Had it not been raining heavily that morning when we arrived in Uji, in all likelihood we would not have paid a visit to the Tale of Genji Museum 源氏物語博物館. But because of the heavy rain, it was natural for us to head towards somewhere indoors. Taking a look at the tourist map, we picked the Tale of Genji Museum, mostly as it was not too far from Uji Station, though we had no idea whatsoever what sort of museum it was.
The visit to the museum turned out to be somewhat educational. At least we learnt that the Tale of Genji was an ancient Japanese novel written in the 11th century. The last few chapters of the novel are known as the Uji Chapters, with the story being set in Uji. It is remarkable that the novel has a female author, a noblewoman named Murasaki Shikibu 紫 式部. Without going to the museum, we would have been rather mystified by the various statues related to The Tale of Genji placed along the Uji river.
The museum has a fair quantity of pretty displays. We even ventured to watch a short movie clip of the Tale. However, as the movie was in Japanese without subtitle, we were hardly enlightened on what the story was about.
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| Life in Japan at the time of the Tale of Genji 源氏物語 |
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| Nice corridor in the Tale of Genji Museum 源氏物語博物館 |
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| A beautiful gallery in the Tale of Genji Museum 源氏物語博物館 |
We spent almost two hours in the Tale of Genji Museum. It was good that when we decided to leave, the rain had stopped. We walked back across the Uji Bridge.
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| Uji River, as viewed from Uji Bridge |
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| Uji Bridge |
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| Statue of Murasaki Shikibu 紫 式部, author of The Tale of Genji |
Uji is famed for its green tea.
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| Uji, famed for its green tea |
One of the main attractions in Uji is the Buddhist temple
Byodo-in 平等院. The magnificent Pheonix Hall of Byodon-in is featured on the Japanese 10 yen coin.
On the way towards
Byodo-in, we passed by many tea shops selling the famous Uji tea.
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| One of the many tea shops in Uji |
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| Side view of Phoenix Hall, Byodo-in, Uji 宇治平等院鳳凰堂 |
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| Phoenix Hall, Byodo-in, Uji 宇治平等院鳳凰堂 |
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| Phoenix Hall, Byodo-in, Uji 宇治平等院鳳凰堂 |
After visiting Byodo-in, we walked back along Uji River. A specialty of Uji River is the practice of cormorant fishing (called 鵜飼 in Japanese or 鸕鶿捕魚 in Chinese). We had read from some guidebook that cormorant fishing was practiced in the evenings. So it was a great delightful surprise to see it in action in mid-day. There also happened to be a school field trip, with a talk and demonstration of the special fishing method.
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| Bridge over Uji River |
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| Uji River |
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| Fishing boats returning |
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| Cormorant fishing (鵜飼 in Japanese or 鸕鶿捕魚 in Chinese) |
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| Fishing by comorant at Uji River |
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| Cormorant fishing 鵜飼 in action on Uji River |
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| Lucky kids: a very interesting school trip |
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| Feeding time |
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| Life in Uji |
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| Cormorant fishing tour boats |
Of course a trip to Uji would not be complete without trying out some green tea based food items. So we rounded off the day trip in Uji with green tea ice-cream and sweets.
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| Green tea themed dessert |
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| Tale of Genji statue 源氏物語像 along Uji River |
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| Uji River |
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Uji River
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