Saturday

The first real day of activity was Saturday, April 2nd, and it started with exploring the historic Fushimi district. During my winter visit, the canals were drained, there was little green, and there were no canal boats. This time all of the above had changed, and the cherry blossoms were just begin to bud with a few blooms here and there; boat rides were already popular. The canals are interesting history-wise; they hail back to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's reign in the 1580s. He had them constructed as a solution to the need to transport building materials for construction of the Osaka castle and subsequent reconstruction of Kyoto. The side effect was that they ended up being heavily utilized to transport rice, sake and other things and to this day the major sake breweries in the area are located next to the canals: a major transportation infrastructure project of the middle ages, in other words. The boats used to transport tourists these days may have motors to drive them, electric lanterns and even flotation devices, but in shape and size they are faithful to the originals; indeed the two standard boat sizes still reference the ancient unit of volume koku - there are 10-koku (十石舟) and 30-koku (三十石船) boats. (One koku of rice is enough to feed one person for one year.)

Another nice thing about the canals is that at least in Fushimi they almost universally have a strip of walkway and parkland around their length, so they're a nice green strip through the dense city.

In the afternoon we visited the Ryōan-ji temple and gardens. The temple and gardens were under restoration and closed last time I was in Kyoto, so this was my first time there. The rock garden in the temple is considered to be the world's greatest. Unfortunately by the time I got to Ryōan-ji, the weather was borderline rainy, so I ended up with few pictures to share.

Sunday

On Sunday morning we got to ride one of the 10-koku boats through Fushimi. Turns out that the neighborhood had scheduled a local cherry blossom festival for that day, so a lot of the canals were lined by various booths for games and festival food. After the boat ride, wandering through the festival and sampling some of the treats rounded up things nicely and provided brunch.

In the afternoon, we headed downtown, and wandered around Kiyamachi (a pretty stream-lined street, increasingly taken over by adult entertainment), Nishiki (famous food market since the middle ages) and Teramachi (central covered shopping arcade lined with a number of small temples and shrines), and I got a start on picking up a few souvenirs and keepsakes. By the time we were done with that, and grabbing a snack along the way, the sun was setting, making for a pretty scene along the Kamogawa (Kamo-river.)

As an aside, I follow the convention common amongst expats and guidebooks in Kyoto in not translating things as "Kamo-river" or "Yasaka-shrine," except when necessary; considering the local signage and proper-noun status, it seems to work better.