Japunzel

I have ultimately left Japan and am now in Korea!

For some reason I can't upload pictures to this website as of now, I'm trying to fix it.

 

But I wanna tell you about the town I've come to love, Kyoto!

That first night we went up the mountain. It was the best thing so far on this trip. The air was heavy with water and scents of the forest, it smelled of pine trees and cherry blossom and moss. Lights were aimed at the shrines and temples, as well as a few beautiful trees.

Monks were walking about, or drumming, or hitting gong gongs. Loads of tourists participated in rituals involving incense cleansing and water cleansing. Prayers were said and written down, words of wisdoms sold by the shrine maidens. Waterfalls and moths and koi fish created an ambient sound that the tourist occasionally couldn't silence.

Of course my camera died right there, so I didn't have much time to take many pictures.

I can't tell you how or why it was so amazing but it was like balm for the soul after a long day of travelling and all the busy life of one week in Tokyo.

 

On the way down from the mountain we found the perfect shopping street, filled with weird japanese "candy" and kimonos, as well as wooden geisha dolls and fortune cats. At the end of our 5 days in Kyoto, this was where I bought most of my stuff, the souvenirs and gifts for others. And on the mountain is where I felt alive, in all and every way.

 

The first proper day in Kyoto, we finally could sleep in. While the others were off to yet another temple we slowly got started and started walking around town. We found a steet parallell to the river with a cute little canal and cherry blossoms and old buildings, only two stories tall, and walked along it hunting for breakfast. We cowardly opted for another Tully's. After a 30 min walk we wanted to know what we were getting the first morning. In this case, pancakes.

 

Then we walked around in a partly in door shopping mall but not for long, we had a deadline. Us girls had made plans long before we came here to get dressed up as a Meiko, a Geisha in training.

IThe process took hours, getting prepared, make up and trying on kimonos and underskirts and belts and whatnot. We were 5 girls doing this together and it was so much fun! We got to pick kimonos ourselves, and what positions we wanted pictures taken from. Apart from that there was nothing to do except sit down/stand up and enjoy being pampered. Three of the guys came along for the ride too, but their process was much shorter. They were merely dressed up as traditional japanese men, no make up or hair. I'm not sure they even got to pick their robes.

 

We got to go out for about 10 minutes after the photo shoot to take pictures with our own cameras and phones. Our other friends were there and took lots of photos. Some japanese people walked past and looked at us with smiles and adoration. They told us we were "kawaii" and "beautiful". Soon a crowd gathered as we were partly blocking the tiny street. The people stopped and one by one they seized the opportunity to capture our looks. Suddenly people stood next to me and we agreed to let them photograph us with their friends. We weren't really prepared for this attention and it was hard not smiling. But with ruby red lips and skin painted white your teeth will always look more yellow than corn (and for that reason some geisha blacken their teeth to not show at all).

That's when my man comes up to me and whispers "It's happening! I think he proposed!" I look over to two of my friends who are separated from the group and sure enough, she's wearing a new ring.

Afterwards we went out to a chinese-japanese restaurant and celebrated their engagement. All in all it was a perfectly spent day.

The day after wouldn't prove worse. We had previously heard of a town where there'd be deers roaming the streets, bowing to humans. I had dismissed this as an exaggeration in at least three ways but stayed curious as we took the train to Nara. And o m g. I was not disappointed in any way. The first things we saw were traffic signs warning for deers. We assumed it was a tourist thing. But then seemingly from no where, there was a deer, right in front of me. And then there was another. We saw a stand where one could get little biscuits for them and after buying that we were utterly surrounded. And they bowed. They nodded their entire neck in an elegant bow, sometimes letting you bow first, sometimes taking the initiative themselves. They could be pretty pushy.

A few times I felt them nibbling on my clothes (my cardigan was the same color as their biscuits).

 

I'll tell you more about Nara in my next post..