Continuing fun in Kanazawa with Kate has made me excited, and a little sad, to travel on to Kyoto. Once a great capital of Japan, Kyoto has more to see than I could possibly fit in. This will be another semi-extended stay, I can tell. Although I'm excited to move around a bit, I can't pass up the things it has to offer.I was excited to have gone to Onsen (the public bath) with Kate. There are many tubs at different temperatures, and some benches, rocks and chairs with hot water running down them.
Everybody in Japan goes to Onsen. With about 60 naked Japanese men, teenagers, and children, running around, you'd think the tubs would be crowded. But, miraculously, every tub I got into was suddenly vacated. So I often had them all to myself. That was so nice of them!The weekend before I left, Kate, her friends and I crammed a lot in. We saw Ninja-Dera: the temple with the trap doors and escape tunnels. It was quite impressive. Many hidden rooms, attack
techniques, deceiving doors, and even a tunnel from the bottom of the well that led to the castle. Sadly, because it is a temple, there were no pictures allowed.We also saw shishiku, a
museum of the dragon and lion heads used in parades, as well as some large puppets that are carried around for the fertility festival. Kate and her friends saw them in action just a few weeks ago. Men run around carrying these puppets and large fallic symbols, and get free sake and beer. There was a video at the museum of everyone dancing very drunk and loud. Looks like fun!
We saw Nata-dera, an outdoor garden temple, Daijo-ji, another, smaller temple, and walked along the Asanogawa river where the cherry blossoms are extravagant, when they bloom. There are Blue herons and Koi living wild in the river. It's a beautiful place.
