Japan Trip-Part Two: Kyoto and Osaka

Our visit to Kyoto was mostly a sighseeing one. Kyoto is the old capital of Japan and its most historic city. There are something like 2000+ shrines and temples there. Over three days we visited 6 or so of the best. The standouts were Kinkaku-ji Temple (aka the Golden Pavillion) and the Ryoan-ji Temple, site of a famous stone (or Zen) garden. The gardens surrounding the temple at Ryoan-ji were spectacular, but not as green as they would be in a few weeks. We also visited a traditional theater one evening and saw a few traditional dances, one performed by two Maiko (Geisha in training). We were told that this is as close as most people will ever come to seeing a real Geisha (or Geiko if you are in Kyoto--for some reason they don't like being called Geisha), as there are so few of them and they only perform for the elite, businessmen, politicians, etc. in private teahouses or restaurants.

After a couple of days of temple hopping we took the shinkansen (what they call the bullet train) to Osaka for the sumo. Sumo tournaments are held four times a year, each tournament consisting of fifteen days. Each wrestler has one match a day. The wrestler with the best record at the end of the tournament wins. The tournaments focus mainly on the top five tiers of wrestlers, who each wrestle within their tier. Within the tiers each wrestler is ranked. We hit the tournament on the first day and saw the top two tiers wrestle. The final matches of the day had the four highest ranked wrestlers competing against each other. I have attached a couple of videos at the bottom. Before each match the wrestlers prepare themselves by throwing salt in the ring, pumping up the crowd, and trying to psych out their competitor. They take about three and a half of their allotted four minutes to do this, then wrestle for about ten seconds.

After the tournament we took the shinkansen back to Kyoto, but this time to a different hotel. Instead of spending our last night in Kyoto in a western style hotel, we stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel, called a Ryokan. We slept on mats on the floor and ate our dinner sitting on the floor at low tables. The doorways were a bit low for me. The bath in the Ryokan was also unique. It was a communal bath, with a large bath fed by a fountain in the middle of the bathroom, surrounded by a dozen or so sitting showers. You leave your clothes in a dressing room, go to the bathroom and sit on a low stool to shower yourself with soap and then once you are clean you get into the bath. I didn't get a photo, as the naked Japanese dudes probably wouldn't have appreciated it.

After one night in the Ryokan we took off for Kobe. I'll finish the posts in the next few days with Kobe, Nagoya, and the last few days in Tokyo.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple

Little Buddha's with hats and bibs at Kiyomizu-dera Temple

Udon noodle lunch-one of the best meals we had in Japan

My dessert of black seasame ice cream

The Golden Pavillion

The stone garden at Ryoan-ji

The gardens of Ryoan-ji

Two Maiko performing

Matt and I trying to figure out the Kyoto subway after getting lost in downtown Kyoto

Sign outside a Buddhist temple. There were a lot of funny translations on the trip.

Facing off

The Tournament

The highest ranked wrestlers come out wearing these aprons.

Doorways are too short

Dinner of hot pot in the hotel

A photo of the Ryokan bath from our hotel's website

Funny little coke "can" bottles are in all of the vending machines

The wrestlers are perform several rituals before actually wrestling




This was the final match of the day, between the highest ranked and third highest ranked wrestlers. The highest ranked tossed the other guy out.