Day 5 -Shunkoin Temple

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Japan, Holidays |

Five days in, it was time to do the laundry, which was free due to the new annex of K’s House being complete next door. Unfortunately, free isn’t always good. We killed our clothes. Something in the brand new machine turned all of our light coloured clothing purple!!

Sandy was gutted as she had a few rather expensive new tops in the wash while I had some old t-shirts that weren’t that affected.

After a brunch of waffles at the UCC cafe, we lugged our baggage all the way back to Kyoto Station and boarded the train headed for Shunkoin. On a side-note, I will never, ever again take luggage on a trip where I move location more than once. A back-pack, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 t-shirts and a jumper. THAT’S IT!! Dragging unwieldy baggage over sidewalks, gravel and cobblestones to get to the temple where we were staying (in the centre of huge temple grounds housing about 10 other temples (none of which you could stay in) was a task I prefer not to repeat.

Shunkoin

Our room at Shunkoin Temple

We met our host Rev. Taka, who spent some time in America studying and therefore spoke rather good english, who showed us to one of the two rooms available for hire in the temple. It was beautiful. Georgeous hardwood floors, heated carpet under the futons, private ensuite and rock pillows. Yes, I said rock. Ok, I lie. Not rock but plastic pellets meant to simulate small river stones. A bit like a bean-bag but harder…lol.

That might have taken some getting used to but we were only there 2 nights so I never did get the hang of NOT bunching it up under my head while I slept.

We took a small tour of the Myosin-ji Temple grounds before it got dark and returned to our room to figure out where to get dinner.

Temple on the grounds

At this point, I turned to Sandy and said “Where’s your pen?” Sandy replied “Yay! We’re in Japan!”

“Huh?”

Didn’t you just say “We’re in Japan?”

“No, I said W h e r e’ s  y o u r  p e n?”

Laughter ensued….

From this point forward, anytime Sandy didn’t hear me and said “What?” I would reply “We’re in Japan!”

We wound up having dinner at a place called Raku Raku as recommended by Rev. Taka and it was a great experience. The host cooked us up a feast and him and his daughter were fascinated by us. We taught them some english and they taught us some Japanese. They took pictures and so did we!

The gang at Raku Raku

I’m pretty sure that our picture is on thier website (it was the last time I looked) but it’s VERY unflattering so… no link for you!

Sandy won a notepad on a scratch card that we got with some sort of alcohol - the name escapes me now, but the guys at Raku Raku were pretty excited about it. The evening ended with us lying on our heated futons, listening to the rain beat on the roof of the temple and chatting away trying to stay awake until Mum woke up so we could call her to wishe her happy birthday. Our girly giggling, led to the French guy in the next room, (the only other accommodation in the temple) holler “Lights out!”

Guess he was grouchy from all his walking!

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