So on to Kyoto. First and foremost Kyoto has a place in my heart as I managed to purchase my fluffy ear muffs for less than £1. Keeping my ears warm had an amazing effect on my general warmth. Veeeeeery important when haplessly trapped in a snow storm. It also meant that I looked the part and did the incredibly beautiful Kyoto, old capital and cultural centre of Japan, justice in my sartorial efforts.
And let me tell you this place was dripping in culture. Dripping. After our first exciting trip on the shinkansen we arrived in the even colder Kyoto, dumped our stupid, annoying, heavy backpacks and headed straight out to see what the city had to offer us. First off a banana (the first piece of fruit I’d had in a while that wasn’t in liquid form) then we meandered through the area of Gion, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fabled geisha. I’m convinced that the banana brought us vitamin & mineral laden luck as, after commiserating with a frozen looking crane on what is purported to be the most beautiful street in Japan we saw one! And not even a callow young thing in the first throes is geishaness but a mature, perfectly composed lady who handled her ridiculous shortened gait with ease. Happy days.
I was also happy to see that we weren’t the only incredibly annoying tourists shoving our Olympus in the poor woman’s face, there were Japanese doing exactly the same which we thought in some way vindicated us. Or perhaps made us more annoying. Who knows?
Following this exciting sighting there seemed to be an avalanche of these ladies festooned in huge wraps of cloth, perfectly made faces and even little see through plastic coverings for their be-socked feet. All very lovely and an important cultural experience but for those who don’t have a cast iron ego, striding about in jeans and North Face trainers, a bit damning. I maaaaay have started experiencing those (rare) feelings of inadequacy but luckily Al was on hand to shepherd me into a Bape Konkept store to peruse their offerings, feed me to the gills with sushi delivered by the sushi train and insist that I take a photo of him and his old friend the Colonel. Feelings of inadequacy diminished!
Now, Nicholas, cease talking about yourself if you can and get on with descriptions of the things that make Kyoto the wonderful place it is! So here we go:
Ginkaku-ji (otherwise known as the Temple of the Silver Pavilion)
This turned out to be an amazing zen garden. Perfectly groomed, everything in its place, down to the last pebble.
Even the koi cap we were behaved. Now the intricacies of zen gardens are completely beyond me (perhaps due to my lukewarm interest in horticulture?) but the view was amazing for every angle, even the huge pile of pebbles supposed to represent Mt. Fuji.
Again there was a heavy geisha element to our visit here, so much so that Al fit in like the 5th pea in their colourful pod as you can see.
Kinkaku-ji (sound familiar)
This was the kicker, the highlight of Kyoto. With this place we were incredibly lucky as all the guide books were adamant that the best time to view Kinkaku-ji was when there was but a light dusting of snow. I’ll admit we didn’t feel particularly lucky as we carefully picked our way down the icy path (and neither, I imagine, did the poor old dear who did a spectacular nose dive in front of us) but all mutterings about frozen toes and itchy ears (damn ear muffs) disappeared when this came into sight! A whole pavilion encased in gold! Incredible. Beautiful. Jaw dropping. And busy.
Having decided that we were now hardy travellers and immune to the cold (fools) we decided to ignore warnings of a snow storm and follow up the golden pavilion with another highlight of Kyoto. The Bamboo Grove. Of course I only realised later that it was a highlight in spring. Nonetheless we creaked our way off another ridiculously efficient train and walked, bent over double, into the snow-laden wind to the fabled grove. Basically this a corridor through 10-15m high bamboo shoots (blades?). It ended up being a strangely soothing place to be. It was a windy day and the flexible bamboo were whipped, rustled and bent to the whims of the gales whilst we stood at their base completely protected just looking up at the green leaves that moved and sounded like an ocean. Lovely. Of course my famed patience was sorely tested as we had to wait a ridiculously long time for a woman and her daughter to get. Out. Of. The. Way. So we could take a photo but soon harmony was restored!
Following a few days of icy culture and unhealthy amounts of sushi we decided we deserved break. And what could be better than going to the world class Osaka aquarium to see a real live whale shark?? WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP. Sorry. Now we may have been more relaxed had we decided to go on any other day but a Saturday but as I may have previously mentioned we are often fools. I honestly never know what day it is these days. Nonetheless, despite the hordes of people and their offspring pushing us out of the way to get a better view and queuing up to get a photo taken with a plastic model of the whale shark the place was amazing. As well as the whale shark there were, manta rays, dozens of shark species, a sun fish, dolphins, turtles and the freakish looking Japanese fishing crab. (I may have made that name up as or the life of me I can’t remember what they are called). Ahhh bliss.
Fortified by some marine entertainment we got straight back on to the culture trail the next day and headed out to Nara, once a capital of Japan even before Kyoto.
Once again a full day of ambling around but luckily Al discovered Japanese equivalent of elf bread…..huge spicy Japanese crackers, so we had the strength to go on with nary a whimper.
Not even the imperious and sometimes downright rude deer could veer us from our mission. Honestly, pampered much?
Though I have to admit the odd snort-some snigger as we watched various groups of high pitched Japanese tourists squealing in a mixture of terror and delight as the deer ruthlessly hunted down any stray hands clutching biscuits. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, watch out for that monkey!
Whilst giving the deer the deference they deserved
we finally came to the piece de resistance, the world’s largest wooden building. I may have ruined the surprise somewhat for Al as I must have skipped over the all-important word ‘wooden’ whilst reading out from the guidebook and he was expecting a pentagon sized behemoth. Oops. Nonetheless the building was pretty bleeding impressive I’m sure you’ll agree.
What’s more impressive is that the building used to be even bigger but something or other happened and parts of it were pulled down. I’ll be honest, I may have been suffering from culture overload at this point so may not have been paying as much attention to the exhibits as one might think. This skim-reading, or sample testing, of Japanese culture was to come to an abrupt halt as you will see in the next blog as we come face to face with harsh reality and hope in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Until then, stay classy San Diego.
