A lot of people were visiting the temple and the surrounding shops today. We had to go up a narrow street with an even narrower sidewalk. We were basically walking almost single-file up the hill to the temple. The street had a few shops, but it was actually more of a residential street if anything. Lots of cars were making there way up the hill. Some were lucky to find parking spaces off to the side. We, as pedestrians, just had to make sure we got out of the way if a car was coming up the hill.
We arrived at the top and were greeted by the giant red gate that marks the entrance to Kiyomizu-dera. Then we looked down the other street that lead up to the table and realized that we missed all the shops. So instead of going into the temple grounds right away, we decided to peruse the shops and stalls first.
There was quite a bit of food and snacks available on this busier stretch and so we partook in some of the local flavours. There was the mochi snack with seaweed. There were a variety of souvenir food gifts. And, of course, good old fashioned souvenir stores. I bought some souvenir food box for work. When I tried it, the biscuit tasted savoury at first, but then the cinnamon-like sweetness kicked in after a sitting on the tongue for a while. However, that first bite was a skull-cracker (just like my coworker said after she tried one).
We ventured into one little laneway and discovered a Hayao Miyazaki [宮崎 駿] theme store. Basically the store is full of Totoro and other Miyazaki film characters. That was a neat little find nestled in behind another gift store. At a fork in the road, there was a set of stairs that went down to more stores. There was a store right on the corner that specialized in spices. You could actually ask for samples of some of the different spices. It reminds me of trying ice cream samples at Mondo Gelato, except the flavour was far from sweet. N got a special Hello Kitty spice for herself and a friend at the store. Is there any product in the world that doesn't have a limited Hello Kitty edition available?
We ventured down the set of stairs and came across a different store that sold a lot of cloth products with Japanese prints. The store was halfway down the staircase. Some products were meant to be handbags. Some were cloth specially meant for bento boxes. Others were just plain handkerchiefs. That was a neat little shop halfway down the stairs.
We walked down a little further and made a turn somewhere. We had another snack or two, but we were starting to become really hungry. Lunch was in order, especially since it was around 2 in the afternoon by now. It also happened that it started to sprinkle a little rain. Many were now just standing under the eaves of different shops along the side of the street, but we decided to press on. Eventually, the rain got worse and we just decided to hop into a restaurant and get some grub.
After a 10 minute wait, the server took us to the back of the restaurant that was separated from the front by a neat little garden piece with a overhead opening. We ended sitting right beside a French family of five. The couple had 3 boys and the youngest was probably about a year old. We ordered our food and all. Eventually, at the table behind us, a pair of Canadians was seated. N was looking at the embroidered Canadian flag on the guys backpack and they must have been staring at us once N whipped out her decommercialized Miga (Miga sans the green Vancouver 2010 scarf). So basically all the foreigners in the restaurant had been effectively placed in the back of the restaurant. I didn't feel discriminated in any way, but I just thought it funny that all of us in the back of the restaurants were "gaikoku-jin."
Once lunch was done, the sun had started shining again. It was time to finally make our way to the temple itself. At the temple entrance, we hesitated a little wondering if it was going to be worth the price of admission. I reasoned that we would not be in this part of the world for ages. So it was now or never.
Were we ever glad that we paid to go in. You round the corner from the ticket booth and are greeted the grand view from the grand balcony of the temple. It was a beautiful view of the trees below and the Main Hall above it. It was a busy day at the temple, but there was still plenty of room to move around. As with many temples, there is a giant cistern for incense. Some young foreigners had bought some incense sticks and were in the process of lighting and planting them in the cistern. Just around the corner from the giant Main Hall, there was a section where you could pay into a box and ring a bell. I'm not clear what the ringing of these bells represent, but it is cute to see little kids try to ring those bells.
We eventually made our way down from the Main Hall to an area where people were lining up to collect water from 3 flowing fountains overhead. It was a long line up and we didn't understand what it all meant. So we passed on the water thing, but it did offer a good photo op.
That was it for the temple. We were soon exiting the temple grounds and making our way back to the main road to catch a bus to our last tourist attraction for the day, Ginkaku-ji, or the Silver Pavilion.
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