Rachel in Tokyo

This is a blog about an American law school student studying in Tokyo for the semester.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Kyoto!


KYOTO

Kyoto was AMAZING! When we got there, we checked into the New Miyako Hotel, and then started our tour of Kyoto. We went to a temple close to the hotel first and then started our TEMPLE HOPPING journey!

On our way to Kyoto on the Shinkansen!





Perhaps I should explain why these pictures are here. "HeartUp" to me, was a funny name for a store. Because "hard up" in English means: you are in desparate need of cash (okanei). And that you may just do anything necessary to get the money you need. Thus, when I pronounced the name of the store "HeartUp", it sounded like "hard up" and so I questioned just how desparate they were to sell their product. The second picture featured in this section is the name of the metro station. Americans think anything with the first 3 letters is funny because when this combination of letters is pronounced alone it sounds like the most profane word in the English language.

I was not supposed to take these....


We went to so many temples and saw so many cool things! I will try to do a recap, however, I don't remember all of the names of all of the places we went to, so I will do my American rendition of the trip!

If you look closely, you can see some cool architecture here. This little guy was holding up the Pagota on all four corners. I thought he was cool!














ZEN ROCK GARDENS







The Golden Temple






Ok! Do THIS!




















MOSS GARDENS













THE RED GATES

This was my favorite temple. Well, it's a close tie between the Red Gates and the Golden Temple. The Zen Rock Gardens are pretty hard to beat, too. OK...I can't make up my mind WHAT was my favorite part of Kyoto. Maybe it was EVERYTHING!



The fox brings good luck. He holds the "key to heaven". I think that the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity were amazing. The "FOX" holds the KEY, but when I was growing up as a pentecostal (I don't recommend this religion, by the way...) I was told that Jesus held the "key" to Heaven. I have learned, here in Japan, that people find their way to Heaven through a variety of paths. And many of these same paths have similar terminology all along the way. In fact, Buddha came along 500 years before Jesus and had 10 disciples of his own! So many similarities between the faiths, yet so different the people and belief systems! What an experience this has been!









































I have a feeling the Japanese on this sign says a lot more than its English translation!

NARA UPDATE COMING SOON!

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