Editor’s Note: This series of articles is taken from a diary kept by Nikkei Canadian Alyssa Erin Woo, then ten years old, during her trip to Japan with her grandparents.
Part 4 >>
Wednesday, July 6, 2005 – Staying in a Japanese Style Hotel in Kyoto
We left Hikone to Kyoto and stayed at Hotel Station Kyoto West. The room was Japanese style where we slept on the tatami (padded straw mats) floor. We went to Porta an underground shopping mall and bought some pastries and I got a hamburger, French fries and orange pop from Lotteria, which was just like McDonalds. We ate dinner in our room at the hotel. It was nice there. I liked it better than eating at a restaurant.
When we were walking around Kyoto, I noticed that you could cross the streets diagonally, instead of crossing the street one way and then crossing another street another way to get to that location. Too bad we can’t do that in Sarnia because it would be so much easier!
Do you think they can find me
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Thursday, July 7, 2005 – Meeting Junji-san and Shizuko-san
Today, we met Ji-chan’s cousin Junji-san and his wife Shizuko-san. They brought us lots of presents. Some of the presents they gave me were a T-shirt, a phone card (which I could use to call someone in Japan), a necklace, a wallet, rings, hairpins, ¥3,000 and a lot more! There were socks and underwear hanging in our room to dry, and we thought Junji-san was going to laugh and think he was in a laundry room but I guess he didn’t see them. Junji-san said he knew every inch of Kyoto. But when he took us to a huge craft store by subway, it closed 5 minutes after we got there! You should have seen the expression on his face. It was so funny, I couldn’t stop giggling.
Junji - san & Shizuko-san visit to hotel in Kyoto
We also went to pay our respects to Junji-san’s late mother. There was a box where you could donate coins and a huge bell you could ring as well.
For dinner, we had Japanese apples and peaches and some pastries. My favourites are the ham and cheese, apple cinnamon roll and the hotdog pastries.
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Friday, July 8, 2005 – Exciting Japanese Theatre at Gion Corner
We went to go see Kanon, a Japanese god. There were thousands of Praying hands with one thousand arms there and many different gods protecting Kanon. I paid ¥100 to light a small candle and ¥300 to make a wish. There were huge candles that you could light for ¥1000, but we didn’t light one. Seeing all the statues was really interesting.
This evening, Junji-san and Shizuko-san took us to a cultural theatre to see different kinds of unique programs at Gion Corner. We saw a tea ceremony, Ikebana (the art of flower arranging), koto (13 string Japanese music instrument), gagaku (ancient court music and dance), kyogen (comic play), kyomai (Kyoto style dance performed by Maiko girls and bunraku (puppetry.) I really enjoyed the show. After, we went shopping and I got a “good luck” crane. They came to the hotel and we had a nice snack.
Gagaku at Gion Corner Theater
Maiko girl
**All photographs are courtesy of the author.
© 2010 Alyssa Erin Woo
