August 31 Kyoto Pt 3

Brendan Again.

The sun rose today and there were no clouds. It made all of Kyoto look new again. The Kyoto tower (which I think normally looks like an anachronistic relic of the 70's) sparkled after days of rain.



We had ramen, not for breakfast but not that long after breakfast. Kyoto has some very good tucker. Especially for lunch as the prices seem to double for dinner.



Then we decided to walk again (my bike was in the shop getting new forks after I broke the last pair). Kyoto is a city set on a grid so all the streets either run north-south or east-west. As you walk along and look down the streets to your left or right you get these little surprises:



We went north to the Geisha district but they were not out and about so we cruised temples with giant trees in their gardens:



Looked down wooden corridors:



Played with shoji screens:



Walked under huge timber gates:



And sat in them looking up the Lonely Planet:



Fun. And kind of boring too.
Except for this bottle of apple cider that had a marble in it to agitate the cider so that you could get the biggest release of bubbles as you sipped. The lady made us sit there till we finished so she could collect the bottles back to be sterilized and reused.



As we crossed one of the waterways we noticed a bunch of people looking down into the waterway. We stopped too and looked to see this guy reeling in a fish that was easily 1m long.





One guy who was walking by quickly plopped down, whipped out his sketch pad and began to draw the fisherman.



After a good 15min battle he pulled the fish out, measured it and released it. He got a round of applause.

Then towards the end of the day we walked past a random building in the back streets of the Gihon district (the geisha area) with Samurai armor posters all over it and barbed wire fencing covering any gap or opening. This peeked my interest since the Japanese don't seem to be that security conscious. I phoned the number on the poster (the rest of it was in Japanese and it was the only bit I could decipher) and was told in half japanese and english that the building turned out to be the private collection of red armor from the Takeda clan and one of their supporters, the Ii family. It was open for another 30min and Naomi and I could go in for a bit of a gander.

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any pictures by the guide (who could only speak a little english. I think the phrase was "Eino go chotto wakasimase") But click this link if you want to learn about this Clan or check out this book for a story with this clan in it.

The space all this armor was kept in was terrible. It was a house filled to the rafters with suits of armor, bows, arrows, spears and swords all over the place. Some of it dated from up to 400 years ago and were amazing to look at (even if it was on the floor). All the armor was in good condition and were looked after but it was just housed in a, well, a house. I couldn't believe my luck in looking at this stuff. one full suit looked like it was made yesterday but I was told it was 400 years old.