I am in Kyoto again, after two more days wandering around here. This place is really amazing. I wish I'd come here to do a traineeship instead of Youka-such a boring place that the most inspired name they could come up with was "there is a market on the 8th day (of the month)"-ichi! I'm following a similar pattern as before: one day of temple/shrine/castle hopping is good, but by the end of that I'm temple/shrine/castled-out, so hiking is a good way to get some exercise and clear the lungs (caked with cigarette smoke, courtesy of my chimney like colleagues). Some lovely scenery to the north of the city. Yesterday I went to the shrine complex of Inari, the god of agriculture, of whom the fox is said to be the messenger. The place is huge, consisting of hundreds of little shrines dotted all over a mountain, and quite spooky, with big stone foxes glaring down at you from amongst the trees.There are rows of little food stalls leading up to the main shrine selling barbequed sparrow, roasted sweet potatoes, fried eel and toffeed strawberries. I went for the strawberries and munched and munched as I wandered around.
Next stop was Nijou Castle, which was apparently built by the Shogun just to put the wind up the Emperor and show everyone who was really wearing the pants in feudal Japan. It is accordingly a very impressive impressive structure. The interior of the Palace inside the castle walls is fitted with "nightingale" (read "squeaky") floors, which squeal when they are walked on, so that the big men could be alerted to the presence of would-be assassins and other nasty people. Must have been hell when his shogun-ness got up to relieve himself in the night, though.
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