Kyoto Continued

On my second day in Kyoto, I started with the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University. It's really well done and I learned a lot about WWII from a Japanese perspective. It was interesting to me that though the exhibit was really extensive, there was very little information about the Holocaust. I feel like if I were in a Canadian peace museum, the focus would be on the Holocaust over the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Confirm/deny?

One of the roles of peace museums in Japan is to talk publically about Japan's crimes in the past, at this exhibit did a very good job. Accompanied by a history of peace activism in Japan, it really felt like history portrayed in a balanced way. I wish we had more of that in Canada--a version of our history that portrays the bad alongside the good, falsely minimizing neither.

Anyway after that, I did stereotypical tourist things. I went to Kinkakuji, the temple with the golden pavilion (seriously, it's shiny!), and Ginkakuji, the temple with the silver one. (Unfortunately the silver one is a) not actually silver and b) under restoration right now... but it was find becuase there was TONS OF AWESOME MOSS there!) The two are particularly popular. Then I spent an hour or so wandering along the "Path of Philosophy," along the Biwa Canal, from Ginkakuji to Gion, the geisha district.

I was lucky enough to catch sight of an apprentice geisha, actually. I had been wandering around in the touristy area nearby for a while, and finally I stumbled onto the street where all of the tea houses actually are. I was getting my bearings and looking at all of the awesome old buildings, when a Japanese man spoke to me over my shoulder in accented English: "Look! Over there. A maiko." I looked, and indeed, even had time to snap a photo. (Although I felt kindof bad--the poor girl was being photographed by I don't know how many eager foreigners. I guess that's part of the job these days.)

Then I stopped at an Irish pub for G&T and headed back to the hostel. (I read somewhere about the Irish pub in Gion, and just didn't think my visit would be complete without going there.)

The next day, I woke up early to partake of the hostel breakfast (not so great as it turns out) and then went to see a beautiful and very old rock garden at Ryoanji Temple--laid out in the 1400s. After Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji, it was my third UNESCO World Heritage Site of the trip. Then I hopped on a train to Nara!

And I'll tell the rest of the story when I get back from my SECOND trip, to Hiroshima! (I'm leaving tomorrow morning!)