Christmas in Kyoto

On Christmas morning, we got up, had breakfast in our hotel (they do a la carte eggs, toast, and coffee), and walked about an hour to the Kiyomazu temple. We had planned to wander in the general direction of eastern Kyoto, which is set in the hills and still has a lot of traditional wooden architecture, but we actually made it to a destination we had planned to see later with a volunteer guide. We first ended up at a cemetery, where there were only locals, and we talked a while to this guy who sells incense, which the locals take to the tombs of their loved ones. They rent incense boxes, which are kept for them in a niche in the wall. They clean up the tombs as well, and there's even a cleaning service that will do it for you - note the way even tombs look cute and happy when they're clean.


Kiyomazu, meaning "clear water," dates back to 798, though the current Buddhist temple was built (with no nails whatsoever) in 1633. It is up a very steep hill, and there were a lot of Asian tourists there. They were all buying charms and amulets that they can leave at the temple for good luck for various life endeavors.

The temples specialize in Buddhist vegetarian cuisine, so we stopped at a restaurant to try some. I had an excellent noodle bowl with udon wheat noodles and tofu. Nour had soba noodles with herring on top. Here's how you know what to order - you pick it out from a display of plastic food, though even with visuals it's sometimes hard to tell what you're getting.
We bought a few small souvenirs and then found a bus to take us back to central Kyoto.

That afternoon, we had been invited to Christmas dinner with Bill and Setsuko, longtime Kyoto residents and friends of Susie Robertshaw and Charlie Rock (Rollins), who they knew from grad school (in second picture here).

We met at the train station and took a train thirty minutes away to a little village called Ohmi-hachiman. "Little village" is a relative term - 70,000 people live here -- but it had a very quiet, countryside feel to it. We dined at the house of Bill and Setsuko's pastor, Scott, and his wife Hiroko, who made us feel welcome even though we'd never met them before. They are loosely associated with the Episcopal church but liberal and open to coexisting with other faiths. What I didn't know is that there have been Christians in Japan since the Portugese converted some people in the 16th century, and there are about a million native Christians now. Other expats and Japanese were also in attendance, and we loved being in Scott's hand-built house (he's also a carpenter) with a warm fire and great food. Later we did a gift exchange, which we had fortunately known about ahead of time, and came away with some very nice Japanese presents.

Behind their house is a day care for children and the elderly, which is run by Hirok's family. We got to tour the daycare and it was fascinating. The whole building was set in a forest of bamboo and cedar, and it had windows everywhere, hardwood floors and tatami mats (with a heated floor beneath), and there were different rooms for kids up to five. In one room some three year olds were playing house, with tiny little Japanese kitchen implements and other things you'd find in a Japanese home. Sofia got very excited in the room with the babies her age, and talked avidly about "Mae Mae and Brit Brit," her teachers at her daycare in Florida. We had to take a picture.

It was also interesting to talk to people about their perspectives on life in Japan. Most of the guests were affiliated with Kyoto universities in some capacity or other, so we compared notes on the educational systems in both places, and the challenges of expatriate life. All in all, it was an excellent way to spend Christmas, being welcomed by people who took us in even though they'd never met us before.