So as it turned out, yes, I am indeed the only person not to have realised that Kyoto and Tokyo are anagrammatic. I also didn’t realise they had similar meanings too – and thanks Sam for filling me in here! Turns out, Kyoto actually means ‘capital city’ and Tokyo ‘East capital’, Kyoto having held the top spot previously before it was moved back in 1868.

I’m a bit of a history buff at the best of times, and as per usual M.O. have been duly reading up on the history of Japan of late (genuinely fascinating stuff, btw…) – but for whatever reason I hadn’t seemed to have clocked this particular little factoid. Or perhaps I did, then forgot. Then forgot I’d forgotten. This seems to be becoming more and more of a running theme as I get older – and I seriously don’t like it.

Anyhoo, today it was off to Kyoto via bullet train / shinkansen! Is it me, or does it look a bit like a duck billed platypus…?

The highlight of the trip was getting to see some pretty decent views of Mount Fuji – which more than made up for the disappointment of Hakone, much to my delight.

Aside from that, traveling by bullet was pretty much just like any other normal train journey – though with the notable absence of any a) ‘leaves on the line’ / ‘wrong kind of rain’ BS and b) minus all the usual f*ckwittery from fellow passengers, which increasingly characterises the average London commute. By which I am referring to more and more common bell-end type behaviours as: conducting high-decibel (and often deeply personal) calls without shame or consideration for fellow passengers; playing infuriatingly noisy plink-plonk phone games without headphones and at full volume; and failing to acknowledge the train’s quiet zone. In short, basically evidencing a complete and utter inability to successfully discern between public and private spheres… I know I’m starting to sound like a grumpy old woman on this front, but screw it – I still stand firmly by the stance that anyone engaging in the any or all of the above should be summarily shot. In fact, hand me the gun – I’ll happily pull the trigger myself… Thank God though the Japanese are far too polite for that shizz, and I genuinely love them for it. 

In fact, now I think about it, there was a security guard walking up and down the aisles all journey – not that there was anything even vaguely untoward for him to tackle at all. This brings me on to another phenomenon I’ve noticed here, which – for want of a better term – I’ll call ‘old(er) men in uniform conducting semi-superfluous roles’.

By this, I’m referring to men of a certain age (maybe 50 to 60 – call it ‘pre-retirement’, if you like) who are a) in a uniform of some description (i.e. not police, but maybe in transport, tourism or similar capacity) and b) are proudly and diligently, even enthusiastically doing jobs which in the UK we’d class – no, we’d dismiss – as decidedly entry-level or unnecessary (e.g. ticket inspector / conductor / crossing guard, etc.). The key difference being that most Brits would unfailing CBA it in the same position (sensing, most likely, how little one’s efforts are valued by both the powers-that-be and by wider society…), while the Japanese take these positions very seriously indeed (some might even say officiously, in certain cases…). I don’t know even nearly enough about Japanese society or economy to really make much more than an uninformed observation on that front – though I do have a fledgling theory that Japan is only so efficient in no small part due to this army of ‘uniformed men of a certain age’, and the fact that they (and Japanese society) actually do give a non-ironic shit here…

Anyway, enough of my trivial musings and back to travel matters more immediately at hand. After a smooth 2 ½ hour journey, I pulled in (bang on time – of course!) to Kyoto at 11.37am, where first order of the afternoon was to hit up as many hanami (cherry blossom viewing spots) as humanly possible before the day was out. As I mentioned in a previous post, the season is out by 2 – 3 days here due to a warmer spring, meaning that the full bloom had already passed in Kyoto and it was literally a case of ‘now or never’ in terms of seeing what there was left to see…

In took 5 hours’ of solid walking (from Gion downtown over to Yasaka Gate, then up to Maruyama Park and across to Chion-in Temple, through to Heian Shrine and the Okazake canal, then round to the Keage Incline and on to Eikan-do temple, before finally embarking along the tree-lined Philosophers Path to the Ginkakuji Temple (aka the Silver Pavilion) as my final stop) – but I got it done!*

For the most part, there was still blossom about – albeit more on the ground that on the trees in some places, where a couple of days ago they’d have all been in fully-fledged bloom. Luckily for me, however, the trees at Heian Shrine typically bloom a few days later than across the rest of the city, and indeed there were some truly beautiful, archetypical Japanese-style garden scenes here in particular (most of the below pics are from this particular spot in the city).**

What surprised me was just how seriously the Japanese take sakura season as well. Turns out it’s a massive thing here every year – kind of like Christmas, except no one is all blasé / love hate / cynical about the entire thing. It does involve a lot of picnic-ing though (Maruyama Park in particular had very much a party atmosphere when I swung by), as well as countless young girls and couples getting their photographs professionally taken in full kimono / formal attire.

So, all in all, I think we can safely say I’ve seen the cherry blossom season in both Tokyo and Kyoto, albeit by the skin of my teeth in the latter, and not quite as abundantly as I’d have ideally liked in all places. Still, ‘my sakura is not sufficiently in bloom!’ is truly the ultimate in first world problems (I can hear the tiny violins playing as I type…) and I do genuinely count myself as extremely fortunate to have even been in a position to see them at all.

By tomorrow, it will likely be all but gone for another year…

* This was the epitome of ‘flying visit’ – I will definitely be doubling back on myself at some of these places over the next week to see them properly, rather than in something of a sakura-induced FOMO frenzy…   

** No need to read too much into this sentiment, Dad and Lorraine – I’m not about to go spunking over gardens any time soon; this one was a legit exceptional case on account of the country and the season.