Geisha

Sanjusangendo hall is a temple on the eastern side of Kyoto, and is important because of the length of its main hall, and because of the number of “thousand armed statues” it houses. There are rows of the things, stretching into the distance, and one can only imagine how awe inspiring the statues must have looked when brand new and shiny. You as a visitor are only allowed to walk the circumference, until you come to the middle, where sits a huge golden Buddha statue. I’m not a Buddhist, but the way Sanjusangendo is designed, you can’t help but be awed.

Saeeda and I started at Sanjusangendo, and spent the rest of the day walking around eastern Kyoto, going from temple to temple, just taking in the beauty and history of the region. The funny thing is that we also kept running into the same people on our walking tour – by the end of the day, we had seen this one guy so often (at least 5 times at different places) that we were laughing and waving at each other.

I’ve included pictures of the more interesting things along our walk, which included a massive graveyard built into the hillside.

A vending machine that sported a prominent picture of Tommy Lee Jones, who couldn’t look any grumpier in the shot. Can anyone really look that wrinkly?

I thought this was kinda cool – Ginkakuji temple (our second temple on our walk) had a place where supplicants could wash up before entering. The water fountain was in the shape of a dragon.

The prize sighting came towards the end of the day, as we neared the end of our walk and found ourselves standing in Gion, the ancient geisha district. I was off to a corner, but was able to get a full-length shot.
Gion, by the way, is an otherwordly place. For those of you who have read “Memoirs of a Geisha,” you will know what I’m talking about, because the book and reality are little different. Although surrounded by modernity on all sides, Gion is a neighborhood that houses less than 200 geisha, when at one time this number was in the thousands. I had not known this until I read the book, but Geisha are not prostitutes, and are instead skilled in the arts of conversation, samisen-playing, tea ceremonies, singing, and all-around entertaining. Their sole purpose is to make their male patrons feel like kings.

Not anyone can afford the entertainment of a Geisha – you have to be properly introduced and have to have significant financial resources to support your sponsored geisha. The exclusivity was apparent in Gion, because the streets were quiet with tenements that had no windows or screens, but behind which you could hear gentle laughter and the music of the samisen. You knew you were an outsider, and everything was designed to further that feeling, if for no other reason than to make those that had access to these establishments feel even more privileged. Every so often a door would slide open and we’d see a geisha in a beautiful kimono and in startling white make-up, quickly step out into the street and walk with purpose to another building a few blocks down, where a door would automatically slide open and then immediately close behind her. Too quick for me to catch a picture, but enough to transport you back through the centuries when this would have been commonplace.

After a long day, Saeeda and I decided it was time for dinner, but in a strange town where few people spoke English, and where fewer establishments carried English menus, it was a challenge for us to find a place we liked. We walked into a few different places, but the food always looked a little too adventurous for us. Finally, we were in a poorly-lit narrow alley that I would normally have avoided, when we saw a lit doorway with a menu outside containing a few broken words of English. Too hungry to care, we walked in.

The room was weakly lit, and had space for only a bar, which had a working kitchen behind it, and a few bar stools. We were squeezed into a corner and handed a menu to decipher, from which we ordered a few things and hoped for the best. But as the food started arriving my fears fell away. Everything that came, from the sushi appetizers to the tapas-style main dishes, was delicious. I realized there was jazz music playing in the background and other couples around us. The chef, who stood working a few feet away and was completely visible over the bar, worked with gusto at his orders, and the food arrived sizzling hot in front of us. I have to say that our meal turned out to be the best one we’ve had yet, and we had to literally stop ourselves from licking the plates clean. Sometimes faith in luck and chance pays off handsomely (the picture below is of our chef and hostess.)