Japan Day 2: Kyoto

This was my last full day in Japan so I woke up early and headed to the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. Walking the path through the center of the grove gives a sense of otherness, even with the other visitors surrounding you.  For me at least, it was so different than anything I had seen and experienced.  Although I do recommend going in the early morning or evening to avoid most of the crowds.

My next stop was the Ryoan-ji Temple and the rock garden there.  This temple is a Zen Buddhist temple. The Ryōan-ji garden is considered one of the finest surviving examples of kare-sansui (a specific type of Japanese Zen gardening) There are 15 stones in the garden placed very specifically and surrounded by pebbles that are raked every day by the monks.

The garden is meant to be viewed from a seated position on the veranda of the hōjō, the residence of the abbot of the monastery and the stones are placed so that the entire composition cannot be seen at once from the veranda. They are also arranged so that when looking at the garden from any angle (other than from above) only fourteen of the boulders are visible at one time. It is traditionally said that only through attaining enlightenment would one be able to view the fifteenth boulder.

Here is where I should probably interject, I have never been a very Zen person.  While I strive for that kind of inner peace I’m instead more of the anxious never still mind kind of person.  And I always figured that I could never reach that kind of calm solitude.  But honestly, Japan gave me a different outlook.  I went to this temple with its famous rock garden and I really didn’t expect much. I mean a rock garden is essentially an open space with a few stones and the sand is all raked in a certain direction and you just sit there are contemplate things… But actually once I got there I kinda got it.  Like no I definitely did not suddenly become Zen, but I understood the draw of sitting and just existing for a while. And this is a feeling that I experienced many times during my travel in Kyoto.

After the rock garden I traveled to Kinkaku-ji Temple also known as the Golden Pavilion. This is another Zen Buddhism temple.  It was originally built as a retirement villa for a shogun and then turned into a temple after his death. The Pavilion is coated in gold leaf and houses Buddha’s Ashes. It has also gone through many rebuildings after being burned down multiple times over the years.  The Pavilion is surrounded by beautiful gardens and a pond.  As with all the temples I realized, every aspect is purposeful and done following various Zen guidelines.

My next stop was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. This was the ruling palace for the Emperor of Japan until the Meiji Restoration when the capital was moved to Tokyo. Although important ceremonies, like the enthronement of new emperors still took place at this palace. As someone who has traveled Europe I have seen a fair number of palaces, but this one was so different than others I have seen.  Instead of the large sprawling building and courtyards I had come to expect it is a large walled area filled with multiple separate buildings surrounded by paths and gardens.  If I was an emperor this is exactly the type of palace I would like, and it fit perfectly with the Zen design I’ve now connected with Japan. Although I have to say it’s a good thing the Emperor had a chair to be carried around in because moving between the spaced out buildings all day could get rather tiring.

My final stop for the day was Ginkaku-ji Temple also known as the Silver Pavilion. This temple was modeled after the Kinkaku-ji (built by the commissioner’s grandfather) and was also planned as a retirement villa for the shogun.  It gets is nickname due to the original plan to cover the pavilion in silver leaf which was not carried out because of the Onin War and then the shogun died before it could be done.  This temple features an amazing garden created out of the wooded/mountain back drop and the Zen sand structures (one famously known to represent Mt. Fuji).

A Week in Myanmar

Back from another trip! The day after Christmas I left to spend a week in Myanmar with one of my friends from college.  He lives in the city of Yangon so I spent my time mostly in the city and surrounding area.  Fair warning: the same way that my time in Europe was essentially a tour of cathedrals, my trip here consisted of mostly pagodas…

The first day I was there we woke up at 3am and drove from the city to the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, also known as Golden Rock, which is a well known Buddhist religious site.  It is at the top of Mt. Kyaiktiyo which we got to by taking a precarious ride in what is essentially the back of a pickup truck up the winding and steep “road”.  The pagoda itself is sat upon the massive boulder covered in golden leaves that are actually pasted on by the pilgrims.

According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha‘s hair.

When you get to the top of the mountain you have to take your shoes/socks off and be barefoot the whole time (the same, I found out, at all pagodas) which for me was mildly horrifying because the ground was not kept clean and I absolutely hate having dirty feet in my shoes (once you put them back on).  But I managed of course! Also because it is a holy site I (as a woman) was not actually allowed to go up next to the pagoda/boulder so all my pictures are from a distance.  Either way it was definitely a sight to see! (Myanmar is another place where white people are a bit less common and I got to pose for pics with a few people here too….)

The next place I visited was Maha Bandula Park which is home to the Independence Monument.  The white obelisk marks Myanmar’s independence from Britain in 1948, and is surrounded by the mythical lion-dog creatures that are also found guarding pagoda entrances around Myanmar.

Because I was visiting a friend I was able to experience some things traditional to Burmese culture that most tourists don’t see.  One of the days I was there my friend’s cousin took me to a Buddha hosting gathering at his friend’s house. (I’ll do my best to explain the gathering, but I’m sure there are aspects I didn’t completely understand).   At this event the family invited guests to their house where they had an elaborate altar on which rested various depictions of Buddha and other holy items.  Everyone prays and makes a wish on some of the artifacts.  Then we all sat down to have a traditional meal of coconut soup.  It was a really cool experience, but I couldn’t take any pictures.

I eventually made it to the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred in Myanmar, because it is believed to contain relics of the four previous Buddhas of the present kalpa. These relics include the staff of Kakusandha, the water filter of Koṇāgamana, a piece of the robe of Kassapa, and eight strands of hair from the head of Gautama.  It is a massive pagoda, standing at about 99 meters tall and is all gold plated and jewel encrusted.  There are different areas of the pagoda where depending on what day of the week you were born, you can go to pray and cleanse yourself by pouring water on the statues (you pour it once for each year you have been alive).  You can also light candles and make a wish to Buddha. We were lucky that we went in the early evening so we got to see the pagoda in a bunch of different lighting and saw the sunset from there!

The last pagoda I visited was the Botataung Pagoda in downtown Yangon.  This pagoda is said to house a sacred hair of Gautama Buddha.   This was really cool because we were actually allowed to enter inside the pagoda itself instead of just seeing it from the outside area.

 

 

A Weekend in Mainland

This past weekend was a three-day weekend here in Hong Kong, and no it wasn’t for Columbus Day.  My friend, Vivian, and I took advantage of the long weekend by going across the border to mainland China.  This my first time in mainland China and it was definitely an interesting experience.

Vivian’s uncle lives in Guangzhou which is about two hours from Hong Kong so we stayed with him while we were there. We did some sightseeing in Guangzhou including the Canton Tower which is 448 meters at the observation deck (about 1469 feet), the Canton Orchid Garden, and Shamian Island which was the site of two concessions given to France and the UK (over the years this area was home to many consulates-notably the Soviet Consulate- and still has the colonial and consular building look to it).  We also ate a lot! I had hotpot for the first time which was exciting and really good.  It is like hibachi but instead of there being a grill at your table there is a big bowl of boiling broth that you put various vegetables and meats in to cook.  We had a lot of seafood with ours, but it was a jarring experience to be honest.

Part of the hotpot is that they bring out all these different things and put them on your table so you can cook them as you are ready to eat them.  The waitress brought out a bowl of shrimp on skewers and set it down to the side of me.  They still were in the shells but were head down in the bowl so all you could see was the bottom half of them.  As I looked over I thought perhaps that I saw the tails of the shrimp moving, but decided it could have been the skewers shifting and settling.  I asked Vivian and she reached over and picked one up only for us to be confronted with a shrimp that still had its head and was still alive and moving even though it was impaled… I’ll be honest and say that I definitely squealed and kind of panicked.  Vivian’s uncle informed me that this is actually very good because it shows that it is fresh! (I didn’t take any pictures of the shrimp because I was too busy freaking out)

Another interesting part of the trip was that all public toilets in restaurants and such are actually squat toilets—holes in the ground you squat over.  Luckily there was always a “handicapped” stall for me because while I am all for embracing the culture of places I travel, that is a bit too far for me.

We ended our trip with a very nice and relaxing Chinese foot massage in Shenzhen before crossing back into Hong Kong.  And for any of you that have read my blogs from my time in Europe and the experience of going through the “other” line for immigration, I am happy to announce that because I have a HKID I am officially able to enter Hong Kong as a resident instead of as an “other”!!

From City to Serenity

This past weekend my friends and I kept ourselves pretty busy.  First we went to the Chi Lin Nunnery and the adjoining Nan Lian Garden in Kowloon.  The nunnery was built as a retreat for Buddhist nuns and the garden was a project of the nuns.  Both the nunnery itself and the garden are beautiful and wrap you in a sense of peace as you walk around the grounds.  The most amazing thing is that both are located directly in the middle of a city and are thus surrounded by highways and traffic. And yet once you enter the grounds the only reminder of the city around you are the towering buildings in the background of your photos.  It creates a really fascinating juxtaposition of tranquility amidst the tumult.

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Afterwards we journeyed to the old walled city of Kowloon.  Here’s a brief background of the city for anyone that doesn’t know.  I also suggest googling images of it in it’s former ‘glory’ to get a better idea of what it actually was.  There’s also videos from before it was demolished that I recommend because it is just not possible to imagine the conditions people lived in.

Kowloon Walled City was a very dense and mostly ungoverned settlement in Kowloon City, Hong Kong.  It was originally a Chinese military fort, but it became a civilian enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898.  After WWII the population in the city rapidly increased until it contained over 33,000 residents within its 6.4 acres (these people largely lived in ramshackle and subdivided apartment buildings with apartments averaging 200 sq ft.  Because of the dirty and cramped conditions, and the fact that most residents lived well below the poverty line and without public services, police and city officials avoided venturing into the settlement.  This left it to be controlled by the Triads from the 1950s to the 1970s (probably what it’s most well known for).  In 1987, the Hong Kong government announced plans to demolish the Walled City.  A long drawn out process due to the difficulty of evicting the population, it was finished in 1994 and the area was turned into the Kowloon Walled City Park.

The park also serves to preserved some of the remains of the city and houses a small museum about its history.  Seeing it now, you would never imagine that so many people once lived there like that.