Yesterday, the 16th, was a travel day. We left our amazing, romantic onsen in the north with many bows from the friendly staff. Then by taxi, bus, and train to Kyoto, the historical imperial capital and crown jewel of the Japan tourist industry.
These last two days, travelling to and then exploring Kyoto, have been an illustration of all Susan's favorite things about Japan. While it was sad to leave our ultra luxe Onsen Ryokan, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that our little hotel here in Kyoto has a traditional Japanese bath of it's own. While not a natural hot spring, it is big enough for two to soak and leach out the knots of a travel day.
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #1: Onsens
This morning it was raining, and on our way out the front door, the hotel staff trotted up “where are you going today" they asked with a friendly bow. Hearing we would be outside for the most part, they quickly offered us two loaner umbrellas
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #2: Everyone is so nice
Umbrellas in hand we were off for some breakfast and a cuppa. At the door to the coffee shop was the ubiquitous stack of plastic bags to keep your umbrella from dripping all over the establishment. You can bet that if a place doesn't have one of these, they have a little stand for umbrellas with little numbered tags so you can self-check your parapluie.
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #3: The umbrella condom
Fueled and fed we shot across town on the super high tech subway for a walk through the Kyoto equivalent of the Third Street Promenade; a complex of covered walk streets. For several blocks this is all food vendors, like a market in Europe most grocery shopping here is done from a series of vendors each specializing in... something. Honestly, even if I spoke fluent Japanese and could read Kanji I would be totally at a loss here. In addition to the ususal fare of seafood of every variety (including some still moving specimens that were ambiguously ready-to-eat or meant to be sold as pets), there were roots and plants and extracts and ground-up-and-dried things that are totally foreign to the western palate. Eventually, the food vendors yield space to fashion, and the aimless ambler is presented with the bizarre contrast of a ragae-themed clothing store adjacent to a Shinto Shrine. It seems these have been major shopping streets for a very long time indeed. Over time enterprising individuals vending to pilgrims on their way between the strip of temples built more permanent establishments, and a commercial district was born. Eventually, the city grew up around the shrines, the tastes shifted, and the primacy of the pilgrimage put consumption at the fore, the shrines an almost forgotten relic; and the architecture reflects this shift. Now the temples come up as a surprise; where one would expect a storefront there is instead an open passageway to the block behind the mall – and to the ancient temple.
This is doubly satisfying to the western mall rat. Firstly, we get a reminder that no, we are not in suburbia. Secondly, we have a moments respite from the really, really bad muzak that is piped in everywhere here. Which brings us to:
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #4: Music that makes you feel like you're in a technicolor movie.
Desperate to escape the musical purgatory, I propose we brave the weather and walk through the parks anyway. We took a nice long walk around Kyoto, along the river and through the garden of a major shrine here, seeing a martial arts/sumo training center along the way. The river, like almost every waterway we've seen in this country, has been engineered. An old canal, originally used for transportation, has been left mostly in place for hstoric and aesthetic purposes, but the river itself is also confined within graded, linear banks. Again, a reminder of the labor capacity for huge civil works in an era before mechanization.
Between tea breaks we explore the garden around the Heian-jingu shrine. Beautiful, classic Japanese architecture (reproduction) but again the star is the garden. There are many Sakura still in bloom here, which is intersting because throughout the rest of Kyoto, including along the river the trees are past their prime. As is always the often the case there is a large undeveloped area around the shrine. I think this provides an exception to the heat-well of the city. Even by the river the extra heat of the concrete and asphalt cause the trees to bloom several weeks earlier than they do on the grounds of the Shrine, where they are more than a hundred meters from any asphalt, and are also adjacent water (in this case the garden's ponds). If you start to think about what this implies for the effects of global warming you get pretty depressed pretty quickly. The weather is grey already and I want to stay sunny, so I don't dwell on the thought. In a roundabout way this bring us to:
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #5: Cherry blossom flavored ice cream
My ankle is really starting to hurt again, so we subway hop to dinner and then back to the hotel. Along the way we pass the library, with a field of bicycles parked in front. And not a one is locked. As if this wasn't enough, on the subway itself are two kids that are maybe 5 years old riding the subway unattended.
Dinner, and then home. We're navigating Kyoto at rush hour now, and there are some of the most curious sites. Among them are men in dark business suits astride bicycles with umbrellas. I couldn't get a photo of these guys to save my life because they weave in and out of the traffic and pedestrians, but their umbrellas are clear plastic, so in theory they can see. I don't know if the drivers and bicyclists here are the best in the world or the worst, but I've been near-missed a few hundred times already, and seeing these guys in this condition is pretty concerning. Add to this scene the odd teenage girl speeding by on her granny-bike in stilletto heals, iPod in ear, umbrella in hand.
Oh, and I have to mention:
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #6: The 6 way crosswalks
Along the way I stopped in at the loo in the subway. I bring this up only because I suddenly realized why there are no hand dryers in the bathrooms here. Everyone carries their own little cloth towel to dry their hands. Hence, no paper towels, no electric hot air blowers. It has the very odd side-effect that there are no trash cans in the restrooms here. Indeed, there are almost no trash cans here at all. It's the strangest dichotomy. The country is spotless, and I've seen no litter anywhere, but try finding a trashcan to ditch your take-out coffee cup and you may very well be back at your hotel room before you spot one. It also brings us to:.
Susan's Favorite Thing about Japan #7: Everything, everywhere is rdiculously clean
It really is a national obsession. I love it too, I wish we could import this. Why is it globalization has to spread crap-tacular pop music? Why can't it spread good manners and personal hygeine? One thing I'd love to learn is what the population density of Japan was at the time of the plagues in Europe, and how the population growth curves trace during this period. Like I said before, the evidence of high population densities (and a feudal economy) are everywhere. To what extent is this a result of good hygeine precluding equivalent pestilence as those that thinned the populations of Europe?
