personal.   We had been having long conversation about the construction of the kimono and I had asked if there was a pattern I could buy.

I am currently taking a clothing design class and had wanted to include the unique construction of the Japanese kimono sleeve in one of my designs.  My instructor and I had been discussing this and couldn’t reach a consensus on how it was constructed.   I had started the design class after purchasing some beautiful kimono fabric on our 2017 visit.  I couldn’t find a pattern I thought appropriate for the cloth, so started on this design class as an answer.  I am now in my second semester of the class, and have enrolled for a third in the spring.  I plan to sew up the Japanese fabric with some Japanese design elements in spring of 2020, with the gift of this kimono, that is now possible.

After lunch we walked over to the east side of Ohara.  We hadn’t much time to explore this area earlier because of time constraints.  We took our time walking up the main street, appreciating and photographing the fall colors over one bridge and continuing on to the blood temple, Hosen-in.

 

One more day in Kyoto, and then we will be off to Toyko.  The end of the trip is drawing closer.