A wedding in Kyoto

I was quickly off loaded at Osaka and given directions on how to find the bus to Kyoto -'you get your ticket from the machine,' said the helpful lady at the desk. Needless to say that was my first real Japanese obstacle. I found the correct bus stop and was faced with a ticket vending machine all in Japanese. I found a map that showed Kyoto and I managed to match up the Japanese characters for Kyoto with the correct button on the machine and pressed it triumphantly -  nothing happened. Fortunately someone came to my rescue, pulled the money out of my hand and stuck it in the machine. After that it was plain sailing.

My hotel was only a short walk from the Kyoto bus station and I was soon in my room meeting my room mate, Helen from Melbourne, who was suitably old, wrinkled and overweight like me.

That evening we met our other group members who were all Aussies and quite an interesting bunch. There was a retired professor of theoretical physics and his wife, a specialist in forestry who had spent a few years exposing the Suharto family's collusion in the illegal logging of Indonesia's rainforests, a retired GP who had spent his early years as part of the Russian emigre community in Shanghai and who was constantly told off by his wife for being too blunt, a fellow who had written the definitive book on bricklaying and was poised to make more millions as it was translated into mandarin and then a generous sprinkling of lawyers, CEOs and teachers. Everyone was extraordinarily well travelled and world savvy and I felt quite a novice by comparison.

Needless to say I loved Kyoto, the centre of culture and the arts in Japan. It is quite a modern city but everywhere there are hidden temples and gardens. We visited 2 zen Buddhist temples and had our first taste of a zen garden: strategically placed rocks in a sea of neatly raked gravel. We also visited Nijo Castle with its 'nightingale' floor. The castle had once been owned by the royal family and the floors were especially designed so they squeaked like a nightingale when walked on so that intruders could be easily detected.

There were plenty of people around wearing traditional dress. I thought I would be lucky to spot a lady wearing a kimono but older ladies in particular seem to wear it out shopping. We were also lucky enough to spot a bridal party. The bride looked absolutely gorgeous in a bright red kimono with a geisha style hair-do and immaculate make-up. Her groom was also wearing traditional dress and they were being pulled along in a rickshaw with a traditionally dressed rickshaw man who posed every so often for photos from their official photographer.

I went off with Helen in the afternoon and after  numerous false starts managed to find the quiet Philosopher's Path that took us through the backstreets of old Kyoto and alongside a picturesqu canal to the Ginkakuji temple, which would have looked spectacular if hadn't been covered in scaffolding for renovation. We took the bus back to the hotel through the heart of Kyoto and the main shopping district. What a fantastic area! It had all the designer shops, stores I knew from London and Paris as well as department stores and tourist arcades. I made a mental note to return the next day.