Sarah Round The World

Well, my last full day in Kyoto turned out to be a scorcher, so I thought I’d better use it to maximum effect! With this in mind, I headed over to Nara late morning, which is a nearby town famous for its temples, big Buddha statues and very friendly local deer population.

Never ones to miss a merchandising opportunity, the Nara prefecture powers-that-be have duly set about kawaii’ing the ever-loving shit out of the local deer populace. Notably, this includes a) the presence of a somewhat effete faun type creature as official city mascot (a highly flamboyant Mr Tumnus comes to mind here…) and b) the more recent creation of some sort of part-deer, part-Pikachu marketing monstrosity. In fairness, said deer-cum-Pokémon abomination does at least have the grace to look thoroughly embarrassed at having been conceptualised into existence in the first place here…

Back in Kyoto later that afternoon, I also passed by Yokai Street, which translates as ‘Monster Street’ in Japanese. As the legend goes, thousands of years ago, yokai or ‘monsters’ invaded the northernmost street of the old capital of Kyoto – and for that reason the owners of shops on this street now construct paper-maché monsters as a celebration of the legends (and definitely not as a cynical tourist draw on the cheap, which is otherwise what you might be forgiven for thinking here…). Here are some of the ones I met on my travels at any rate:

And finally, I had the ramen to beat all ramen yesterday evening as well – definitely the best I’ve had in Japan so far, and that’s saying a lot! That said, when they asked if I wanted garlic, I was expecting maybe half a clove, rather than best part of half a bulb here – I don’t know if Japan has vampires, but if they do, they’d better steer clear for the foreseeable!*

And that’s it from me for today – I’ll be sure to check in again from Hiroshima in a bit!

* PS: They kinda do, though not in any kind of sense we would recognise in the West – and certainly no evidence of any allergies / aversions to garlic that I can find. Which, in essence, means that there is still a fair to middling theoretical chance that Japanese vampires may well still club together with the Yokai Street monsters and those scary graveyard bibbed dudes from the cemetery the other day to come and kill me horrifically in my sleep… If this proves my last entry, you know why…

So, for anyone out there still on tenterhooks off the back of my last post, please rest assured that I did in fact make it back to Kyoto with sphincter intact in the end. With that most pressing of updates (as it were) now officially out of the way, I’d instead like to run with a different theme from the last entry – which is the humble Japanese ryokan.

I alluded to ryokan in my last post, as shukubo share some of the features of this type of quintessentially Japanese accommodation. Essentially, a ryokan is a traditional, family-run inn, which typically features tatami-matted rooms, roll-out futon beds, sliding doors and communal baths (often based on hot springs, if any are nearby) – oh, and they typically give you a yukata to wear for the duration of your stay as well. To date, I’ve been staying mainly in hostels (mainly so I can chat to people of an evening in the bar), but I wanted to make sure I stayed in a ryokan proper at least once during my stay in Japan – so booked myself into one for my second interim stint in Kyoto, after getting back from Koyasan.

My conclusions…? Staying in a ryokan (at least one on the ‘cheap and cheerful’ end of the spectrum, like I did) was in my case very much like going to stay with your little old eccentric Japanese grandparents, who are very much looking forward to your visit, but at the same time seem vaguely surprised by the fact you’ve actually turned up at all and aren’t exactly sure what to do with you now you’re here…

Now, said grandparents are absolutely, unfailingly lovely – but equally do also have their idiosyncratic ‘little ways’, such as having the heating on full blast all of the time and wanting to know the exact timings for your next shower, not to mention demonstrating a curiosity (bordering on intrusiveness / obsession at times…) as to where you’re going, who you’re seeing and when you’ll be back again whenever you leave the building. They may similarly have a penchant for hot water in thermos flasks and/or hot water bottles, have built a slightly bonkers shrine to tat in the reception area, and overall seem somewhat distrustful of and/or bemused by t’internet – having gone so far as to install wifi at some point in the not-too-distant past, but preferring themselves to check guests in and out via the trusty offline medium of a big fat hardback ledger instead (in the most beautiful kanji calligraphy, it must be said though….). Finally they may or may not have the Japanese equivalent of garden gnomes in the garden (those big balled tanuki things again…).

There will almost certainly be a decided preoccupation with house slippers in their various different guises – and woe betide you should you forget these rules for a second! Let’s pause for a moment on slipper logic in Japan, which – I have to say – strikes me as just a teensy tiny bit OTT, if my recent ryokan experience is anything to go by at least…

Firstly, you have to take off your outdoor shoes off at the threshold – which I totally get and am down with (don’t want to bring outside dirt into the home and all that). Then secondly, you have to put on indoor slippers (of which there are a vast array to choose from at the door), but – and this is important – these are for the halls only. You will need to take off said hall slippers again after just a few feet (or even just a few steps), before you enter your actual ryokan room – and this apparently serves as a key indicator to your hosts as to whether you’re in or out at any one time, as I later found out to my cost (fortunately not while in any compromising position at the time though!). Then thirdly there are the bathroom slippers, which you have to change into from your hall slippers (which, remember, must be donned at the threshold of your room, but absolutely not inside it) and same again in the other direction. The absolute worst thing you can do in a ryokan (also garnered from first-hand recent experience) is to momentarily forget that you are in bathroom slippers and not hall slippers and wander off innocently back to your room again – this faux pas will be greeted with scarcely concealed horror by your hosts, to whom this is akin to stepping directly in a dirty great bathroom turd* and trailing it all along the whole ryokan corridor… Well, far be it from me to criticise another culture in any way here, but I do feel I have to let you know, Japan, that we have these little things in the West called socks, which cover literally all of the above scenarios interchangeably without issue or drama. We use them in living room, kitchen, hall, bathroom and even (shock horror) the toilet, and to my knowledge no one has died yet… 😉

But, of course, all of the above is conducted with such endearing charm and graciousness that you can’t help but smile and do as you’re told asked here… Plus, they do offer a mean and most beautifully presented breakfast (as pictured below).

(This is where the grandparent analogy ends for me, by the way. Back in the day at my grandma’s, it was always Kelloggs cornflakes topped off with a mountain of sugar, plus all the cream off the top of the milk (as delivered by the milkman that morning) and possibly followed by a chaser of party ring biscuits – a meal which made up in calorie communicated love what it lacked in any form of basic sophistication, and actually makes me feel all a bit teary-eyed and nostalgic, now I think about it…)

Now, I am quite sure there are many other ryokan out there in Japan that are, shall we say, less homely and more sophisticated this one, just like in the UK our B&Bs run the full gauntlet from bad to basic to bijoux (as ‘Four in a Bed’ on 4oD will amply demonstrate). All I can do is speak my truth in respect of this particular stay – which for our purposes I think we’ll class under the category of ‘charmingly bonkers’ for now.

Anyhoo… I’ll be posting shortly in bit about my last full day in Kyoto (or thereabouts, at any rate…), so watch this space for the moment!

* I just don’t get why though. Surely the very point of being in a bathroom is not to deposit your excreta all over the floor….? And, statistically speaking, your average bathroom surface is usually cleaner than kitchen surface, after all (not mine, I hasten to add – my kitchen’s bloody spotless…).

Well, four separate subway lines, 1 intercity train, 2 funiculars and a cable car later (and same again in reverse to come later this morning), I’m posting from lovely Koyasan, where there is wifi (to a degree) – though decidedly temperamental to say the least…

Despite the complexity of the journey and volume of changes en route, the journey itself went pretty smoothly – with the one notable exception of the shits hitting suddenly, epically and lavishly at Osaka station (twice) and then again at the nearby Shin-Imamiya station, where I was in the process of changing for another line. At one point, I was literally having visions of remaining forever trapped in limbo somewhere on the map of greater Osaka, having to spend the rest of my days locked in a random metropolitan interchange station bathroom, staring at the same four toilet stall doors, whilst intermittently shitting water. Fortunately for me though, there was finally a break in proceedings (as it were) just long enough for me to harness the power of Google (both Maps and Translate) to find a pharmacist just around the corner from the station and communicate my immediate predicament to the lady at the counter (which in case you ever need is ge-ri (下痢)), whose pills prescribed mercifully soon did the job. Thank God for the Japanese custom of building in a pristine set of toilets in every conceivable spot, is all I can say, though I don’t think the ‘privacy button’ really quite served its purpose in full on this occasion… Perhaps this was all that eel from the other day coming back to haunt me!

Anyway, moving swiftly on from what I will hitherto term ‘The Osaka Incident’ (which we’ll agree to never mention again), and on to Koyasan – which, thank Christ, I finally (if very gingerly) managed to reach with buttocks and bowels, if not perhaps soul, intact. Koyasan is basically a small, secluded mountain town that is also a World Heritage Site and the birthplace of Shingon Buddhism, being primarily made up of various living, breathing temples and monasteries (all of 117 of them in about a square mile radius).

By this point in the trip, I had seen more temples (Buddhist and Shinto) than you could likely shake a stick at – but the difference here is that you actually got to stay in one! Most of the monasteries in Koyasan offer what’s called shukubo, which is basically simple temple lodging – usually Japanese wooden / sliding door / futon bed ryokan style and shared bathrooms, and with the option to join in on various meditation sessions / morning prayers, alongside the resident monks etc.

This was my room (before futon bed was rolled out) at the Saizen-in temple:

Another super interesting (and delicious) feature of a shukobo stay is getting to partake of the monks’ meals as well, which are called shojin-ryori. Shojin-ryori basically constitutes Japanese vegetarian Buddhist cuisine, being made up of vegetables, tofu in various guises and edible wild plants (many of which I couldn’t even recognise, let alone name…). The sharp-eyed among you will have obviously spotted that some sashimi seems to made it into the mix here too – not to mention (even more surprisingly) some sake! I’m guessing these items are sops for the paying guests, rather than something the resident monks get to partake in as well, but who knows…? 😉

Plus the Saizen-in had its own onsen (hot springs) – which were definitely what the doctor ordered (over and above loperamide) after a long day’s travel and temple visitation.

My own morning in Kayosan started bright and early in joining the monks for prayers at 7am. This was the whole, real-deal shebang of chanting, gongs, incense, etc. – all of which I’ve observed before to varying degrees in various countries around Asia (most notably Tibet), but never at such close quarters, nor from within the ‘inner sanctum’ itself, as it were. In short, something really quite special to observe close up and personal.

This was a site of active worship, of course, so I couldn’t take any photos or video, but here are some examples I found on t’interweb to give you a bit of a sense of it all (the photos are from Saizen-in, and the vid from a temple round the corner – but a very similar vibe).

After this, it was across town to visit Okunoin Cemetery, Japan’s largest cemetery and site of the mausoleum for one Kōbō Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, who is said to have been in a state of meditative trance there since about the 1^st century. He’s apparently even still served two ritualistic meals by the monks each day (left outside the mausoleum door) – though no one has thought to actually check in on the poor bugger in two thousand years – so best hope he doesn’t want out at this point! Still, kudos to the fella – I can’t even meditate for 5 minutes at a time (if that…), so best part of two millennia is pretty good going on that front!

Okunoin turned out to be really interesting, as graveyards go. As you enter the cemetery, you first encounter several of the large-scale ‘prestige’ headstones, which typically fall into two camps. Firstly, there are the ones that reflect notable features of the life of the deceased – I’m guessing chess player, rocket engineer, pet lover and jaunty wearer of scarves (and possible hipster) here. Secondly there are the ones that seemingly come with their own corporate sponsorship (note Nissan, Sanki and Aderans), which are presumably built for the former big wigs of those respective organisations. This in itself is pretty telling in terms of the relationship of the typical Japanese salaryman with both their employment and employer. I mean, I like my job and everything too – but not to a point I’d want it emblazoned on my tombstone for ever more…

As you get further in, however, things start getting both more forested and decidedly more creepy, with the graves (all of 200,000 in total*) becoming ever more tumbledown, moss covered and neglected. And then these horrific fucked-up bibbed dudes (pictured below) start turning up more and more. I don’t know quite what the deal is with these nightmarish little creatures**, but all the same I’m officially freaked out – and also very I’m glad I didn’t do the night time tour of the place in the end either!

Aside from that the rest of day was spent generally pootling around, looking in at various temples. I didn’t visit all 117 of the temples in Koyasan, of course, but there was a bloody great massive orange one you really couldn’t miss (coincidentally enough called the Orange Temple – or Konpon Daito), that certainly stuck out…

Anyway, that’s it for another exciting adventure! Tune in next time for a re-cap of my last day or two in Kyoto, before moving onto Hiroshima as my fourth and final leg of the journey later this week.

As for now, I’ll be sending up a silent prayer at services this morning for a less ‘disrupted’ journey back again… 😉 Forewarned is forearmed this time though!

*  “They’re dead Dave, everybody’s dead…”

** PS: Just looked it up. These are jizo bosatsu, which are spiritual beings who strive for the enlightenment of all creatures and (in the case of the small ones) protect the souls of children. Sounds benign enough, I suppose, but am personally not convinced – they still look creepy AF in my book…

Well, spring has officially re-sprung here in Kyoto, so I was up bright and early to visit Arashiyama, a district to the east of the city that I’d not yet reached in my travels to date.

Arashiyama is most known for it’s forest of soaring bamboo trees, which gives off a quite ethereal light when the sun’s at the right angle (which it was), but doesn’t lend itself particularly well to capturing on film. I suppose Arashiyama’s bamboo grove must just be one of those places that looks really awesome in real-life 3D, but – at least in my case – all you end up having to show for it afterwards is about 300 pictures in isolation of random sodding trees… These were some of my best efforts, at any rate:

From here, it was a hop skip and a jump to the neighbouring Tenryu-ji Temple, which had some really lovely, peaceful gardens, with a smattering of cherry blossom still in evidence here (oh Christ, there I go again with the garden love, Dad and Lorraine – this is getting seriously worrying now…).

I can’t be turning into too much of a closeted horticulturalist quite yet though, as I didn’t stick around particularly long here fawning over flora (geddit?), but instead headed over the nearby wooden Togetsu-kyo Bridge and up to the Arashiyama Monkey Park, situated at the top of a very steep nearby hill – but with good views out over Kyoto, and with a giant novelty banana to boot… Not to mention some very contemplative looking monkeys too…

After a spot of light lunch (sushi followed by a matcha ice cream – bliss!), it was then up the Sagano Railway, a narrow gauge train that runs along the Hozugawa River gorge, with scenic views out over Arashiyama’s pleasant array of forests and mountains.

Oh, and I don’t know who these little guys are (are they bears…? Some form of rodent…? I really couldn’t say…), but they were bloody everywhere in Arashiyama:

So all in all, a pretty chilled, low-key, pleasant, springtime kind of a day really – and I do apologise for the ongoing lack of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on this front (my most hedonistic point of the day being the ice cream, I think… 😀 !).

I thought it would still be worth a quick check in on here though, as I’m off to the (comparatively at least) more remote Koya-San tomorrow on something of a mini monastic retreat, and I’m not sure what the deal is with wifi – both in terms of availability while I’m there, or my own potential ability to sufficiently zen out to a point I could actually make it a day or two without (hah!).

Either way, have a great Easter all and I’ll check in when I can… Bye for now!

PS: I am reliably informed that those little guys are tankai, a Japanese racoon. Apparently you can tell by the giant scrotums.

This post is dedicated to my Dad, who is over at mine painting my flat as we speak. Thank you Daddy (or should I say dōmo arigatō gozaimasu, Otōsan / おさん、どうもありがとう)!

Today’s weather was still a bit hit and miss, so I took the chance to carry on my culinary exploration of Kyoto (meaning yet another visit to Nishiki market, of course!) and also hit up one or two of the city’s “quirkier” museums en route.

The first was the Kyoto Samurai Museum, which I found absolutely fascinating. Did you know Darth Vadar was modelled on the ancient samurai? And that women could also be samurai (if born into a samurai family, that is…)? And that the word for a samurai warrior in Japanese is actually bushi (hence bushidō as the term for their moral code), while samurai refers to the social caste as a whole? And that satsumas are from a place called Satsuma in Japan, where the Satsuma Rebellion took place….? And that Chandler from Friends personally put an end to the prior period of Japanese isolationism? And that the last ritual seppuku (self-execution by disembowelment) actually only took place in 1970…?

Well, now you do! 😉 Btw, the museum also had a handy guide (which I’m including for reference below) on how you too can commit seppuku at home, but a word of warning here: it won’t officially “count” if you’re not a samurai already, so you may just end up looking like a bit of a tit here, if not careful. Just like I’m looking a bit of a tit myself, dressed up a like a samurai below (they made me do this…).

Next stop was the Kyoto International Manga Museum (not just a ‘local’ manga museum, not even a merely ‘national’ one, but a full-on ‘international’ version…), to see if I could improve on my non-existent baseline knowledge of manga here. I can’t say I emerged from this experience much more the wiser, in all honesty, but I did get a chance to play in a manga photo booth, to quite hilarious results… 😉

Well, Dad, you did say you wanted more pictures of me… 😉 Oh and for the record, I’m not on drugs here – the photo machine just manga’d up my eyes. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

In other news, does anyone remember that scene from The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) by Günther Grass, where the mum goes nuts and compulsively binge eats all the eel? (I appreciate this may well just be me, some remaining fellow German Language & Literature course mates, and possibly Mum…?) Either way, that was totally me today.

I’d decided to go for a late sushi lunch at Nishiki market (pictured below), and afterwards thought I just about had room enough for a barbequed eel skewer from one of the neighbouring food stands – which was bloody delicious. This pretty much would have done me, had I not then spotted the bad boy with the caviar on the way back out – and I just had to have it. As a result, I’m now sitting here typing this with oily fish oozing out of my pores, but oh my God it was so worth it… Some people are all about the cheese, others all about the chocolate; turns out I’m all about the anguilliformes, baby.

Anyway, that’s it for another day! Sun’s back out tomorrow, so will be exploring the eastern part of the city, which I’ve not got to yet – will report back soon…

On and Happy Easter all in the meantime!

One of the great things about Japan is of course the food (of the non-plastic variety, that is…). Ramen, sushi, shabu-shabu, yakitori, ongiri, okonomiyaki, kaiseki, tempura, tonkatsu, mochi and much, more more – so a big thing for me has of course been eating and drinking my way round the place as I’ve gone.

Admittedly, I do keep getting stuck mainly on ramen – usually purchased at various little hole-in-the wall type places, similar to as pictured below. It’s quick, affordable (as far as Japan goes!) and is one of my all-time favourite meals at the best of times, so a default ‘go to’ most evenings for me. The ones I’ve had to date have varied from the mediocre to the sublime, with some so bloody good they almost count as near transcendental – truly like achieving noodly-inspired nirvana at times. Eat your heart out, Wagamama.

Plus, there are about as many types of ramen as there are Japanese people – so you could literally spend a lifetime eating only ramen (and, oh, what a happy life that would be…) and never make it through… To date, my favourite is tonkotsu, which is a creamy pork-based ramen – super fatty, but really good on the one or two chillier days we’ve had here.

But I’ve also gone off piste and pushed the boat out too, on the odd occasion. Today is quite literally piddling it down, so I took strategic advantage of this fact to schedule my one big blow-out meal of the trip. Kyoto is known for its kaiseki cuisine, which basically means a set course meal chosen by the chef to highlight a specific seasonal theme. You are very much spoilt for choice on where to eat out in the city, but in the end I landed upon the mid-range Pontacho Fujita in Kyoto’s downtown dining district (think yet more wooden houses, red lanterns and curtains over the doorways, etc.). I’d chosen this place pretty much for the sole reason that they had one of the more easily navigable reservation sites (by no means a given in Japan!) and the ability to book for just the one person, rather than a two head minimum – but thankfully the food was amazing here as well! I’d love to be able to describe what I had (and the chef did make a point of carefully explaining each and every dish to me at the time…), but with all of 11 courses in the mix, I honestly can’t remember the details now… Suffice to say though, it was all bloody lovely – even the tofu course (not my bag usually, but in a whole other league of its own in Japan, at any rate).

Admittedly, I did have a bit of a panic beforehand at the prospect of turning up to a more upmarket establishment in my (increasingly manky at this point…) trainers, so ended up having a last-minute dash around the city to buy a semi-decent pair of cheapo heels. Only to then be reminded, once I arrived, that of course it’s a case of shoes off at the door in most ‘proper’ Japanese restaurants anyway – doh! Which does raise the question as to how the Japanese might contend with any potential podalic hygiene issues on the part of the clientele that could arise in this scenario…? In my case, I’d come daisy fresh straight from the hostel (with brand-new clean socks on…), but close-hand recent experience tells me that my feet have distinctly hummed after some of my busier walking days of late. Do the Japanese carry emergency clean socks with them for just such occasions…? I’m beginning to think it’s not a bad idea to do myself here too, you know, just on the off chance…

But anyway, once again I digress. Back to some other recent examples of non-ramen based dining… I also got dinner the other night at a sake bar, where I ordered omakase (meaning chef’s choice – much easier when the menu is all in Japanese). The below was (I think) some squid in sauce, yellowfin sashimi and kim chi, followed by potato and egg salad and deep fried baby squid. All duly delicious, but I did have to get a couple of 7/11 rice balls on the way home again to properly fill the hole on this occasion! The first glass of sake also came free with the food, which (silly me, given the venue) I hadn’t been expecting. After the last 3 months off the sauce, I couldn’t manage more than a few sips without threatening to fall off my stool in the process.. Complete cheap date alert right here!

Thirdly, the other night I also joined a more casual group kaiseki dinner at a local place called Hamacho, which was a bit hit and miss in terms of the food (though admittedly I forgot to take pics of a couple of courses, amid the conversation). It was definitely a great opportunity to meet and mingle though – and I ended up having a really good time!

That’s us before, during and after the meal in another bar (and yes, that is a real drink – being consumed very slowly and carefully on my part!)

Plus there’s all the various snacks and picnic lunches I’ve had along the way too. I started out typically eating one ‘picnic’ meal per day from the supermarket deli counter or 7/11 per day, in part to keep an eye on costs (Japan ain’t cheap y’all) – but also because these ‘pick n mix’ meals are also really tasty in their own right.

Until I did the maths, that is, and realised it would actually still be cheaper to just go for ramen, or to buy a lunch Blue Peter style (i.e. one that someone else made earlier). Which brings us nicely onto ebiken. These are what basically inspired the ‘bento box’ in the UK, which really doesn’t exist as a concept in Japan in the same way – i.e. you wouldn’t go out to eat bento at a fancy restaurant, for example. Rather, ebiken are basically the Japanese equivalent of a day-to-day sandwich or packed lunch – something you might pull together for a picnic or buy ready-made for a long train journey. This is kind of what they look like – I do love the fact they many of them are gift wrapped too!

Well, it certainly beats Pret, that’s for sure!

And then there’s the markets – both the Tsujiki Market in Tokyo, which I’ve touched on in a previous post, and the local Nishiki Market in Kyoto, which I’ve also hit up a few times of late for various lunches, dinners and just for shits and giggles for the most part too. Once again, a ridiculous amount of camera storage was used up during these various visits, and also once again the below constitutes just a tiny fraction of the total pictures taken!

Then of course you have your drinks. Let’s put it this way: it is physically impossible to ever go thirsty in Japan (bar being short of a bit of loose change, that is). There are vending machines literally everywhere here, on every street corner and even on people’s driveways in some cases. Most of the drinks here are incredibly sweet (e.g. think sweetened green tea, cold milky sweet black tea and even sugary sweetcorn tea…) and far too sickly for me – but there’s always good old pocari sweat in a pinch…

In fact, drinks-wise, the overarching theme of trip has not been sake or asahi (I’ve actually been incredibly sparing all trip), but matcha tea – which is my new potable equivalent of crack cocaine. I’ve had the ‘real deal’ in matcha a couple of times at formal tea houses or at yesterday’s tea ceremony, but the one I’m really obsessed with is from Doutor, which is basically the Japanese equivalent to Costa or Starbucks – i.e. the completely bastardised version! No one day in Japan has yet passed without a Doutor visit – sometimes two, once even three. Perhaps it’s not so much the matcha I like after all, but all that lovely jubbly milk and sugar that constitutes today’s commercialised matcha latte offerings!

So there you have it – and, as you can see, I’ve certainly been eating well here! Thank God for the 30k average steps per day to balance out all the matcha (et al) calories, or I’d seriously be coming back to the UK ten times the size (though even then, it would still be worth it!).

So once again, that’s it from me for now – back again in a day or two’s time…

Well, the weather may have temporarily turned, but I’ve still been having a fab old time in beautiful Kyoto, most recently exploring the city’s geisha traditions past and present.

To set the scene a little bit, just before the rain kicked in, I hit the old town areas of Ninen-Zaka and Sannen-Zaka (meaning ‘Two Year Hill’ and ‘Three Year Hill’ respectively, the years referring to the ancient imperial years when they were first laid out).

As you can see, there was no shortage of tourists – both Western and Japanese – decked out in kimonos and/or formal traditional dress here, and it’s very much ‘thing’ in this neighbourhood to get togged up and have your photos professionally done against the historic backdrop of the area. In fact, there are places that will kit you out in full-on geisha (or maiko) garb – think kimono, wig, make-up and all. Now if – and I do mean if – I were ever to indulge that particular little whim, best believe I would never be so foolish as to post any of the photographic results on a public forum (far too sensitive ground in these oh-so-fevered times…). All I will say on that front is that if I had done anything of that particular nature, it would very likely have represented the hands-down best thing I’d done in Japan to date, as well as being possibly the most beautiful that I’ve ever felt in my life before too (and that includes on my own wedding day…).

Anyway, moving swiftly on, let’s take a look at some real geisha instead. In the afternoon, I went to the Gion-kōbu Kaburenjo Theater to observe a Japanese tea pouring, followed by a performance of the Miyako Odori (translated as “Dances of the Capital”). The latter is basically a musical and theatrical tribute to the four seasons, performed by about 60 geiko and maiko (a geiko being another Kyoto word for geisha and a maiko being a geisha in training). Somewhat counter-intuitively at first sight, the geisha actually has the simpler make-up and attire, while the maiko gets to rock the snazzier kimono and bling-bling hair pieces. This is apparently a reflection of the fact that the geisha, as the consummate professional, has no need of such outer adornments, while the maiko as a trainee is essentially compensating for her comparative lower-level skillset by means of external fashion and accessories (and I’m sure we’ve all met someone like that before too…).

The Miyako Odori had a no photography rule, which I personally thought was a bit rich – I mean, what the hell did I pay best part of forty quid to get in for, if not to photograph some real-life frikkin’ geishas…?? (Sorry, that sounded terribly incel of me right there *gives head minor wobble*). Hence the photos and vids that I did take being a little bit on the furtive side – but hopefully enough to give you the gist here…

Of the performance itself, I suppose all I can say on this front is that geisha performance represents something of an acquired taste…? A visual spectacle for sure, and the costumes were stunning, but, as with a lot of these things, was pretty much reflective of a time well before Netflix, when entertainment was basically just that – shall we say – little bit more rudimentary all round. But hey, at least I’ve done something vaguely cultural / artistic while I’m here (unless you count the Poo Museum, which quite frankly I absolutely do…).

Anyway, on a similar theme, while in Ninen-Zaka, I also went to a tea ceremony – or at least a highly abridged version of the 4 hour ‘real deal’. Personally I thought this was really interesting to learn about – plus I got a matcha and a sweet out of it too, which always helps. I can’t remember all the details, but it will come as no great surprise here that the tea ceremony, like most traditional Japanese customs, is highly refined in nature – almost exquisite in its encapsulation of nuance, precision, poise, delicacy and finesse, with every move, every gesture being imbued with deeper meaning and significance.

While I realise all the above is not necessarily reflective of the realities of modern-day Japan outside of the tea room or the theatre etc., there is still undeniably a clear element of refinement, respect, subtlety and sophistication woven into the fabric of daily life here, that does go some way towards making up the day-to-day social niceties and norms. It does make me seriously wonder what the Japanese must think of us gaijin… In contrast, we must come across as giant, ungainly, ungraceful heffalumps, with our unsophisticated manners, loud voices, giant doorstep sandwiches and (in the Brits’ case) tendency to swig builders’ tea from a giant Sports Direct mug. When stacked against the Japanese, in short, culturally speaking we’re positively Neanderthal by comparison…

Anyway, enough of my musings for now and back to Ninen- and Sannen-Zaka. Of course, in this tourist-saturated neck of the woods, there were also souvenirs a-plenty on sale literally everywhere you looked. Now, I wouldn’t normally go round photographing tourist tat, I hasten to add, but some of these were so damn kawaii it hurt – hence taking a bit of a photographic selection of various memorabilia here, rather than giving into the very sore temptation to simply buy them all instead (which I still very well might…!).

And, on a completely unrelated note, bad weather is also great for eating! I’ve been working my way around the local Nishiki market, and also had my long awaited Kyoto kaizeki dinner yesterday evening too – but more on the above in the next entry…

In the meantime, I’m continuing to keep a trusty eye out out for glimpses of the weird and wonderful on my travels… That’s me with Totoru (I didn’t know who he was either till this trip); some of the monsters over on Yokai Street; a giant crab on the side of a building and… well… my guess is as good as yours on the rest!

Anyway, that’s plenty to be going on with from me for now – off to re-read Memoirs of a Geisha as we speak! In the meantime, sayonara for the moment…

Well, if Monday’s veritable route march around Kyoto city was motivated by a rabid and insatiable cherry blossom frenzy on my part, today’s 35k epic was by contrast very much weather-driven. It’s due to rain in Kyoto over the next couple of days, and for that reason I wanted to see the city’s top-most attractions to their best advantage, before the weather turns. Fret ye not, however! The sun’s due to appear again before I move on, and in the meantime I have lots of fun indoor things on the cards to do over the next couple of days (also laundry, but I doubt that will make the blog somehow… 😉).

With the above in mind, today’s theme was very much temples temples (too many?) temples. Apparently Kyoto has a whole host of 1,600 of the things, of which between yesterday and today I’ve seen just the seven – all of 0.43% of the actual total, which puts things into perspective a little bit here!

Anyway, before I get into that though, my inner grumpy old woman (who is increasingly becoming more outer than inner these days…) once again needs to vent her spleen a little bit first. What has boiled my piss this time, you may ask….? Well, I’ll tell you – it’s this: since when the feck did it become a fecking thing for tourists to try to pull off choreographed tik tok dances in front of major sites of historical and/or natural significance…? Or to spend practically half the frigging day carefully curating that ‘just-so’ insta pose in front of a famous landmark / monument / view…? I wouldn’t care, but for the fact that the above invariably ends up being transacted at the expense of everyone else patiently (or in my case, not so patiently…) waiting their turn for a pic, who are de facto forced to sit through the whole bloody juvenile, narcissistic palaver in the process. Anyway, I’m not quite enough of a cowbag that I’ve (yet) deliberately sabotaged anyone’s desperate devoted quest for social media virality, but I am enough of a one to find it an entirely appealing prospect all the same… It’s just so bloody selfish: stop monopolising the view, take your fucking photo and move, bitch. Kids these days, honestly…   

Anyhoo, best not go any further down that particular rabbit hole, or we’ll end up here all day… Kyoto itself was (as you’d expect) duly stunning, and more than lived up to its reputation as one of the most beautiful cities of the East. I won’t wax lyrical, as that’s not really my style – suffice to say the place was pretty amazeballs, and I’ll otherwise let the pics do the talking here. (You’ll also note I was a bit premature in my last post in consigning this year’s cherry blossom to oblivion yesterday – still clearly a fair bit hanging in there today! One of those rare occasions where I’m happy to be proven wrong…!)

So, in order of uniqueness / interest, rather than chronology of visitation, we have:

1. The Golden Temple

It’s a temple and it’s golden. Does what it says on the tin!

2. Fushimi Inari Shrine

Fushimi Inari is known for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which stretch 4km into the forest of Mount Inari (I didn’t walk the whole route, but a fair old chunk of it). There’s a bit of fox theme going on here too – as they are thought to be messengers from the god Inari, the Shinto god of rice and sake (who sounds very much like my kind of guy… 😉 ).

3. Imperial Palace Kyoto

No longer off limits to the general public, this huge palace gardens and grounds (former residence of the Imperial Family before the capital moved to Tokyo) is a popular spot for picnics in the city. I too followed suit with a katsu sandwich, iced matcha latte and a much needed sit-down (when in Rome, etc…).

4. Nijo Castle

This residence of both the shogun and later the Imperial family still had cherry blossom out in force on my visit. More notably, I had a matcha ice-cream (seriously needed the calories at that point) here, which suffice to say absolutely blew my tiny mind.

5. Tofukuji Temple

To the south of the city, Tofukuji is known for its garden bridge (the Tsutenkyo Bridge) and manicured rock and sand gardens.

6. Gion

Gion is Kyoto’s geisha district, full of traditional wooden buildings, emblematic red lanterns and upmarket bars / restaurants that are booked out for weeks if not months in advance. I did spot one geisha on my wanderings, but that was my lot for the evening here.

While, the city is undeniably beautiful, as a whole it is quite different from how I’d imagined. I’d kind of pictured the place as one of those higgledy-piggledy labyrinthine, olde worlde type places, chockful of teeny tiny windy narrow streets and confusing street numbering conventions. Quite the opposite though – beyond the temples and certain well preserved old districts, Kyoto is actually based on a grid system and as such feels really light, airy and surprisingly modern – think broad boulevards and tree-lined streets all round, with lots of futuristic architecture dotted about too. Just by way of example, here’s Kyoto central train station:

So anyway, that about wraps it up for another manic day – I’m pretty much beat at this point, and am finding myself almost relieved at the prospect of a slightly rainy day tomorrow, if it means I can actually allow myself a lie-in!

That’s it for now then – stay tuned for another exciting episode in a day or two’s time…

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.

So, as I mentioned at the end of my last update, yesterday afternoon saw me head across to Akihabara, Tokyo’s famous manga, anime, gaming and electronics area, as well as purported red light district.

I realise manga and anime have a huge cult following worldwide, but for whatever reason neither have ever really featured on my radar to date, beyond a vague awareness of their existence – in fact, I only realised manga and anime weren’t actually the same thing in the course of reading up for this trip*. Personally, the only ones I could name would be Spirited Away, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon (I think?) – not that I’ve ever watched any of them at all. Unless you count Pokémon, that is, where I do admittedly have a working knowledge of the OG cast of characters – people and Pokémon – and know all the words to the original theme tune. I’d blame my little nephew (Pokémon obsessed) for this, but for the fact that this decidedly superfluous knowledge was in fact garnered through frequent hangover viewing of SMTV Live (with a young Ant and Dec!) back in my student days…

Similarly, my gaming phase pretty much started and ended with Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog in their early iterations – though I do also recall a bit of Alex Kidd and prototype Duke Nukem / Mortal Combat also in the mix back in the day as well… Unless Wordle, Quordle, Octordle, Solitaire, Sudoku, Minesweeper and Scrabble count as gaming proper these days…? I saw precious little evidence even of their mere existence at Akihabara, so am guessing that is very much not the case here…! 😉 )

Still, several million Japanese (not to mention legions of devoted fans worldwide) can’t all be wrong – and the place was certainly popular!! I had a bemused, but mainly mystified, wander through the various arcades, gaming centres and manga stores here – my one point of even vaguely familiar cultural reference being the 80s and 90s retro gaming shop Super Potato. This place had all the old school GameBoy and Master System etc. type games, and was even selling a real-life 16-bit Sega Mega Drive, which certainly brought back memories (mainly of fighting my younger brother for a turn…!).

Obviously the ‘adult shops’ here were somewhat less, shall we say, impenetrable (for want of a better term!) to the outside observer – in so far as no culturally specific prior knowledge was required here (bar that of the meaning of octopus tentacles, perhaps…).

That being said, one of the quirks of Akihabara is the many young Japanese girls dressed as ‘cutesy’ maids plying the streets here, inviting passers-by to be waited upon at a local “maid café” – for an absolutely extortionate drink and cover price, of course. My (very third-hand) understanding here is that the maids are considered more ‘entertainers’ in (an admittedly weird and f*cked up version of) the old geisha tradition, whereby guests are attentively served, conversed with and overall just gently entertained etc. (and I don’t mean that euphemistically here, or at least I don’t think I do…?). But what the hell do I know…? After all, it wasn’t like I was about to pay the cover charge to find out either… 😉

Which pretty much wraps it up for Akihabara – to my disappointment, I didn’t find any of those famous vending machines of used ladies’ panties on my wanderings either. If they were anywhere in Tokyo though, Akihabara is definitely where they would be…

Anyway, Tara and Stuart, I know you wanted a bit more sex drugs and rock n roll, so hopefully this goes some way to giving you your fix, at least on the first front… There is of course far worse than I’m posting on here (some of those sex shops got proper sordid), but my Mum and Auntie Anne are reading, so I will leave to your own imaginations here (which I know are both suitably filthy… 😉 ).

Anyhoo, while we’re on the subject of the weird and wonderful, here are some other odds and sods I have encountered on my travels over the last few days.

First of all, we have the insanely wonderful (or wonderfully insane?) Gotokuji cat temple, which for reasons unknown features multiple cat statues at the gates of an otherwise non-descript cemetery in a totally random residential district (side note: please please please please bury me here).

We also have: the steampunk style Gigli Giant Clock; a life-sized plastic Hello Kitty; a disembodied Easter Island style head; a giant gorilla statue (another one seemingly just plonked down at random in the middle of nowhere); a much photographed monument to Hachiko (a famous Japanese dog, apparently…); a stack of the many and varied local flavours of Kit Kats; an overly alarmist Japanese public information poster; and some random toilet instructions (both for Western and Eastern style alternatives – in case you ever get confused either way…).

And that about wraps it up for Tokyo, which has been an absolutely brilliant start to the trip! Next stop: Kyoto via bullet train tomorrow!

PS: I’ve only just clocked that Tokyo and Kyoto are anagrammatic. Had anyone else out there other than me completely failed to notice this fact to date….?? How stupid do I feel.

* For those similarly ignorant, apparently manga is the art form in book / comic format and anime is tv / film. A lot of anime is based on manga, but not all, and neither is all manga rendered into anime. So there you go: every day’s a school day!