Kyoto and Moe~!

Today was quite possibly the most epic day of my life. With Moe as my guide, we visited the Genji Monogatari Museum, Kiyomizudera, went to yet another (and bigger) Studio Ghibli shop, and lost one of my favorite hats (but it’s somewhat okay—I managed to impress the police with my Japanese [of course, this didn’t stop me from using Moe as a translator]).

So, the Genji Museum is full of awesome. There’s a special exhibit going on now where there are little dolls of Genji and various other characters at various points through the Tale of Genji. This museum is located in Uji (where the final 10 chapters of Tale of Genji take place) and there’s a special part of the museum devoted to showcasing it. My absolute favorite part was the part of the museum where you got to smell the various scents used in incense for robes. I learned many new kanji and words~!

 There was also a movie theater with a movie about the Uji chapters. It was awesome. You crossed a bridge to get into the theater and they had dry ice fog drifting under the bridge. Then the movie started and, at first, it was kinda like a scary movie; this was because the river goddess of Uji was narrating it. Basically, the Uji chapters boiled down are: men are fickle creatures and you should just give them up for good. It was pretty dang awesome. I also had the benefit of listening to the translations through the use of a helpful guide-radio-thingy. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

The Uji River

The entrance gates

After the museum, we went to Kiyomizudera. It’s like a whole bunch of shrines and shops crammed together on the side of a mountain and is named after the biggest one on top. It was pretty darn awesome. There was a long trek up the mountain, peppered with shopping and checking out cute shops, concluding with going through Kiyomizudera itself (which is pretty darn big). It was gorgeous and what I would call quintessential Japan (for the foreign values of “quintessential Japan”). I had a great time and hope to go back again when the leaves are in color (yep, that’s right. It’s considered the middle of autumn over here, but the leaves are not changing color yet…).

Moe and I at Kiyomizudera

The quintessential view of Kiyomizudera

It was after Kiyomizudera, on the train, that I discovered that my hat had fallen out of my bag somewhere. I was pretty distraught (my hats are pretty much equivalent to my children (also my electronics, my scarves, and my button collection), but Moe helped me get to a police station where I filed a missing item report. I’m almost tempted to go back sometime this week and just search around. Both Okaasan and Moe told me that it’s close to impossible (my interpretation, not their’s) for someone to bring a hat to the lost and found at a police station, so I’m really anxious. It’s one of my favorite hats. I don’t know why I thought to bring it when I knew I was going to be taking pictures, and I would be putting it in my bag so the brim didn’t knock against the flash…

I feel like such a fool…