One Day in Kyoto

Here's a sample of the sidewalk traffic in Kyoto. Compared to Tokyo, there are a lot more tourists and a lot more women in traditional dress.

We get up early (for us, that means 10 am or so) and head back to the train station so we can get a subway to the Ninja Castle. Kyoto station, which was just a blur to us yesterday, turns out to be an amazing bit of modern architecture. Like many train depots in Japan, it's also the base of a vertical western-style shopping mall.



After a quick subway ride, we enter Nijo Castle, which was built by the Shogun in 1660 - around the time that Middletown, CT was just getting going. Shoes off, of course, and we circle through the receiving rooms, admiring the classical murals on the walls. We finally realize that the strange chirping noise in every corridor is from the "nightingale floors" that were designed to squeak with our every step. Tenzin climbs to the top of the guard tower to get a view of the whole complex, and the rest of us stroll the gardens.





Outside the castle, Mark and the kids are asked to sign a petition by a group of elderly women - it's August 6th, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and these Japanese activists are calling for an end to all nuclear weapons. It's a sobering moment - the kids wonder how they can be nice to us when they know we are from the US? The newspapers today were full of stories about the events remembering Hiroshima, and how the US was sending an official representative for the first time since the bombing, which was well received here. On the other hand, there was much written about how the US didn't want to be interpreted as "apologizing" for the event, and the pressure Obama faces to put more emphasis on eliminating nuclear arms.

The next stop is the International Manga Museum, which happens to be in Kyoto.



Anyone who knows our kids has probably seen them with their nose buried in one of these Japanese graphic novels. Unlike American comic books, manga are read by every age group and demographic in Japan. There are some with the familiar superhero theme, but there are also manga about sports, cooking, shopping, business and just about any topic you can think of. Our kids have been reading and collecting the English translations for several years, and their interest in all-things-Japanese is the reason why we are here!

We know that most of the museum will have books in Japanese, but they are hoping to find some in English as well... It turns out that they should have enough to keep them busy for a few hours...



Meanwhile, Mark and I hang out in the attached cafe, where all the visiting manga artists have signed the walls.




And here, we come to a temporary end of this blog...unfortuately, before I could post any more, we suffered a laptop crash, and our photos are either lost or buried!

Hopefully, you'll hear more from us soon!