Sorry for the gap between posts – have had a little problem with WiFi strength and the blog app….
Golden Week in Japan is an accumulation of several public holidays observed over the course of six days. It is a time when mobs of people visit – both foreign and Japanese. Kyoto is a prime destination owing to its history, beauty and cultural significance.
Children’s Day is marked by hanging koinobori (colorful flags that look like koi fish)… these symbolize the wish for health, strength and success. (Until 1948, this holiday was Boys’ Day, but then political correctness dictated a more-inclusive public posture.)
Kyoto has a wide variety of fun and delicious foods, often depicted for the benefit of foreigners with plastic replicas….
Folks in Kyoto have become a little fed up with the tourist trade, as demonstrated by these signs exhorting people to behave properly…..
The Japanese people are very committed to law and order, maybe a national characteristic that they hope will translate effectively for their less-respectful visitors.
Lots of those visitors flock to Nara Park and its temple with a regular Buddha (and an attendant)…
And a more practical Buddha who heals people, but must now be shielded with shower cap and cape from the more aggressive rubbing from his supplicants.
Nara Park is known most famously for its large deer population, who are quite habituated to humans, and have even learned how to beg for treats by bowing in a very Japanese manner…..
Needless to say, the deer have no qualms about approaching people….
Finally, as much as the Japanese love baseball, their number one favorite sport is sumo wrestling….. so much more civilized than other kinds of wrestling, it consists of several preliminary rites, and then a couple of large men are involved in a controlled shoving match.
The game can go to the quickest, the biggest or the wisest….. but always conducted with dignity.
On that note, so ends our brief stay in Kyoto… on next to Vietnam!
Around the World Again 