Walking through Torii Gates

We took the train to Kyoto to visit the Fushimi-Inari Shrine, a fox shrine where you pray for good luck. Shrines are part of practicing the Shinto (Way of the Gods) religion which is the indigenous form of worship in Japan. Most life events, beginning at birth, are celebrated with a Shinto ritual accessing the essences and spirits in the natural forces in the world. Shinto is said to be a philosophical path which understands the interrelated complexity of humans and nature.

It was a gorgeous fall day and the leaves had turned. We were surrounded by oranges, yellows and reds.

The shrine sits on the south-east side of the city at the base of a mountain and includes a long trail up and around the mountain side. We entered through a large vermillion Torii gate which marks the transition point from the profane to the sacred. It was protected by two large foxes, one with a ball in its mouth the other with a key. It is said the key unlocks the door to the rice granary- rice being the traditional signifier of wealth in Japan. Lucas was afraid of their eyes which do tend to have a piercing affect. There were thousands of Japanese people who had come to pray and some were dressed in Kimono. This just added to the beauty of the place.

We began our ascent and noticed a mini shrine with a beautiful ornate horse inside and carrots resting on the edge as offerings. Eleanor liked being here and as we didn’t have carrots we left some acorns we found on the ground. We prayed that one day we might have our own horses to take care of.

We continued to follow the crowds and found ourselves inside the Torii gate tunnel on a meditative walk uphill. Successful companies have donated the gates and there are thousands upon thousands of them all lined up about a foot apart along the miles of mountain trails. We stopped about half way for an o-bento lunch and a break which allowed for some good people watching. The vermillion tunnel doesn’t allow for a view of the surrounding forest until it opens up at rest stops along the way and once higher up the view of Kyoto is fantastic. We counted fifty four foxes guarding various mini shrines along the way.

Needless to say we didn’t make it all the way around as the children gave up at the top. We had climbed a good distance and it was time for the descent. We took a route that led out of the gates and through the forest where stone pagodas offset the colour of the leaves. We hoped that all the praying for good luck that had surrounded us would ensure some of it came our way.   

The world of KidZania

On Saturday I took the children to an edutainment theme park that I had heard some of the mothers raving about.

KidZania was founded in Mexico and has locations in the U.S, Dubai and Japan. One of the locations is in our area so it was easy to get to. Its objective is to provide fun, on-the-job training geared for children. The role-playing takes place in a realistic city setting where the fire trucks and paramedic vehicles actually drive around. The setting includes actual corporate names not make believe companies. This led to my uncertainties about the whole concept. I was interested in seeing what corporations are marketing their brands through the kids to the parents. The big names included Coca Cola, Sony and Epson and the rest were Japanese representations for everything from Pizza-La to SMBC bank. I wonder how much they payed to be in the mini city.

We arrived and were processed as if we were at an airport boarding a flight. We walked through the tunnel into a new, indoor world. The city was two stories with bridges linking places like the hospital and the theatre. I couldn’t believe how exciting it was and I hoped that the children would be able to do activities that interested them and maybe influenced them on a direction they might choose for their future.

They both chose to become fire fighters first. After training (which was all in Japanese) the call came in that a building was on fire so down the stairs they went, put on their fire suits and departed in the fire truck with sirens wailing. They pulled up to a building that did look like it was burning (very well staged), hooked up the hoses and used real water to spray out the fire. The looks on their faces was intense.

Parents do not participate nor are they allowed near their children while the activity takes place. The kids are under the care of the adults who work for KidZania. That means that parents take a lot of photos or just hangout and eat at the coffee shops that are incorporated in the city offering chairs for waiting parents. The whole park is a captured audience and no outside food or drink is allowed so we are almost forced to consume.

For his next activity Lucas chose to do construction. Eleanor went off to be an Emergency room Doctor. She wanted to work with the newborn babies but the wait was going to be one hour so she was flexible. It was so heart warming to watch her in her hospital greens performing CPR and using a defibrillator on the patient. But it also taught her a life lesson that I am not sure a six year old needs, that of the anxiety of trying to save a dying person. She had been nervous enough about the fire and now her heart was racing again as she followed the Japanese instructions on how to keep a heart beating.  She chose a more benign activity next, that of a parcel delivery girl. She had to go to other companies and pick-up parcels and then shelve them. She loved that one.

Lucas loved construction as he was able to connect items that made Christmas lights go on as well as build an arch bridge which he then walked over to learn about its strength. He decided to work on a wall mural as his next activity and then it was time for Pizza-La for lunch. They have a little shop on the side of the activity room to sell food made by professionals so we ate pizza and waffles to keep us going. Eleanor was hooked. She wanted to make pizza so she lined up for that next. Lucas went to work in the Design Studio to draw.

It all went really smooth as the place is very well organized and in the end Eleanor had a pizza to bring home for dinner.  They were exhausted from fitting into the very structured role-play and I had enough hanging around as my excitement had waned. The teaching here was very much about thinking inside the box. We left the building and took in as much fresh air as we could before freezing. It was good to be back in the real world where the kids could be irresponsible and creative once again.

The Ancient Capital of Nara

We travelled by three different trains for an hour to get to the center of Nara. As it was the original capital and the birthplace of Japanese Buddhism it is well preserved. A major street that is full of shops from Kimonos to expensive statues took us to the treed park where ancient buildings are preserved.

We made our way with the crowds into the park and saw deer everywhere. Nara promotes the city by encouraging the tourists to see and feed the almost tame deer. It was like a giant petting zoo. Tim took Lucas closer to take photos and Eleanor and I watched from a distance. We saw a woman get butted in the behind and another with her child be swarmed and bumped as their food offerings disappeared. Eleanor and I looked at each other and remembered why we don’t feed the wildlife. The deer were very bold and Eleanor decided she was quite afraid of them. We made our way through the poop, which gave the park a dirty feel, to the museum only to see huge line ups. We kept encountering more and more deer as we went.  

We walked along the path to the towering gate of the Todaiji Temple (Great Eastern Temple) one of Japan’s most famous temples. The pillars were enormous and so were the wood carvings of the gatekeepers, usually meant to represent thunder and lightning. Then we walked toward the strong scent of incense calling us to the entrance. After paying to enter we wandered through the gardens happy to be free of the deer to the cleansing spring where we washed away our impurities.  

The Temple towered above us with its golden horns pointing to the sky. Todaiji Temple was built in the period 710-794AD for Emperor Shomu. The current building, which is the largest wooden structure in the world, is actually a third generation of the structure built in the Edo period as it burnt down several times. It serves both as a place where one prays for peace and affluence on earth as well as being a center of the Kegon school of Buddhism. It contains the very large Vairocana Buddha which has the meaning ‘Buddha that shines throughout the world like the sun’. The statue is made of gold plated cast bronze and instantly calms you just by beholding it. On either side are golden Bodhisattvas, one of whom was Kannon, the merciful female. We followed the massive crowd around clockwise getting views of the craftsmanship from all angles. We saw a guardian statue which depicted the saying ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. Lucas has questioned why this is the case ever since. He is pleased to know that his drawings have power but he still likes playing with his swords.

The pillars are massive and are said to be ‘healing pillars’ so if one can crawl through the open space at the base then they are given a place in heaven. The line to do this was so long that we decided to take our chances to reach heaven by other means.

We exited the temple and made our way to shrine that wasn’t so crowded and only had one deer which, we were please to see, was eating grass. Then we wandered through the forest finding very old trees with bases so big that four of us couldn’t wrap our hands around. We informed the children that these would have been cut down to make the massive pillars in the temple and Eleanor said she liked them better in the forest.

We walked a loop back out past the Five-tiered Pagoda and the Three tiered Pagoda along an old stone wall to the main street which took us back to the train station. It was almost dark (4:30) so all the signs were lit up and the smells of food cooking in the restaurants encouraged us to get home for dinner.