There are literally 2000 temples and shrines in Kyoto, and more. Trying to walk home the hour and a half from The Philosopher’s Path was a hiding to nothing. Every few minutes there would be another incredible complex to be explored. It ended up getting dark when I was only halfway.
At many of them you can pay someone to do some calligraphy in a little book. I’ll need this book on Kumano as it works like the little stamp book at the end of Camino. You get a completely meaningless certificate to leave rolled up underneath the altar at home, and all you have to do for it is have the calligraphy from two or three major temples in the area. Often they are unattended and you can go have a word with pig.
Buddhist Shinto syncretism means you are mixing up your worship in the complexes. Usually you’ll have a load of animals at the mini shrines and then some dude in the central shrine. An aspect of Buddha, or one of the Bodhisattvas, who are legion. It takes a few lifetimes to properly get a handle on all the characters involved in this hotchpotch of Buddhist Shinto bell ringing incense madness.
Which reminds me, you can’t buy lighters in Japan. I’ve got tons of incense and no means of setting it on fire. I’m off to Hiroshima today if they let me on the train. Fourth queue now. The last three were just rude when I got to the front and didn’t help tell me where to go. I’ve got a ticket but I have to reserve a seat so I have to queue anyway. “What will happen if I just get on the next train and go?” “You have to reserve a seat.”
Anyway Philosophers Path was a pleasant stroll down a canal, on level ground, with a superabundance of coffee shops and loads of unusual shrines. My favourite so far was Otoyo Shrine, guarded by two Nezumi – a rat shrine. It was founded in 886 when the emperor was sick. It is currently festooned with camelias, and hosts some unusual kami. There’s an orochi shrine, I guess because snakes have always been related to medicine. Think of caduceus, the snake on medic alert bracelets etc, carried through from Hermes. The Judeo-Christian creation myth gave a lot of bad press to snakes as a symbol. People think they’re Satan. Sure they can kill you but so can a cow. There’s a lot around how they can shed skin and how poison can be turned to medicine if understood. That’s why the snake has a shrine at Otoyo.
I’m close to the front of my fourth queue trying to get a bullet train to Hiroshima and I’ve lost the whole morning to it. I’m disappointed. Even if it had worked out a bit more expensive, I’m thinking that I would have been better off buying individual tickets for journeys rather than what I thought was going to be a useful JR WEST pass that has turned into a timesink.
—
Another sixty quid on top of the pass as it only goes so far as Okayama. I binned the Hiroshima thing. This trip isn’t about war tourism anyway. It’s about ancient things and getting organised. I’m getting out of this station and over to the Imperial Palace, and the gold shrines. Gonna hang with the animals.
AlBarclay 