Lazy Day

Today, Christina and I didn't leave the apartment, although I will take the trash out here in a minute. Spending 14 hours on our feet yesterday was a lot. At the end of the day, Christina didn't feel well, but still had to ride her bike home from the station. We got home about 10:30 last night. Christina went to bed, and I misspelled things on the blog.

I just posted a new link on the blog, Gion district in Kyoto. If you click on it, you will see the Buddha center left. You can see his shadow and the outline of the temple which surrounds him. Last night, paper lanterns hung all around his temple. In the bottom center of the picture, you can see the 5 storied pagoda. It's in a neighborhood! it would be so cool to have that pagoda out your front door. There are more 5 storied pagodas in Kyoto, we will discover those later. Off to the right side of the picture you will see the cemetary. This is where they had candle lit paper lanterns on all of the grave markers.

Just off the picture to the north is the road we walked in on. We came in at the Kawaramachi station, which is on the north side of that road just a block west of the river. You may see some broad white stripes around several of the intersections. These are crosswalks. Some of them are about 50 feet wide and they fill up on both sides. When the cross signal turns to green two solid lines of people meld together in the center of the street. Last night, four drunk men identified me as an American and stopped to talk to us while we waited for the signal. One of the men apologized for his obviously drunk friend who was petting my goatee. They saw Christina and properly identified her as my wife, but they mis-identified Claudia, the other ALT, as our daughter. At first she started to correct them, but with our coaxing she admitted to them that she was our daughter. She is latina. They didn't clue in at all. I guess we all look alike.

If you zoom out, you will see how little we actually saw of Kyoto, but we are still impressed. Tomorrow we will return to Kyoto for the final night of the Bon festival. On the hills around Kyoto they burn torches in the shapes of various Kanji symbols guiding the dead back to there homes.

The Japanese say August 16 is a very dangerous day to travel. That is the day that the dead return to their afterlife homes. It is the day when the gates of hell are opened. It is said that if you witness an accident on the 16th, your soul will go to hell. Younger people regard this as superstion. Older people recommend against travelling on this day.

Tomorrow we will go to Kyoto.