The history: Kiyomizudera means pure water temple. Opened in 778, as a Buddhist sect. It is well known for it's wooden deck and fountain. The fountain has 3 streams, each for a different benefit: long life, success in school and lucky in love. To drink from all three is considered greedy.
We didn't drink of any fountain but our own bottled water. The lines were incredibly long due to the season.
The day started with church, Easter. I used to go to this church when I lived here, so I knew where I was going. Upon arrival they told us the translator was sick, lucky for my mom they had English bible and hymnal to read for ourself. I tried following along the hiragana. I was put off that they didn't think it necessary to print an English bulletin, especially seeing all the foreigners. But they took the kids for Sunday school, so that what nice, they got real Easter eggs. It was nice chatting with a family of 5 originally from Philly, currently in Hong Kong.
Afterwards we were in search of Mr. Donut! Found! Either too late in the day, this location or cherry blossom season, was the reason for few cruller varieties. None the less we had donuts there and took Mr. Donuts for breakfast for the next day. The sakura(cherry) donuts were chewier, pink and very yummy.
We grabs McD's for lunch and headed home. I ate two times at McD's and neither time ate food I could find at home. I got my shaka shaka fries in nori(seaweed) flavor(you dump the fries and seasoning in a bag, shake and eat), and juicy shaka shaka chicken(you dump big chicken tender and seasoning in bag, shake and eat), and washed it down with either a macha(green tea) shake or macha blizzard! Yum.
We were meeting Amy along with Corey and his family at the subway station. Since the walk would be too much for my mom's feet and my in-laws we decided to take the bus closer, the walk was then to be 10 minutes up hill to Kiyomizudera. It was so packed, I could do little shopping on the way up, hopping to get to it later. Later never happened.
Ohanami is cherry blossom season, during the night they even light up the cherry trees, so you can go through some temples at night during this season. They do the same thing during the fall colors, it's called Omomiji. It's a time to celebrate, little carnivals set up with street vendor games, trinkets and food.
By the time we came out of Kiyomizudera, the sun was going down, they were closing for a half hour before they opened for the night viewing. We were hungry and walked back the trail to Maruyama park and decided to eat there. It was so cold I really wanted ramen or udon to warm us up. We sat outside under the lit up cherry blossoms on platforms and little tabes on them. You take your shoes off. We ordered our food and some of it arrived, not in a timely manner. Finally 40 minutes later, they came to tell us they no longer have udon! I ate my now cold rice in tea with ume(plum) and seasonings. We left. What started out to be a fun experience ended up not so fun. Espeacially since they charge 500yen($5usd) an adult to sit there.
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