Pan Pacific Junket Day 15b: April 16, 2025 (Wednesday) - Kyoto Day 2, Afternoon and Evening

After our anniversary lunch, on our second sightseeing day in Kyoto:

• Afternoon visit to the Nijo Shogun Castle in Kyoto, a short walk from our hotel.
• Theater in the evening - a sampler of Japanese theater traditions.
• Dinner in a small, off the beaten path wine bar.

One of the famous built a huge castle and residence in Kyoto, even though he only spent a few days per year. There was an impressive entrance gate. The shogun would hold forth in these rooms - he was elevated on a platform while his minions would be on tatami mats looking up to him. His armed guards would remain behind screens, ready to summarily deal with anyone who even thought about causing any trouble.

The multi-tiered roof structures were impressive, made with joints rather than nails.

We had some great weather throughout our whole time in Japan, very few dreary or drizzly days. Impressive roofs!

Impressive gardens with ponds in gardens surrounding the castle. We learned that there are three types of Japanese Gardens: Dry Gardens, Pond Gardens, Tea Gardens. Beer and sake were apparently not consumed in the gardens.

Interesting rock arrangements in the Shogun's gardens.

The Gion Corner theater specializes in preserving and teaching about the Japanese artistic traditions. We got a sampling of most of the items shown above. The Bugaku dance was especially impressive because of the size of the figure shown in lower right. Was hard to tell how exactly this was brought off - it looked like one actor was inside an overside costume, maybe on stilts or with extensions for limbs, head. The comedy was actually pretty amusing, and the Noh play was esoteric, but taken on its own terms, engaging.

Google Maps works fine in Kyoto, though the character symbols are sometimes used with familiar phonetic letters. We set off for dinner to a French restaurant Le Boule, which turned out to be closed. No problem, the "Libera" wine bar was open. The owner prepared us a light dinner and poured some good wines from Russian River Valley CA.  Good night Kyoto!