Discouraged by Japanese traditions, but full of impressions - part 3

AMAZING Aerochute (continued, part 3) We left our bags in the luggage at the station and rushed into Kokodera (temple and moss garden in a suburb of Kyoto) on a private tour that our Japanese friends have ordered for us. We are very much looking for this church, and still found it after 50 minutes by shuttle bus and another hour walking on the residential areas of Kyoto. By pure coincidence - after several lengthy conversations with the locals, in broken English-Japanese - we still managed to find it. We still had a few minutes, and we sat on the mat in the main hall of the temple, along with about fifty visitors. First, the chief Buddhist monk invited us to listen to their prayers and hymns to the accompaniment of other monks who measured banged a drum, uttering a low sound. All this created a wonderfully relaxing, meditative and even deceptive in a trance mood, which was held for about 15 minutes. Then we were taught to write prayers in Japanese with a brush and ink. The Japanese, who sat next to pohihikali over our inability to use the ancient traditional pads for soaking and helped us get it right. 15 minutes, we carefully taken out incomprehensible to us, but very beautiful Japanese characters, and then put our "letters" in a pile with other prayers which we utter a par with our own. I wrote something like "world peace", no - "eternal health", no, it seems there was something like "travel before the end of his life" or something like that. In general, it's time to go into the garden of moss. How did it beautifully! Temple in Kyoto Continuing to discover an incredibly multi-faceted culture of Japan, we visited Kinkaku-ji or the Golden Pavilion (one of the Buddhist temple complex of Rokuon-ji, received its name thanks to a roof covered with sheets of pure gold, prim.perev.) Reandzi & Garden , the most famous Buddhist rock garden in the world. Garden Reandzi was minimalist and very beautiful as much as can be a beautiful rock garden. Yui said, we understand more, visit Reandzi. I think he was right! Then it so happened that we began somewhere late. With us, this often happens. While I was rushed to the station to pick up our things and return to riokan, Martha, my wife went to get tickets to the theater "Gion Center. By some miracle I managed to come back for 2 minutes before the beginning of the presentation, during which we have demonstrated all of the existing customs of Kyoto: a tea ceremony, ikebana, the art of playing the Japanese harp, a comedy puppet show (very funny with a very talented puppeteer ) and, finally, the dance of a Geisha. Of course, the performance was staged for tourists, but for us it was a good opportunity to skim the traditions of Kyoto. It is unlikely that we could do it somewhere else. In the end, we returned to riokan, and we had little time to look around the room: gorgeous tatami postelenny on the floor, and very comfortable for sleeping gowns. March looked into the Japanese bath, which was located one floor below - in each riokane a bath - but decided not to go to the bath along with two women, who animatedly about something said. I was so tired that just valilsya feet. Riokan-traditional Japanese inn the next day for a wonderful traditional Japanese breakfast, we were discussing something to do today. We wanted to stay longer in Kyoto, but such a decision was taken not just because the room cost $ 200 per day. We decided to walk along the canal from Ginkaku-ji Temple, past the Silver Pavilion. (Ginkaku-ji Temple - a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, and the Silver Pavilion call it home building - the temple of the goddess Kannon, the goddess of fertility and protector of women. Prim.perev.) Then we saw how nice looking old house and the temple of the Shogun Nandzen-ji, a who led "The path of the philosopher, named in honor of Kitaro (Kitaro Nishida - a prominent Japanese philosopher, founder of the so-called Kyoto school prim.perev.). In the afternoon we went to the Museum of manga (Japanese comics prim.perev), in which there were almost no pictures in English, but we have the opportunity to bask in the warm sun. After the walk we returned to the apartment of Ben, in which, despite the fact that we arrived quite late, nobody was there. We heard how he returned later with a girlfriend, but it was all very innocent: she just missed the train, drank a couple of extra drinks, and she needed somewhere to sleep. We were a bit uncomfortable due to the fact that we have taken a single bed, and two of them had to lie on a narrow couch ... Start material: End of Material: See also: Tokyo, Japan: moving to the metro