A quick trip to Kyoto

Getting there

First of all, if you can get the train, take it!! This may be an expensive option, but if you're travelling from Tokyo as I was, then it's a much better option. A bus from Tokyo to Kyoto's main station takes around 8 hours. Potentially pleasant if you go by day, if you go by night there's nothing to see, and depending on which company you use, you may end up stopping upwards of 4 or 5 times, which is totally unecessary given the length of the journey. Especially on an overnight bus where the point is that most of those travelling wish to get a bit of shut eye before arriving in "Asia's most beautiful city" (Lonely Planet). Being stopped, having announcements blurted out and the bright lights turned on every hour meant that we arrived at 6am in Kyoto rather tired and pretty sure that we'd seen more service stations than there were temples in Japan's old capital.

Arrival

Remember, Japan is more often than not very rigid about rules, times, and schedules. Our check in time was 4pm and so, arriving on the overnight bus at 6am as we did, we had nowhere to crash or rest until the afternoon. Given the the amount of sleep we'd had (or lack thereof), this meant we spent our first day rather bleary-eyed, relying on a continuous stream of coffee to keep us going. So always make sure your check-in time is compatable with your arrival, otherwise you may find yourself carting your luggage around in the cold!

Day 1
At around 8am, after having breakfast and staving off the cold in a nearby "World of Coffee", we eventually braved the still-chilly morning air and walked the 15 minutes from near our guesthouse to 銀閣寺・ginkakuji - The Silver Temple (500￥). Not surprisingly in a country that's given us a red light district that still retains the name of its original theatrical purpose, Kabukicho (a Kabuki theatre was intended for the area, and even before that, a duck sanctuary), the Silver Temple also follows this tradition: there's nothing silver about it, though due to a now ancient desire to put silver on it, the temple retains its name.

As is often the case with temples in Kyoto, the gardens surrounding the temple were almost a rival to the buildings in the temple compound themselves. There were exquisite rock gardens and lots of trees that would satisfy anyone's "I want to see a Japanese-style tree" wishes. The temple was also very beautiful, though rather plain and reserved in comparison to some of the other temples in Kyoto.

After that we got the bus to the far west part of town and ended up at 天龍寺・tenryuuji (600￥ for temple and garden grounds). This was a much larger complex than ginkakuji, including many apparently residential temple buildings leading up to the main drag. Again, the gardens stole the show, and offered a good view of the temple anyway which, from the inside, was really just a collection of rooms that you couldn't go into. Certainly viewed from a slightly elevated walk, and seen through swaying trees, the temple dons a serenity far better appreciated than when inside.

To bring in Christmas Day, we ended up at around 11pm at a yakitori restaurant (grilled bits and bobs on sticks). It only had a few locals in it and they greeted us so warmly. Quite a different reception from a few days earlier when I had tried to get myself and my brother into a similar local place in Tokyo and was given the "da-me" (NO!) sign by the owner. Strangely enough, we ended up finding out that the yakitori restaurant owner used to live in a flat about two houses down from me in London, and that we'd both been living there at the same time. Such a huge coincidence made the evening, for whatever reason, a little more Christmassy.

Day 2

We finally checked in the day before at around 5pm, and ended up going to bed pretty early. Waking up the next day, it was off to 金閣寺・kinkakuji (The Golden Temple - be careful with the pronunciation!). Unlike ginkakuji, this temple does actually live up to its name and is entirely covered in gold (although cheaper to enter, only 300￥). Arriving on a sunny afternoon, the whole temple was shining to the extent that it hurt to look at it. Sitting by the edge of the lake on stilts, the temple is at once grandiose but also extraordinarily peaceful and humble, which is befitting of the many contradictions you'll come to recognise throughout Japanse culture and daily life the longer you stay over here.

There is a hill nearby which you can climb called 大文字・daimonji (essentially just "large character"), which has a the kanji for "large" coating the surface of one side of the hill. From there you can get a relatively good view of Kyoto. Unfortunately we didn't have much time so we pressed on back into the centre of town.

We got the bus (very convenient and easy to use; a refreshing change from train-dependent Tokyo) and went into a more modern area just south of the Imperial Grounds. The Imperial Grounds are also worth a visit, hidden behind gargantuan walls and almost hidden away in the middle of a vast park. Again, rather hurriedly we sped on southwards and ended up in the International Manga Museum (500￥). This was a rather confusing place as the museum was housed in a very old building that used to be a highly renowned school. As such, half of the Manga Museum was dedicated to exhibitions relating to the school rather than manga, which was a little confusing and almost disappointing, but the whole place was so curiously warming and intriguing that it didn't really matter. I haven't yet been to a manga museum in Tokyo (is there one?... there must be), but I imagine it would be a bit better than the one in Kyoto, just because it didn't know whether to fully embrace its modern theme, or dwell on Kyoto's past. Still, it's well worth a visit if you have some time to kill while you're in the centre of the city as it's a very unique little place.

Eventually we ended up in Nishiki Market, a huge and somewhat labyrinthine indoor network of little streets intersecting each other, cram-packed with good souvenir potential, as well as larger department stores and your old favourites like HMV, and good old purikura parlours. When you emerge from Nishiki market, if you aim for the south side, you'll end up on a long, busy shopping street (Shijo-dori) with far more pricier fare - think "Kyoto's Oxford Street". It was quite a nice place to stroll along, and to see some of the richer Kyoto-ites doing their thing. Perhaps at Christmas time it was a little over-crowded, but it all added to the bustle without descending into Tokyo levels of sardine-like suffering.

If you follow the shopping street eastwards, eventually they will lead you over a river and into an area called Gion. While the west side of the river is very reminiscent of some of the more modern, trendy parts of Tokyo, Gion's architecture is straight out of any tourist's fantasy. One look at the buildings once you've snaked down a couple of back streets, and it's instantly recognisable as Japan. Wooden sliding doors, creaky beams, stone sculptures running alongside rivers lined with Japanese trees; this is the little area you secretly hoped all of Japan would be like before you stepped off the plane. Get there just after midday and you might just see a geisha or two stepping in and out of the (very expensive) restaurants, looking for a potential customer who might want to burn some money on traditional Japanese entertainment.

As nice as it was to walk around here (I could have done for hours) it was very pricey, and so we headed back to the west side of the river again, and back towards Nishiki market on Shijo-dori. Here we ate our Christmas dinner at an izakaya. It wasn't at all traditional (in the English sense), but then if you waste time looking for a "Traditional English Christmas dinner" when you're in Kyoto, you may as well not have come in the first place! So we ended up eating a seafood nabe (simmering soupy hot pot type dish) and some raw horse meat. Not a brussel sprout in sight!

Day 3

A bit tired from lots of walking and a bit of drinking, we woke up a bit late, made our way to the train station to go to Nara Deer Park. But with time pressing and money a little low, we changed our mind at the last minute and ended up back in central Kyoto. This was quite lucky as we then had more time to spend at 清水寺・kiyomizudera which was a great place to end the trip on.

Again, easy to get to and easy to find as long as you're armed with a bus map and a semi-decent sense of direction, Kiyomizudera is a beautiful and surprsingly large temple complex. Walking up a very gradual incline, you pass up and through a small village entirely comprised of tourist-oriented shops. These sell everything from the exquisitely beautiful to the outrageously tacky. There are often geisha walking around here too, although be careful; many of them aren't the real deal and are just there for show. Nevertheless, surrounded by the ornate temple buildings, one is almost tempted to ignore the fact that these "geisha" may be just a con for the tourists, as they are still an absolute wonder to look at.

To try and describe kiyomizudera is somewhat futile. If you're the kind of person that makes their mind up based on other people's blogs, then you'd probably rather vegetate in front of your computer a while longer instead of going to the temple to see it. And if you're someone who likes to make up their mind for themselves, well... you'll probably end up going anyway. So all I'll say is that it was calming, tranquil (even with the tourist buzz) and offered a great view of Kyoto from the wooden platform jutting out from the hillside, supported by old and sturdy wooden beams. If you go to one temple in Kyoto, I'd be tempted to say that that one is the one to go to; but who knows what other hidden treasures I may have missed? It certainly managed to generate an atmosphere, in spite of the crowds, that seemed befitting of its description as "Japan's most revered temple."

After that, we slowly wandered down the hillside past all the tourist shops (there's even a Studio Ghibli store on the way, where you can buy figurines from one of Japan's most famous anime creators, Miyazaki Hayao), we eventually ended up back in the centre of town. Kyoto is small enough for that to be a walkable distance (about 25 minutes), but it was extremely cold so we got the bus and ended up a few minutes later at a TGI Fridays. Not terribly Japanese, but with an overnight, sleepless journey ahead of us we figured it was best to stock up on fatty stodge for the next 9 hours. Once again, sprung by an odd coincidence, our waitress at TGIs had been in the yakitori restaurant two nights earlier and had overheard my conversation with the owner who had lived in London. We hadn't noticed her, but she remembered us. I hope it won't take a strange coincidence for me to find those places again.

Bus Back

And so we ended up at the bus station just outside the main train station, got on, and 8 hours later arrived sleep-deprived and stiff in Tokyo, again, having stopped 5 or 6 times. With some more money saved, it'll definitely be the train next time.

Back in Japan Plan

Time for a Goal


It's long since been a dream of mine to tour a country by motorcyle. I've always thought bikes were cool, I guess because none of the annoying people at school rode them - they drove around in little boxes on four wheels that they insisted were cool because they had a mini-disc player cellotaped to the dashboard, or some such peripheral nonsense. So if none of the jocks were zipping about with their hair down on a chopper, then bikes must be cool.


Very briefly, I sat pillion on a tiny motorcyle as someone my brother and I had befriended zipped about the Laos countryside visiting farms and waterfalls. It felt incredible going past people stuck in sweaty cars, or crammed on tour buses with a bunch of other foreigners; incredible, even though we were going at a speed only mildly quicker than a fast jog. I decided there and then that I'd like nothing more than to have a decent bike to call my own, and a month or so of free time to see a country firsthand - no glass windows or tour schedules forcing me onwards or separating me from something I'd like to feel a part of.


So I've begun researching motorbikes in Japan, and it appears you can get very decent ones for anything over 90,000 Yen (at the moment that's about £750). There're some driving schools that give instruction in English in Tokyo as well, also offering training materials, theory textbooks and tests for a reasonable price.


My goal is to get a test-trip (maybe about 10-15 days) prepared by March 2010 when I'll have my next big holiday (university holiday, so I won't be teaching). The weather will still be nice and cool around then, but not yet rainy season, so it should be a great time to go.


At the moment I'm considering a 250cc motorbike, mainly because Japan's speed limits render anything over 400ccs a little superfluous anyway - all that extra power but nowhere to use it. Plus as a first time biker, I think a 250cc bike ought to be fast enough and safe enough to try a mini-bike trip. I'm thinking of perhaps biking up to Hokkaido and back, so that would cover roughly half of Japan's North-Eastern side. If not that, then maybe a trip to Kyoto or Hiroshima, and spend a few days biking around any satellite towns in the area. Who knows?


So... that's 6 months to pass my test and get a reliable, but cheap bike. Next March, 250cc test drive to Hokkaido! Here we go!!


PS Just in case any of you are as un-savvy with bikes as me at this point and were wondering what a 250cc bike might look like, here's a picture... beautiful isn't it:

Did you trade green fields...

... for a cold steel rail?

Japan's rampant, runaway capitalism knows no bounds, and it certainly has little respect for Japan's traditional roots. Alex Kerr has already well-documented Japan's love affair with concrete, outlining the worrying dedication with which the government has seen fit to literally line the coast of this once paradisical island with miles of tarmac, made all the worse by the presence of tetrapods designed supposedly for the protection of Japan's coastal towns. But if one has to knock down, deforest and "modernise" the coastline beyond all recognition in order to save it, you've already done far worse than any tidal damage could hope to.

Japan is rife with these ludicrous policies which are the environmental equivalent of the famous Vietnam war doctrine "Bomb the village in order to save it." In a similar move, Japan is worryingly attached to the idea of digging up forests, drowning the coastline in murky grey slabs, and dropping tetrapods like carpet bombs in order to "save" the very vistas and coasts that are being ruined by such actions. Obviously most post-industrial countries, if not all, have sacrificed much of their indigenous habitats for the sake of "progress", but nowhere has it been done with such tenacity and wilful abandon as in Japan.

It is sad to think that a country that has its traditions so firmly intertwined with its natural habitat would so willingly destroy it for the sake of modernisation; modernisation at any cost. And so now it is sad to see that plans for a new resort that will decimate acres of precious coral reef as well as much of the mainland has been given the go ahead in Okinawa, perhaps one of the few areas of Japan that still remains relatively untouched (relative to the sprawling neon-concrete monster that is Tokyo). An area so unique that it may as well be a country in itself, it's all the more saddening to know that the concrete tide has reached so far.

Even more worrying is the tacit, and sometimes explicit, acceptance of this ugly trend of superficial modernisation sweeping the land of the rising sun. Many people believe the tetrapods being rained down on Japan's shores to be beautiful structures worthy of artistic merit. One only has to see a beach lined with these concrete monsters to realise that such a stance is utterly ludicrous. Nevertheless, one suspects that given the Japanese tendency to adhere to its cultural pillar of 建前（たてまえ・tatemae - not causing disruption or showing extreme emotion in public), if the government says it needs to concrete over every Sakura blossom in the name of the country's progress, most people would allow it to happen.

One can only hope that the current economic crisis might cause some in higher places to have second thoughts about the necessity of a concrete addiction. This is, however, unlikely. The relentless destruction of natural habitats is now tied into the economy to such an extent that it would be financially and politically detrimental for Japan to stop building over things. It has literally developed a dependency on wiping out much of its natural past.