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| Nijo-jo Castle, Kyoto |
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| Kiyo Misa-Dera Temple |
Leaving
the west coast of Honshu from Niigata meant that ahead of us was the longest
journey in a day by distance that we’ll have on the train. Shinkansen from Niigata to Kyoto via Tokyo
with roughly a dozen stops is about 530 miles and we covered it in 4 hours 21
minutes of train travel (plus a generous 17 seconds allowed to change trains in
Tokyo). Joking aside, I think we had
about 35 minutes to change trains. It rained the whole day, heavy rain too but
our luck continues to hold. We could get
to the station from our hotel under cover and if a day is going to be all rain
it might as well be when you’re travelling.
An hour or so outside Tokyo on the Kyoto side a message ran across the
electronic display warning of possible disruption due to an impending typhoon
which was news to us and meant that it turned out to be an even better choice
of travel day. The typhoon came through
that night when we were tucked up in a Kyoto bed but trains were cancelled,
roads were closed and we met people later whose travel plans or day out had
actually been a ‘washout’. 100 mph
winds apparently. A number of the temple
gardens in Kyoto had trees down or damaged and the ground was littered with
small twigs and branches everywhere which were being brushed up by hand with
small besoms.
The moss gardens were
being brushed even more carefully by people on their knees. A
typhoon by the way is the same as a hurricane and a cyclone, the name given to
it depends on geographical location, that’s all. Meteorologists know them collectively as Tropical Cyclones.
A
slight digression here. The popular
roofing on the northern west coast is glazed gloss black wavy tiles which we
hadn’t noticed elsewhere but I still couldn’t quite work out why the houses
looked oriental and not European. Then I
realised that the ridges along the top of a roof and down the edge of a roof at
a corner turn up slightly at the end. That’s all it is and there you have an
oriental roof.
The
usage of English can be puzzling here.
Not the translations which are sometimes just not understandable but
where the English is used. We’ve walked
into supermarkets where as you look round you can see at the top of the walls
‘Fresh Fish’, ‘Dairy Products’, ‘Vegetables’ or ‘Meat’ and that’s the only
English in the store. Nothing else has
anything other than Japanese on it.
Many magazines and books have English words on the cover and again
nothing but Japanese inside. It’s just
common usage in many places. Just as
with Japanese tourist s abroad, many people wear white masks but very many
people wear white cotton gloves. These
seem to be mostly service staff, Train drivers, Bus drivers, Taxi drivers and chauffeurs but it is very noticeable.
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| Kyoto Station |
We had
an Airbnb for five nights in Kyoto and it was now getting dark from storm
clouds and raining hard and despite full pictured instructions online on
everything we still got off the bus from the station too early. Still we got there ok but we were a bit damp
around the gills. Nice little apartment
though, clean, washing machine, space and right on the edge of Gion, a big entertainment,
restaurant and nightlife area. The
typhoon came through in the night although I slept through it and the rain had
cleared by the morning so off we set, working the Temples. Our rail passes could be used on some buses
and city trains but the 500 yen (£3.50) daily bus pass was a must with a fixed
rate ride being 230 yen. Unless I
concentrate, some of the temples do merge into a sort of all purpose place with
bits from all of them. Then again, how
many Cathedrals would you visit in a day and expect to tell them apart
later. The big highlights were the
gardens which were really excellent.
Unfortunately for us and due to not finding our chosen breakfast place,
our plans changed on the spot on one day and we visited different temples that
day including the fantastic Golden Temple, set next to a lake dotted with
islands planted with cloud pruned smallish (20 foot) conifers. It was unfortunate because it was overcast
while the following day was brilliant sun and blue sky. We got off the bus for the Kinkaku-ji Golden
Temple one stop too late, were looking in a café window when someone said hello
and I thought it was a helpful local.
No, we turned round and it was Lizzie, the trainee doctor and former
Dorchester resident from approximately a week and 500 miles ago.
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| Kinkak-ji Golden temple |
I make
no secret of the fact that I really do not like Japanese food but we have been
using chopsticks whenever we can although I can reveal that pizza is difficult
with them. I had always thought that
chopsticks were supposed to be elegant and we westerners were looked down upon
for using knives and forks. Well when
everything is cut up in nibble sized pieces and a bowl full of rice held up
near the mouth to be shovelled in is elegant then ok but when you see a whole
sausage in chopsticks chewed down from one end, then elegant it ain’t.
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| What a Smile ! |
We’re
using two guide books here in Japan, Lonely Planet and the lesser known but
very useful John’s Diary* (unavailable through Amazon). We took LP’s advice about turning up early
to miss the crowds and got to Ginkaku-ji
a couple of minutes after opening time at 8.30 and it was heaving with
at least 500 school children of various ages wending their way around. There were the yellow hats, the white hats,
red hats and so on. It seems that school
parties have their own coloured
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| quiet solitude at Ginkaku-ji |
hat for trips out. It was hilarious really as we shuffled around
realising that we were really enjoying the temple and the haven of calm, peace
and tranquillity that it represents.
After that we walked along a lovely little stream on what was called The
Philosopher’s Walk to another temple, Eikan-do.
They really did sell Philosopher’s Walk t-shirts and I was aching to be
asked to buy one, just so I could say “I’ll think about it”. Sadly no one did, but then this is Japan not
India. Eikan-do, according to Lonely
Planet is “possibly Kyoto’s most famous and crowded autumn foliage
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| Elkan-do |
destination”
so we were hesitant to go, it now being about 11.00. We did and it scored all round, brilliant
sun, spot on autumn colour and virtually empty.
It was one of, if not the best garden we saw. What is noticeable everywhere is how inexpensive these places are to get
into compared to England. A temple and
garden is 500 or 600 yen each to get into, absolute tops 1000 yen. Now 1000 Yen is just under £7 ($9). A National Trust garden would set you back
perhaps £15. Go to an English castle and
you would be expected to pay a similar amount.
Himeji Castle which we visited a few days after Kyoto was 600 Yen. Actually we went to one top garden a week
later at 400 Yen and by the time they’d taken off Old Fogies discount and the
10% off for the voucher the tourist office gave us, we got in for 120 Yen. Amazing.
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| Eikan-do |
*John
being my oldest friend and who with his wife Elaine visited Japan last year.
Other
major sights we got to here included the Emperors Palace (free) with a really
beautiful water garden and the Castle which is impressive for the huge area,
double moat and colossal cut stone walls.
We only scratched the surface here in Kyoto and I haven’t even mentioned
the space age station with glass walkway goodness knows how many floors up and
a huge open atrium. I will mention the famous meditative stone and raked Zen gravel garden
at Ryoan-ji which many of you will have seen pictures of. It’s a rectangle of about 25 metres by 10
metres of raked gravel with
fifteen carefully placed rocks. Only fourteen rocks can be seen from any one
point except from directly above and because Buddhists believe that the number
fifteen signifies completeness, once you can see all fifteen you have achieved
enlightenment. However, I’ve also read
that no explanation was left by the unknown designer but the rock garden is
believed to be anything up to 600 years old.
I can’t really say how impressed I was because I’d read so much that I
would be but it certainly is interesting.
Personally, I much prefer a garden with living things in it.
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| Ryoan-ji Zen Garden (curved due to use of wide-angle lens) |
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| The 50,000 Yen (£300) Sundae |
One
big shopping area we went to for meals in the evening was just across the river
from us and it made Oxford Street look like a little country town shopping
centre going through a bad patch. We
have really never seen anything like the quantity and variety of shops. Dozens of roads and arcades, hundreds of
shops, all open until late evening.
Department stores as big as a city block with the top three floors full
of restaurants, by full I mean twenty restaurants per floor (yes reader, I
counted them). The Japanese really do
understand that a city is vertical as well as horizontal, three dimensions and
not two.
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| Heather photobombing the girls who got me to take photos of them with five different cameras |
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