Kyoto: the sights and sounds

In one word: wow. Now let me explain...

On Saturday I got to my first temple at 8.45am (don't worry, I've not had a personality transplant), which turned out to be a good idea for two reasons - it wasn't too hot yet (only about 28 degrees!) and it wasn't too busy yet. After walking up a little hill, lined with gift shops, I reached the entrance of Kiyomizu-dera.


Most of the buildings in this temple are 400 years old, although there has been a temple there since the 7th century.


The main building is built on giant slits and sits on the hillside.


Its famous for its sacred springs (mizu is Japanese for water), which are meant to have healing powers. I drank some but I can't say I've felt the benefits yet...


I also came across this crowd, no idea why they're wearing bibs:



I later found out that I picked a good day to visit Kiyomizu-dera - apparently if you went on that Saturday, you get the same spiritual benefits as going for 1000 days! After wandering around the area for a while I headed down some brilliant old streets (I later found out that this is the Lonely Planet's recommended path) towards my next temple. On the way, I bumped into these two:




They looked even more beautiful in real life. I can't even begin to imagine how uncomfortable they must have been though, it was about 30 degrees by this point and they were wearing so many layers! The heat in Kyoto was unbearable - weather reports said it was 33 degrees, but with about 50% humidity and not a cloud in the sky, it felt more like 40 degrees. I thought I was about to spontaneously combust on a number of occasions.

Yasaka-jinja was the next shrine I visited, and there was actually some sort of service being held inside, so I couldn't go into the main bit. There were so many lanterns hanging from one of the buildings.




I then hopped on the bus to Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), which was a bit confusing as you get on through the back door and pay on your way out... This was one of my favourite temples at it had immaculate gardens - there were people employed to sweep any fallen leaves off the moss on the hillside, that's how beautifully kept the grounds were.




I then walked along the 'Philosopher's Path' towards Nanzen-ji. This two-kilometer long river-side path is a beautiful way to get between temples and is lined with cherry blossom trees that must look incredible in Spring.

I was impressed by the inside of Nanzen-ji as they still have all the original wood panels and painted sliding doors that have been there for centuries.




I spent the rest of the afternoon essentially getting lost. Kyoto is a wonderful city to get lost in - it's a brilliant mix of old, winding streets lined with traditional buildings and syscrapers and shopping malls. I spent most of the afternoon wandering around Nishiki Food Market and indulging in some retail therapy (my excuse is that I needed to go into the shops to cool down...). It turns out that I have some sort of homing signal as I managed to shop myself back to within 20 yards of my ryokan without even realisng it!

I woke up on Saturday to discover that a monsoon had descended on the city. This didn't put me off sightseeing though and actually helped to cool down the air a bit. Unfortunately, the rain added to the humidty, offsetting any good it had done by making everything damp and sticky. It also made taking photos very difficult as I kept getting tiny water droplets on my lense everytime I pointed the camera up, which was generally where everything I wanted to take a photo of was. Oh well.

I got the bus to Kinkaku-ji, or 'The Golden Pavilion'. This temple is incredible - it sits in the middle of an ancient, man-made pond and is completely covered in gold leaf. When it's sunny, it must be blinding to look at!


My next stop, Ryotoku-ji, was a short walk away. It is famous for its really old zen garden:


I thought that these trees were pretty cool, too:



I then walked further out and went to visit Ninna-ji - this was my favourite temple of the day because I wanted to move into the palace part of it. This is a series of beautiful, old Japanese buildings that are all connected by open walkways and surrounded by perfect bonsai and zen gardens.




Within the temple complex (it covers a huge area), there are loads of other buildings and shrines, including a five-storey pagoda.



The last pace I had time to visit before catching the shinkansen back was Nijo-jo (Nijo Castle). This castle sits in the centre of Kyoto (much like Edinburgh Castle) and is surrounded by ridiculously tall and thick granite walls and a moat. The inside of the palace was amazing, but they didn't let me take any photos :( All of the painted walls, ceilings and screen doors remain intact, as do all the paper walls and carved wooden decorations. The best part that has survived has to be the the 'nightingale floor' that encircles all of the rooms. This floor quietly sqeaks whenever you step on it - it doesn't make a wooden creaking noise, it actually almost sings, hence the name. I thought it was brilliant that it still works perfectly (I have no idea how the noise is created) and it made for fantastic background noise with everyone walking around the palace and looking into the rooms.

Kyoto: my ryokan and the food

My ryokan couldn't have been more perfect. I wanted to stay in a traditional Japanese-style hotel that served Japanese food and I got more than what I wanted - a fantastic room, very friendly staff, delicious food and located in the Gion district, right in the centre of Kyoto. Perfect! I couldn't recommend 'Kamogawa-kan Inn' more if you ever need a place to stay in Kyoto.

My room was surprisingly big and decked out in traditional Japanese tatami and furniture, with paper sliding windows.



I had just enough time to settle in before the two, old Japanese ladies who worked in the ryokan started to bring my kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine) dinner. They were so kind and friendly and did absolutely everything for me!


The plates of food just kept on coming - this is what my table ended up looking like:


Every dish came with its own dipping sauce and I got a big tub of rice on the side too. It was all presented beautifully, but my favourite had to be the snow-igloo that my sashimi came in.


The food was all so delicious, so it's a bit of a shame that I still have no idea what some of it was! I asked, but didn't understand the Japanese response... The meal as a whole is very different to meals in the UK - there is a very odd mix of savoury and sweet flavours on the same plate and often in the same item. For example, small, crispy, sugared fish: salty on the inside, syrupy on the outside. The first one was a bit of a surprise, the second was quite enjoyable, but buy the third one, I had eaten enough!

The Japanese women then insisted that I got changed into the yukata that came with the room, so I obliged and got them to help me tie it. I am going to have to get myself one as they're really good.


Breakfast the next morning was another multi-course extravaganza. Again, no idea what half of it was - prizes to whoever knows what the contents of the little dishes were!


After breakfast, I was asked whether I wanted a kaiseki dinner again or shabu shabu (kind of like a meat fondue). I couldn't make my mind up so they gave me kaiseki with my own little mini shabu shabu as one of the courses! I had clearly been given the gaijin-friendly kaiseki the first night, but, impressed that I had eaten all of that, they gave me the real deal on Saturday:


One of the dishes was a speciality from the Osaka region (I think that's what she said...) and consisted solely of two fish heads. Now, whenever I eat whole fish at home, I usually stop before I get to the face. There turned out to be a surprising amount of flesh in there actually, although I couldn't face eating the eyes. The sashimi dish included sea urchin this time - I've already tried this on sushi I didn't really fancy eating it again, but did out of politeness... You know the smell of the sea lion enclosure at the zoo? That's exactly what uni tastes like.

I managed enough Japanese to have wee conversations with the two ladies and they thought I was hilarious as a result of my efforts. I must have been semi-articulate as they empathised with me when I explained how hot I was finding the weather in Kyoto compared to at home. They were so nice and took this into account when preparing my breakfast for Sunday morning; giving me dishes that were designed to cool me down, like iced tofu.


The meals were just incredicble - I want to go back just to eat some more!

For lunch, I just got food while I was out and about. Kyoto happens to have a chain of coffee houses with a very appropriate name:


I found one of my new favourite places too: Mister Donut. This is pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Krispy Kreme and every donut is only 100yen (60p!).


So on Sunday, I decided to have a variety of doughnuts for my lunch. Why? Because I'm a grown-up and can eat doughnuts for my lunch if I want to :)

Where to start...

This weekend has been so incredible, I honestly don't even know where to start!

My ryokan was amazing.
The food was some of the best I've eaten so far.
Kyoto's temples are stunning.
The climate was the hottest I've ever experienced - I got sunburnt whlist wearing factor 50+ sunscreen... THAT'S how hot it was.
The shinkansen train travelled at ridiculous speeds.
And I missed the earthquake in Tokyo this evening that hit 4.0 on the richter scale.

I'm absolutely gutted about the last one - I secretly want to experience a little (not a big one, please!) earthquake while I'm staying in Japan, so I can't believe I was away the weekend Tokyo got one. Apparently buildings moved a bit!

As a result of spending the last two days running around Kyoto, I'm absolutely shattered and will blog properly about my weekend tomorrow. After I've uploaded my rather large collection of photos :)

Intermission

I'm heading to Kyoto tomorrow straight after work for the weekend so there will be no more posts probably until Monday night.

I've been embracing my inner (and outer...) nerd over the past few days working with the quants. Today I finished my two pricing models! They both price a call option - one analytically, using the Black-Scholes model and the other using Monte Carlo simulations. I designed and programmed wee interfaces as well that you type the parameters into (stock price, strike, risk free rate, time to maturity, etc), then press a big button that says "RUN" and it spits out the result. Everybody was very impressed and I'm very proud that I managed to go from having no programming knowledge to designing pricing models in C# in the space of three days! God, I'm a geek... Next thing you know I'll start wearing a pocket protector.

This week has been very different from the last few as the quants have very British work ethics. As in they rock up at 9am, take three coffee breaks a day (that involve leaving the building and walking to insanely posh coffee shops), have a two-hour lunch break (in very posh restaurants) and then head home at about 6.30. I think I've managed to fit in quite well :)

Today's lunch was very tasty - spicy tuna donburi:



Went out for dinner and drinks with Stephen and Zach after work. Ate things on sticks while stading up and then went to a bar where all the drinks were £2. Definitely a good night.

Back to business

I'm healthier again - hooray! By that I mean that I can actually swallow food now without being in stupid amounts of pain and I made it into work today. So, hopefully, normal blogging shall resume as of now. My antibiotics seem to be working, as does my iodine 'throat gargle', which appears to have been designed for hippos with throat infections:


And came from a pharmacy that likes koalas:


I'm starting to wonder if I went to the vet by accident.

I'm spending this week with the guys who trade options and hybrids. The hybrids trades are so mentally complicated that I feel like I've only just scratched the surface - each trade is completely custom-made and has multiple parameters that can all change the price and risk on a daily basis. They've got to be able to calculate the current value and risk of each trade so that they can then hedge the whole portfolio. There are so many things to keep on top of! And the maths behind it all is horrendous...

I don't really feel like I've achieved much this week and I spent two whole days in bed, so I've not got much to report on. Apart from what I've eaten, of course. I got taken out for sushi for lunch on Monday at the same place I went with my boss on my first day:


Had a ton-katsu bento for tea one night


And got taken to a ton-katsu restaurant for lunch today


(I may have forgotten to take a photo at the start of the meal as I was so hungry. Apologies for the lack of food left on any of the plates!)

They specialised in this weird green leaf called shiso (that looks suspiciously like a nettle...) and gave me tea made from it and also rice that had been cooked with it.

I've spent most of my free time (and my time stuck in the flat) looking for places to stay in Kyoto. I want to go there next weekend and would like to stay in a traditional ryokan or minshuku, where you get tea ceremonies and amazing Japanese food, whilst living in a fantastic old paper house. Unfortunately, none of them seem to offer rooms for one person, especially not one woman. Travelling alone hasn't been a problem until now. Bummer.