Kyoto - Where prayers are answered

Sunday morning and we set off early to get this sightseeing thing underway. We had helpful suggestions from my sister Mary and Kyoto is so full of beautiful ancient Japan it is hard to go wrong.

Not finding breakfast near our Ryokan we jumped on the subway, getting off a couple of stops closer to our destination and discovering, as we had hoped, breakfast options. We chose a small cafe where the round tables were the size of a medium to small pizza, with minimal seating room.

Japan teaches humility and self-containment. You are constantly having to confine yourself, even to diminish yourself, to avoid creating nuisance and chaos around you. Brashness just doesn't work. You learn to stand in crowded buses and trains, pressed up against others all around but in a way that minimises interference with their personal space. We've walked through countless crowded streets and station concourses and I have been bumped into properly twice, both times by other foreigners.

Breakfast finished we caught a bus which took us up to Hiei-Zan, or Mount Hiei. Clearly in anticipation of the difficulty it would cause tourists in the future, many of Kyoto's attractions are built on the hills that surround the city. Hiei-Zan is a series of temples and the bus drops you at the highest and you work your way down to where a cable car can take the sensible tourists down to the mountain foot.

On Hiei-Zan

We had a little insight into the religious establishment at one of the temples where daily rituals are held honouring ancestors. There were a couple of priests / monks waiting at a side entrance and then very well polished black limousine with a gold chrysanthemum badge on its grill pulled up, the driver jumped out to get the door, someone came rushing for the other door, and a couple of fully regaled priests got out. No simple monks here.

Waiting for the man

After view a few of the temples we decided to head off. There is a cable car that can take you down but being (ex in my case) Wellingtonians we weren't interested and began to walk down the wide concrete path. I was sure that, like everywhere else in a few hundred metres there would be a rest stop, souvenir shops and probably a bus stop to take you the rest of the way down the mountain.

Still thinking it was a short pleasant walk...

Remember when a day or two ago we had prayed for a challenge? Well, the gods were about to have some fun. As we proceeded down we noticed exhausted looking people coming the other way. It was steep but I was privately scoffing at their lack of fitness. After all, how could a few hundred metres of concrete driveway be that hard? Then the concrete gave way to gravel and dirt. Looking back it was very steep and we didn't want to do any unnecessary climbing up hill so we pressed on.

Well, the gravel and dirt gave way to just dirt, then it became, effectively,  a steep rocky stream bed with fist size rocks and great gouges out of the earth where the water, which I am sure comes down I great torrents in the rainy season, had had its way. This was not easy going for anyone and although we passed a few people going up, no one else was going down except one man who was training for his forthcoming hiking trip in the alps.  Rosemary had her walking stick and I was able to help her by holding her other arm. Stopping to get my bearings I let go and a few seconds later she tripped and went flat on her back, bumping her head. We pressed on.  A couple of hours (yes hours!) later we came out at the bottom where paving resumed. We then caught a bus to the nearest station, a train bad to Kyoto central and a taxi to our Ryokan.

Although it might embarrass her I have to say that I thought Rosemary was amazing. Despite having a sore head (she now has a minor but painful whiplash), it being very hot (in the high 20°s), and having to scramble, albeit slowly, down this precipice, her willingness and good humour did not fail. I worried that I might have to get help or carry her or similar and was sure that our trip would be suspended for a day or two while she, and me to an extent, recovered. However, after a rest while I shot off to do the washing at a coin laundry, she was ready to go out to what had become our local for a plum wine and the next day we were back on the trail. Amazing. Slow Japan is clearly about doing what you can at the pace you can and making the most of every moment (some more pleasant than others!).