On the way to Kyoto, I
started Habit Formation, which turned
out to be a much more interesting read than I thought it would be. It
definitely has some applications to my current life… if I can get out of the
habits I have currently.
When passing through
immigration, they had a pretty fancy both-finger fingerprint scanner/facecam,
that I’m pretty sure could also take temperature. Their visa stamps are also
plastic stickers, as opposed to the “chops” that most countries have. It
definitely gave the impression of a more technology-based society.
This was promptly
dispelled by the following train trip from Osaka to Kyoto. The Haruka express
passed through most of Osaka into Shin-Osaka and into Kyoto; on the way it
passed through farmland, cities, and suburbs; a good initial overview of Japan.
Overall, plots of land seemed smaller, and while houses might be two or more
stories, each part of the house was smaller than its American equivalent
(especially the doors). The roads are smaller, and the cars themselves are
smaller to compensate. Instead of gardens, most houses would have a small one
foot wide area between the road and the front door in which to put potted
plants or a shrine.
Walking from the station
to the Tour Club, where I was staying, confirmed this general impression. The
Kyoto station area is dominated by a radio tower and the station itself, but
the modern buildings soon give way to cramped one-way streets done in
traditional architecture (albeit, with the sky clogged with wires of all
kinds). I was impressed by the casual incorporation of religion and culture in
the neighborhood; small personal shrines were on the side of the road, in front
of houses, and residential areas would be around temples. After walking around
in circles for a while, I found the Tour Club in the neighborhood between two
temples.
The club itself was
fairly friendly. The lobby was much more cramped than I expected, but the
common area reserved for guests only was quite wonderful, with Japanese and
western sections, free tea and coffee, and relevant travel books. Shoes were
left at the door and slippers were mandatory. Unfortunately there were only two
showers and two bathrooms available (albeit, with super-nice water pressure).
I stayed in a dorm-style
room with five other people. It was pretty much like one of those dorm rooms in
all those asian movies/dramas I’ve seen, with the bunk beds and the curtains
and the clothes hangers just above your bed; fun experience. I dumped all my
stuff in a locker and went to look for food.
Kyoto station was
exceedingly modern, with a gentle wave of uncovered steel beams forming a roof
over the 12-story complex. The first two floors are for transportation, the
last two are food courts, and most of the others are for shopping. Exploring
the station yielded a wedding area (with a pavilion), as well as a sky tunnel.
The main draw, however, was the rooftop garden, which had a wonderful view of
Kyoto amidst some planted bamboo and benches, further enhanced by the sunset at
the time.
The first night I ate at
“Ramen Road”, a section of 7 ramen restaurants that I would visit often over
the course of my trip. It was also my first experience of ordering by machine,
which took me a little bit to get. Apparently I can pass off as Japanese until
I talk, as I had to ask (or point) for help. Anyway, the broth was much better
than most ramen broths but the noodles and contents were somewhat lacking. Oh
well… lots more stores I can try.
While walking around one
of the temples at night after dinner, I chanced upon a large heron perched on
the top of a pine tree right outside its main gates. At first I thought it was
a statue of some sort, and was about to dismiss it, but was pleasantly
surprised. Random, but I took it as a sign that good things would come from
this trip.
The next day, I went by
bus to Northeast Kyoto, which was a bumpy, but convenient ride. The buses are
quite foreigner friendly, especially with an all-day bus pass. My first stop
was the Silver Pavilion, which was a lakeside pavilion surrounded by manicured
garden and remains one of the highlights of the trip. Zen-style sand plots were
scattered around a lake and the aforementioned pavilion (which we couldn’t
enter), and the rest of the grounds were well manicured gardens. I was
especially fond of the moss covering under most of the trees; it made the
grounds look dainty, detailed and clean. At this time of year, most of the
flowers (sans sakura) were in bloom, and the sight of a small blooming tree
with a pile of fresh flower petals lying on the moss under it was one of my
favorite sights.
I had lunch at Omen,
which is known for its dipping noodles and came well-recommended. It was
probably the closest thing I had to traditional Kyoto food, as the dishes that
came beforehand were miniscule, well crafted, and quite tasty. Because Kyoto is
a land-bound city, most of the small dishes were tofu, tuber, or vegetable
based. They were all quite good though. The noodles were novel, and worth
trying once, but I imagine they’d be a hassle to eat often as you have to dip
them in the soup and add vegetables each time.
Afterwards, I took a
meandering walk down the Path of Philosophy, which is basically a scenic creek
lined with old-style houses and on the way to a lot of temples, which was very
calming. My next stop was in an old (and free!) Buddhist temple called Honen-In,
which was nice, if a bit eerie due to it being in the middle of the woods.
There were not as many people around, probably due to the overall dimmer
environs. Brown-green wood buildings, deep green water, thick foliage, a nearby
graveyard… you get the idea.
Continuing down the Path
of Philosophy brought me down past the Kumanonyakuo-Jinja (a pity it was
closed, I hear it has some pretty good dolls) to Eikan-Do Zennin-Ji, which is
famous for its foliage… in autumn. Nevertheless I did stop by for quite a
while. A significant amount of the complex required the removal of shoes; this
brought us around a series of open corridors which looked over various groomed
gardens. In the pavilions resided various incarnations of a Buddha looking to
the side, which is an unorthodox way of displaying them (To the Buddha looking
back, I donated 50 yen). You could also go deeper in the mountains (still
merely in socks) to see the view. The shoe-encouraged areas included the
grounds, which were filled with Japanese maples, and a windy stair up the
mountain to an even higher pavilion.
It was then that I met my
travel partners for the rest of the day. While at the top, I met three ’12
girls that came from the US (I could tell by their ethnicities and their
accents… haha). We exchanged photography skills (as they wanted a group picture
and I was traveling alone), and somehow went the same route through the rest of
the temple grounds as them. When we decided to go to the same temple afterwards
coincidentally, I just decided to join their group for the day.
Traveling with other
people was certainly more lively than traveling alone. It also helped that one
of the girls spoke fairly fluent Japanese, so we got a little more information
than normal from the places we visited. I did have to change my schedule a bit
though, which was probably for the better, as I had no idea how to get to some
places. We ended up at the entrance to the next temple we visited (Nanzen-Ji),
but we decided that it wasn’t worth going in (they were leaving the next day,
and we had seen a lot of zen gardens beforehand, which aside from the entrance
façade, was the other thing this temple was known for). We ended up taking a
taxi to the Gion district to see the temple there.
Although the area was
touristy, it was practically dripping with all the things I usually associate
with Japan. Because that area was popular for traditional dress walk-arounds,
there were a lot of woman and even some men in formal kimonos. Combined with
the old-style wooden buildings and the backdrop of the green mountains and the
huge red temple, the experience was quite picturesque. The snacks there were
quite good too.
The temple itself was
filled with schoolchildren, from kindergarten to middle school. The younger
ones were all wearing yellow hats, and the older ones had those super-formal
school uniforms with their logo on the jacket (comes in blue, red, or green
depending on the school.) It was quite amusing to finally see this system in
person, as opposed to just reading about it in comics. The temple itself
consisted of a main pavilion, followed by gardens and a much smaller red pagoda
in the mountains (prominently surrounded by fire extinguishers).In the main
pavilion was a great view of the mountains and a sword/short sword/boot set
made of iron that people would try and lift up to see if they were “chosen”
one… I wasn’t too clear. More importantly, there was a shrine selling charms
and fortunes there, which was quite cute. Because we had a Japanese speaker, we
could actually get our fortunes done, which was wonderful. The way it worked
was shaking a octagonal cylinder until one of the many labeled sticks came out,
which you presented to the booth-lady, who would match it with one of many
corresponding shelves, on which a fortune would be made. I apparently got the
highest possible fortune, which mentioned something about keeping close friends
and traveling a lot, so it was quite appropriate. Clearly I’m never going to
ask for another one, and just frame this one up. I also bought some charms as
souvenirs. There was actually a whole section devoted to love/relationship
luck, with shrines and lucky rocks, but I didn’t buy any charms from that, nor
drink/wash hands from that particular spring. There was a more general spring
in the lower part of the temple, as well as a small waterfall, but it was
totally monopolized by the small kids.
After that, we quickly
booked it by bus back to the station to go to the Inari shrine, which was in
the northern part of Kyoto. We went there by train, which was nice, as it was
late afternoon and all the stations were looking like those stereotypical train
station in animes (Alright, I know that I keep bringing this up, but seriously,
it was quite exciting for me to experience everything that I only read/watched
in my younger days. Buying canned coffee from a vending machine, staring out of
a train window while watching typical Japanese scenery fly by, ect.) By the
time we got to the shrine, it was late afternoon, and the sun was just starting
to set.
The shrine itself matched
up to all my expectations, and was probably my favorite part of the trip. We
were greeted by a huge red torii not far from the train station. Past it was a
series of temples, which were painted vibrant red with orange lanterns. The
other dominating color was a grey-white, the color of both the gravel on the
paths and the fox statues. There were very few people milling around, which
contributed to the peacefulness of the atmosphere.
The back of the shrine
housed the entrance to the wooded mountainous section, where corridors of torii
snaked across the hills. The initial torii were large, but we soon got to the
famous double corridor of smaller torii (apparently where part of Memoirs of a
Geisha was filmed). Past this iconic spot, corridors of torii were interspersed
with small collections of fox shrines, which generally consisted of a stone
altar with miniature red torii and fox statues perched on it. Oddly enough, on
one of them was a depiction of an Egyptian sarcophagus, which was both out of
place and slightly creepy.
The deeper we went up the
mountain, the more eerie and surreal the experience became. Sunset provided a
nostalgic feeling when we passed by the fox shrines, as if they were bygone
relics forgotten and populated only by cats (which were clean and cute). One
particularly notable shrine area was next to a lake and consisted of narrow and
steep stairs, with the shrine density high but the construction highly
variable, adding to the “ruins” feel. The lack of people meant that it was just
us four hiking up the mountains, with minimal encounters.
We didn’t reach the top,
but we got a wonderful view of the city at sunset and traversed the majority of
the torii-enclosed paths. Coming down was borderline scary, and made me think of one of those chase scenes from
movies; the lights on the side lit up the torii enclosed paths so that there
was a fan/diffraction type pattern on the ground everywhere we walked. The
forest around us was almost totally dark besides that, so the dominant colors
were the bright red of the torii, the yellow light of the lamps, and the black
of… well.. everything else. This time, we went past the fox shrines quite
quickly. It was still quite the surreal experience.
When we got back to the
station, I parted ways with my travelling partners (they were headed to Nara in
the morning), went to Ramen road again (a different booth though), and headed
back to the Tour Club.
Over the course of the
trip I got to know some of the people who were staying at the Tour Club with
me. The guy with the bunk above me was from the Netherlands, and was on a
multi-month tour of Japan; he was an artist who was into Japanese culture
(maybe somewhat nerdy in that regards), but I never saw his artwork. He was
quite nice to me though, even though he snored quite loudly; he gave me wax
earplugs in advance. Two Taiwanese girls were in the adjoining room; they were
nurses who were just taking a casual trip. I had inadvertently taken pictures
of them in their kimonos while I was at the temple at Gion. A Taiwanese guy was
traveling alone, but was quite friendly. There was also a Belgian guy 20-30
years older than me at minimum who had done an extensive amount of traveling in
his life. He was quite nice, and knew his priorities. One thing he did was pay
1000$ for two of the people he just met at the Tour Club to come with him and have
dinner in Japanese formal wear with a Maiko (an apprentice geisha; he wanted to
wear a samurai kimono, but unfortunately that wasn’t available). I was quite
jealous; it truly seemed like a rare opportunity. The people who went with him
were Canadian and American, and seemed to live in Tokyo, teaching English (I
wasn’t too clear). Anyways, talking to them was quite interesting, as a lot of
them had very different experiences/opinions than I had. I doubt I would have
interacted as much if I wasn’t traveling alone.
Sleep was somewhat hard
to come by as I stayed up late, there were a couple snorers in the room, and I
was unused to the earplugs, but I managed.
I woke up at ten, only
because someone started singing in the room (At first I thought it was five due
to me not changing the time on my US phone, so I got annoyed, but then noticed
the light streaming through the curtains). I quickly grabbed something to eat
at Ramen road (yet again… since it was at the station) and took a train to the
Arashiyama area, west of Kyoto.
Arashiyama is famous for
its Zen temple and its large bamboo grove. The Zen garden itself was nice to
look at, with many paths throughout the complex. Because of the timing in which
I came, there were flowers pretty much everywhere. However, the more impressive
sight, visually, was the bamboo groves. The groves were quite dense and tall,
not something I’ve really seen before. Also, I wasn’t aware how… unappealing
bamboo shoots actually looked. For some reason I had the impression that they
would be green and somewhat dainty, but they are actually a combination of
black, purple, and brown… almost like an elongated piece of dung. But as long
as you just looked at the forest and not at the ground, it was still
impressive.
Within the grove were
smaller temples and shrine areas; apparently the Japanese princess would act as
a priestess of sorts in one of the shrines. The surrounding suburbs were also
peaceful, as I took the opportunity to walk around a less tourist-focused part
of Japan. I also stumbled upon a residential cemetery nestled amongst suburbia;
it was quite, quite peaceful.
On the way back, the main
road was suddenly deluged by a ton of middle/high school students in their
matching formal uniforms. It seemed to be something right out of a school
drama, leading to China-levels of people density. However, I didn’t mind too
much, as I followed the crowds to look for the best green tea ice cream, soft
serve, and the like. 
The other attraction in
Arashiyama was monkeys, but I figured going by myself to see monkeys wasn’t
high on my priorities list. The river and bridge were pretty nice to see
though, and the surrounding green forest made a great picture with the blue sky.
In the mid afternoon I
hopped on the bus to the Golden Pavilion. While still nice, it wasn’t as nice
as the Silver Pavilion, in my opinion (although that may have been because the
Golden Pavilion is a reconstruction. The museum exhibit seemed interesting, but
it was rather too expensive for me to visit on a whim. This temple was by far
the most crowded I have been to in Japan. Here, I randomly saw an opportunity
to drink tea/eat some sort of sweet while looking at the garden, and the
thought that I haven’t had that super bitter matcha tea yet weight in my mind
and prompted me to have exactly that. It was pretty good, but they give you all
too little. The bitterness didn’t bother me at all though. The actual garden
watching was nice, but someone ruined with the amount of people passing
through.
I then quickly went to
the Kyoto kimono textile factory/museum, where I just happened to catch a
kimono fashion show going on, snapping way too many pictures. The designs were
quite inspiring though. Unfortunately, when I went to their store section,
their wares were either not relevant to kimono (like silk scarves) or too
expensive. I thought of buying a yukata to wear around the house, but talked
myself out of it since, well… I think it would be too eccentric. Maybe when I
become an old man, I’ll wear a nice one. .
At sunset, I found myself
trekking across the imperial palace grounds, although I couldn’t get in because
it was too late in the day/I didn’t make reservations. I went to the shopping
district to buy some generic souvenirs of sample green tea and handmade paper
for colleagues (and some printer-compatible handmade resume paper that I’m sure
I’ll use… for something…). I spent quite a while looking for a particular
eel-specializing shop too (maybe its nostalgia, but it was really comparable to
Sakura at Princeton, while being much more expensive). As the sun fully set, I
ahd the great idea to go to Gion at night to try and geisha-spot. I did not see
any geisha, but did see a lot of hostess bars with people standing outside,
thinking I was Japanese and yelling at me to go. The dress was also decidedly
less… traditional than normal, although in the dim light most of them were
quite pretty. Anyway, that night was a blur of me walking between neighborhoods
that switched between neon hostess bars and super-traditional wooden houses
that housed fancy restaurants. It was quite the atmosphere. One day, I will try
and come back when I can actually afford to eat at one of those places.
I tried to catch a bus
back, but apparently most, if not all of the subways had increased fares at
night. Being equal parts cheap and adventurous, I decided to walk back. At the
time, I was only looking at the maps in the back of the tour guide book, and
not the entire map of Kyoto, so I forgot that they had skipped an entire
section between downtown Kyoto and the Kyoto station area. It took me from
eight to 9-30 walking through random dark alleys and neighborhoods to get back
using what I remembered about the major roads. Although it was a pretty
boneheaded mistake, I did enjoy the sight of Kyoto at night/adrenaline rush of
being semi-lost in a foreign country. Temples look a lot more intimidating in
the dark.
One thing I forgot to mention about the Tour Club
is that its showers have a really nice high-pressure shower, much better than
the one in my apartment in Shanghai. They also had a miniature zen garden in
the middle of the small complex, which was very unique. Overall nice place with
friendly people.
The third day started out with me going to the
International Manga Museum. One could think of it as the (late) Border’s manga
section, multiplied across three entire floors, complete with people of all
types and ages lounging around reading manga. The library’s goal is to collect
one of every manga. When I went there, there were a few exhibits of not besides
the walls and walls of books: a “100” geisha exhibit drawn by different
cartoonists, a gallery that went in detail into the work of a specific artist,
whose drawings were blown up on science-fair type posters, which were visually
impressive. The gallery that was not impressive at all was actually a smaller
one, which showcased the journey of a red sketchbook that passed between 100
artists, including Hayao Miyazaki. The different styles around the same subject
matter impressed me, and I ended up buying a copy for the house (in
California).
Some sort of cosplay
contest was occurring at the same time on the Astroturf lawn outside the museum
(which was a converted elementary school). It was interesting to look around
and see the dedication, as I’ve never been to any sort of convention like that.
Unfortunately, it cost money to take pictures.
Afterwards was ramen, but thankfully this time it
wasn’t at Ramen Road, but at Ippudo (apparently there will be a branch opening
up in Shanghai though.) The ramen here were probably the best overall, compared
to the ones at Ramen Road. Apparently the Ippudo’s in America have a different
taste in order to suit Americans.
Because of the holiday,
there was a ceremonial horseback archery competition at a local shrine,
Shimogamo. It actually took me a long while to find out where exactly it was
taking place; since the temple grounds were rather huge. I did see a miko (or a
girl dressed in a miko costume) selling charms though, which was definitely a
sight I was amused to see (she was quite cute anyway…) There was a small
white-snake subtheme that I still do not know the meaning of, unfortunately. Of
course, I do like it when snakes have a place in the temple, so I donated some
loose change.
The actual horse-riding
area was filled with people and made it hard to take pictures. Multiple people
would be wearing ceremonial (re: funny) hats, including the judge and riders.
The horse archers would start from one end of the field, and gradually pick up
speed while shooting up to 4 targets. The best ones would break the wooden
targets with their arrows. I tried to snap a few pictures over the crowd, but
in the end, there were too many people.
I swung around back to
Gion to visit the biggest Buddhist temple in Kyoto, famous for its bell, that I
skipped last time with the Americans due to time constraints on their part. It
was unfortunate that the main hall was closed for renovations, but the side
halls were also nice to look at, and included giant prayer fish, musical
floorboards, and more sights. The bell itself was pretty visually impressive,
and the path behind it took us to a graveyard, making me realize how big the
grounds of this place actually were. Because it was all free, the quality of
the garden’s wasn’t as good as the other places I’ve been to, but it was quite
a nice visit regardless.
While walking to the
shopping district of Teramachi, I happened to cross paths with a peace protest
going the same way I was. It mostly consisted of fairly old people chanting and
waving banners. Unfortunately they were going the same direction as me, so
traffic and directing traffic was a nightmare. The novelty kept me cheerful
though.
Teramachi itself is quite
an interesting shopping mall, connected to a lot of places. The mall basically
consisted of a bunch of covered streets, with stores lining each side. It had
everything from cheaper souvenirs and a working food market to clothing stores,
arcades, and anime/manga stores. I had already bought a set of souvenirs
already, from a tea places (powdered matcha) and a handmade paper place. I had
already decided that my main souvenir would be some sort of cheap figurine from
Japan, so I spent a while scouring the streets for manga/anime stores. This led
me to some interesting places, like one store accessible only by a tiny
elevator, which had all sorts of Japanese silently perusing the 18+ material,
and another huge one with everything you need for living branded with some sort
of popular anime character (I recognized almost none of them… it’s more of a
nostalgia thing). In the end I just bought a fairly cheap one from a normal
bookstore (almost all manga books in Japan are shrink-wrapped). I moved on to
get some packaged foods, and found an awesome sticker store, where I bought a
lot of stickers for miscellaneous use/emergency souvenirs.
Other stores of interest
in the area was a large store that only consisted of those sticker photobooths
of various types and walls covered with Gachapon machines. During that time,
apparently Evangellion was extremely popular as 3.0 had just come out, so one
of the major malls was having an Evangelion promotion. Everything Evangelion
could be bought there: bento boxes, shirts, puzzles, bags, mugs, movies,
soundtracks, books… the list goes on. A significant amount of the Gachapon
machines had little Evangelion figures in them too. Other stores in the area
included a small seafood market, where they would not sell live, but already
prepared seafood (I guess this is in Kyoto, so it can be excused). The vast
majority of shops, though, were places that sold generic “I love Kyoto”
t-shirts, fans, kimono cloth, and mocha.
As I walked around, it
suddenly occurred to me that unlike China, I could be relatively confident that
I wouldn’t get a stomachache, so I loaded up on some kara-age while walking
around. Also there were these taiyaki, which is basically a hot pastry stuffed
with red beans, that were so cheap and extremely good that I went back multiple
times. Definitely one of the highlights food wise.
My last dinner in Japan
was, appropriately, ramen. I had grown fond of just the salt broth that one
place served (although I was quite sick of the noodles at this time). It’s just
a lot richer than the broth in the U.S, at least. At the time of writing,
unfortunately, I had just went to the Ippudo in Shanghai to try it out and…
while it was quite good, I am almost utterly sick of ramen. Maybe I’ll have to
wait a year before I can eat more comfortably.
I went back to the
airport (using the other half of my Haruka-ICOCA ticket, along with some of the
people that I met. Just watching the country pass by on the express is a
surprisingly informative and relaxing way of seeing a new country. At the
airport, I had sushi in Kyoto for the only time, and bought some sakura and
matcha flavored kit-kats (pretty expensive, unfortunately). There were cream
cheese ones too, but these seemed more classic, as Japan is well known for its
odd kit-kat flavors. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to go to
Tokyo in order to supplement this trip.
Traveling alone was
enjoyable. Because Kyoto has a few places that are visited frequently by
tourists, they are used to people not speaking English, and other lone
foreigners visit. However, if I go to Tokyo, its big enough and its more of an “experience”,
so I would want to go with other people with the same interests. For this
though, I enjoyed meeting new people and just being able to do things at my own
pace (good for my tendency to wake up at 10).
As my super good-luck
fortune implies, this trip is a good continuation and sign for the upcoming year... hopefully.
