Ryoan-ji Zen rock gardens

After our brief, but fully resolved jacket scare, Dad and I set out to explore Kyoto.  We got a bite to eat at a Japanese neighborhood pub and dined on broiled fish, fried udon noodles with veggies and squid, and a huge radish salad.  Delicious!  After dinner we headed to Daimaru department store just down the block to check out their culinary wares. 

A word about department stores in Japan... they`re fascinating to walk around in and almost all of the bigger ones have a basement that only sells food in a kind of busteling indoor market setting.  So, lots of refined stalls hawking samples and beautifully prepared and wrapped delicacies.  We tried dried ginger candy that you use to make a tea and some fruit flavored jellies (very popular dessert in Japan... kind of like gelatin molds in Texas....ugh).

After our bellies were full and we got a good night sleep at the Court Hotel Kyoto Shijo, we woke up ready for a full day of sightseeing.

Kyoto is full of temples and as beautiful as they are, if you`re not a highly specialized history buff (we aren`t), I hate to say it but they get a bit monotonous after a while.  That said, Dad had the excellent idea to pick a theme of sorts and see the few temples that have something interesting related to that theme.  We chose Zen rock gardens, and set off for Ryoan-ji and then Daitoku-ji.

The guidebook warned us to arrive at Ryoan-ji as early as possible to avoid crowds of school children in slightly militaristic uniforms.  We arrived about 30 minutes after the temple opened, and that must have been way too late because almost as soon as we stepped through the temple gate, we were accosted by a group of 20 or so anxty highschoolers on a mandatory school trip with a mandatory English assignment.  Dad ducked out of the way as soon as he realized what was going on and left me (R) to politely participate as the disaffected male youth (DYM) stammer through - and never deviate from - the script.  Long pauses punctuate each single question as he writes my answers down in Japanese (NOT English) on his paper.  At the end, he asks me to sign his paper and take a photograph of me - no doubt in case he`s a good for nothing layabout who forges interrupting tourists` biographies, favorite foods and opinions of Japan.

DMY: Hello, my name is Kentaro.
Long awkward pause.  His script assures him that I will automatically introduce myself and say ``Nice to meet you``.  I don`t and this spirals our conversation off course into dangerously unpredictable and unscripted social territory.
DMY: Are you a tourist?
R: Yes.
DMY: I see.  Where are you from?
R: America. From Texas state.
DMY: I see.  I am from Gunma Prefecture. Where are you staying?
R: Tokyo.
DMY: I see.  How do you like Japan?
R: I like Japan.  It is very beautiful.
DMY: What food do you like to eat in Japan?
R: My father and I like sushi.
DMY: Cracks a smile of disbelief.  Sushi??  Really??  Do you mind if you sign my paper?  And can I take a picture with you?
R showers DMY with praise of his pronounciation and grammar and DMY returns praise with a vacant, glazed stare.

This exact dialogue is then immediately repeated with another 3 or 4 students. 

Now, the first time that Dad and I were interviewed in Kamakura, we thought the idea was a pretty brilliant teaching tool in that it forces often very shy Japanese kids to approach and actually initiate conversation with foreigners.  The Japanese English curriculum is known for being slanted towards grammar and not conversation, which produces adults who have studied the language for around 8 years (?) and in many cases can`t say anything or understand native English speakers.  So, this project seems like a great activity designed by a pretty innovative teacher to close that gap! 

However, the more we traveled, the more we realized that this exact same project seems to have been given to every single school child above the 4th grade, which makes it difficult to escape the 15 minute long patient investments in youth education at every turn when you`re in a touristy area like Kyoto.  Oh well.

Anyway, this particular group of schoolchildren were no so much the problem, but rather their overzealous and extraordinarily bossy busdriver who was so overjoyed that I spoke a bit of Japanese, that he quickly latched on to me and threatened to take me on a personal tour of the gardens that I could then translate word by word for Dad.  Somehow, we managed to escape, find the garden, and sit down to take in the landscape.

I know nothing about Zen Buddhism, but as I undersand it, part of the beauty of these gardens is how open to interpretation they are.  The idea is the more you sit and quietly contemplate, the more layers of meaning you can uncover.  In this particular garden, there are 15 large stones buried among the raked pebbles, but one of them is buried under the surface so you can`t tell its exact location.  More food for the imagination, I suppose.  It`s rather hard to quietly contemplate when you are constantly being pushed around by tour group after tour group who shuffle in and out, trying to fit in as many temples into their Kyoto stay as possible.  But we managed.

Adventures at Zen rock garden temple #2 in the next post!