Kyotal Disaster

The second day of the holidays commenced and our plan was to visit Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Due to afore mentioned booking cock-ups I needed to check out of J-hoppers, though not before getting some advice from the owners of good places to visit in Kyoto.

I hopped onto the train and rendezvoused with Mum and Dad in their hotel in Tennoji. I’d hoped some space would become available at J-Hoppers again but it never came to pass so I checked into the same hotel as my parents for a night, expensive but well swank.

I was very excited about Kyoto, it was an entirely new place to me, even though it is only a 30 minute train journey from Osaka. As I said it is the ancient capital of Japan, up until the Emperor’s relocation to Tokyo in 1869, and as such is heavily steeped in the ancient history of Japan. We later learned that this meant it was literally full to bursting point with Shrines and Temples.

It wasn’t until we arrived that I came to realize just how huge this place was. We quickly searched the train station for a tourist information office to try and better plan our day trip. If there is one thing Japan is full of its information. How useful you find it is a matter for debate but at least it is there.

My initial plan was to go to the Fushimi inari shrine but due to earlier faffing we just missed the bus. Instead we followed the recommendation of one of the J-Hoppers staff and head up to the “東山“ (East mountain) are to follow the “鉄学校の道 “ (Philosophers path, interestingly the kanji for philosopher reads Iron study). This was a several mile path running from the base of Higashiyama down towards central Kyoto dotted with many Shrines and temples.

The initial bus journey was an adventure in itself. Unlike Osaka the underground in Kyoto is rather poor and most people are reliant on the extensive bus network. This leads to some heavy traffic and due to the hilly nature of Kyoto a pretty interesting Ride.

The streets leading up to the temple were lined with souvenir shops. Most sold the usual tat but one that we ran into to hide from the rain had some really nice stuff. I got myself a pin badge and my Dad picked up some origami paper. One thing that really amused me was a small lolly ice stand that claimed to have been visited by Leonardo Decaprio (The sign read “Mr. Decaprio mo tabeta isu kyandi”).

The philosophers’ walk begins at a zen temple called Ginkaku-ji which means “Temple of the silver pavilion”. It was very picturesque and although there was a small upkeep fee for entering it was well worth it for the views we got of Kyoto from the top. There were also many people out in traditional garb, yukkata’s. I’m not sure if this was because of the weather, it was after all extremely hot, or if it was because we were nearing the end of a month long festival. Either way my dad couldn’t help but take some pictures, and the girls were happy to pose. “ちょうかわいい“ (very cute) which got a playful “shut it you” from Dad.

We headed back down the path though not before grabbing some sembei from a street seller, I was assured they were tasty by one of the yukkata clad girls currently tucking in to one of them.

The philosophers’ path was a long one and in the hot weather was all just too much for my parents. I think you would need the patience and diligence of a philosopher to traverse it and visit every shrine along the way. We skipped most of them, there were just so many and they do start to get a bit samey. I’d hoped being alongside the canal would be a bit cooler but it just meant more mosquito bites.

After a visit to the final Buddhist shrine followed by a bit of bickering we left the path and got on a bus to Gion. This was the place my Mum and myself had really wanted to visit, as it was the home of the Kyoto Geisha, or Geiko as they are referred to in Kyoto-ben.

First we checked out another Shinto shrine, the Yasaka shrine, more because it was next to the bus stop than anything else. It was pretty impressive actually the tori gates leading up to it are huge. I also showed my mum how to visit a Shinto shrine properly and had some fun ringing the bells.

We then stopped for a quick coffee before heading into Gion in search of Geisha. Due to the heat, lack of food and fatigue from all the walking I got a bit disorientated. This isn’t usually a problem when I’m on my own but I really wasn’t considering my parents (sorry guys). After a bit of fumbling we managed to find the old high street of Gion.

It was set up to look as it would have done in the Edo period and was pretty, though full of tourists just like us. As my dad pointed out although it’s what people see when they think “Japanese” it’s not the real Japan, but to hell with that I saw the real Japan everyday living out in the backwaters I wanted to be a tourist for a bit.

Sadly our timing was poor and we arrived at the twilight period between lunch and dinner when nowhere is open. So sadly no Geisha, although we did get a cheeky glance of some driving off in a car, not quite the traditional experience though. Tired out after the long day and the frayed tempers we got the bus back to the station and settled into the hotel.

That evening the rents took me to a nice little hippy joint nearby called the far east. This place had a great atmosphere. I think the Chef must have done some travelling as he dishes were all inspired by countries from around Asia, Indonesia, Korea, Chine and so on. In fact I don’t think there was much Japanese on the menu at all.

What this meant though  was that the food had something that most of the places I’ve been to lacked, spice. I couldn’t really read the menu, couldn’t get my head around the hand written characters but I saw a dish from Korea I recognized, BiBimBap. This was kind of like donburi but served in a ridiculously hot earthenware pot. Very tasty and the rice at the bottom gets a nice crisp texture towards the end of the meal.

We returned to the hotel to sleep with the resolve that we would plan tomorrow’s return to Kyoto much better. The place was just too big to aimlessly wander as I would normally do. One last interesting thing for the day was discovering the teachings of Buddha alongside Gideon’s bible in the hotel. I was really surprised at the time but I don’t know why, Buddhism is after all Japan’s major religion. Still it just put into context how different the place I’m currently living is.

Mata atode Mina-san 

(also credit where credit is due, some of these pictures were ripped from my dads facebook page as he is a much better photographer than I.)