Golden Week

It's Golden Week here. What that means is we have a five day holiday. Why that is, I don't know, but my policy is don't ask, don't tell. We went to Nara on Saturday. That's a small town about an hour or so away by train that has a wonderful pagoda and park, and a temple with the biggest Buddha you will ever want to see. The park is overrun by extremely tame and greedy deer, and it makes for a lovely walk (if you watch where you step). I got to browse in some fun touristy shops and came away with some cool Japanese paper dolls for my dining room wall. We had some great tempura for lunch, so were not tempted by the myriad of booths selling tasty items. All in all, a satisfying day.

The next day was festival day for Mikage, the town I live in. There were 5 floats representing 5 different neighborhoods. They mess around making noise in the morning, then from 6 to about 10 p.m. they parade around beating drums and singing some kind of chants. Some people are sort of pushing the floats, others are on top of them dancing with fans or feathers or glow sticks. Others are walking in front of or behind the floats, and each neighborhood has it's own pattern of kimono for the men. Lots of noise and spectacle.It was fun to watch for a while, but it got monotonous. I can only imagine how boring and tiring it would be for the participants to parade around for that long, but I'm told they are fueled by beer and sake.

Yesterday, we went to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. We only did part of it, as there is so much to see. But this was a completely different experience than Nara. We went to the silver temple (Gincacuji) first. The temple is no big deal, but the gardens are spectacular. I was reminded of stylized Japanese paintings I've seen where the forests are beautiful but quite unrealistic looking. That's exactly how the trees looked here! And the azaleas are still in bloom and awesome looking. Amazing place, but pretty hard for me to justice with my cheap little camera. Then we walked along the philosophers walk, philosophizing away. We started looking for geocaches, and we found 4 and managed to see some great old neighborhoods of Japan. Kyoto is famous for Maiko, who are apprentice geisha's, and I was hoping to see some. However, we were told by a Japanese gentleman that they were on holiday that day, so we had to be satisfied with some regular Japanese ladies in kimonos. I still have lots to see there, so I plan to return often. Beautiful place.