On a Day without Yakyu
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| View down to the city from a temple |
Monday, June 28, 2010
Kyoto, JapanOutside the Game:
Kyoto is a quick bullet train ride from Nagoya, and I actually got up promptly enough to catch an earlier train than the one I intended. One of the advantages of traveling to visit things at 2 and 6 in the afternoon is that you generally aren't traveling during peak commuting periods. This was not the case today, as I was making an early start of it to get the most of my day in Kyoto, which just happened to be Monday rush hour.
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| Salaryman Parade |
And it put into focus a reality about life in Japan. 99.99% of it is lived with a strict "no touching" rule. You bow instead of shaking hands. You wave instead of hugging. Financial transactions are facilitated by special bowls where you place your money and the cashier places your change, all to prevent the horrors of inter-human contact. And then, outside of whatever the Japanese do behind closed doors, there is subway. Now, while the exaggerated urban legend of subway conductors wedging in as many people as possible to trains so the doors can close may not make the mark, it is not all that far from reality, as during rush hour, every last inch of space in a subway car is efficiently taken up by human flesh, and you find yourself ever so politely wedged into the person's back in front of you. Being a couple inches taller than the average citizen in this case provides some strategic advantages, to be sure. Even still, I got to the station in plenty of time for the train and killed some time watching a fastidious elderly technician fill one of the innumerable drinks machines on the track with eminent care.
The bullet train was uneventful, dumping me at Kyoto Station. In what would be a good indicator of the rest of my navigation experiences in the city, I immediately went the wrong way, and ended up exiting the station at the exact opposite end at which I needed. Some quick "sumimasen" and map pointing later, I was on my way to the correct exit, and my traditional ryokan inn. It being early morning, I just dropped off my bags and headed out into the city after buying a one-day unlimited commuter pass from the helpful hotel staff.
Not having any particular goal for today, I started by visiting the first temple complex that availed itself, which was nearly next door to my ryokan, Hijashi-Honganji. The "problem" (if it can be called that) with Kyoto is the same affliction affecting Rome and certain other areas of Europe: there are so many wonders piled into such a small area that individual items that taken in isolation would be a masterpiece just becomes part of the background of the utterly epic other works around them. And in the "city of temples," it can blur quickly with the insane density of the treasures.
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| Dragon fountain |
It is also one of the only cities that wasn't extensively remodeled by the US in the 40s. In England, the most common phrase you hear in relation to historical buildings is "Henry VIII" (as in "... before it was destroyed by Henry VIII"), and in Ireland, it is "rebel leaders" (as in "... where the rebel leaders were held/executed"). In Japan, that phrase is "bombing during World War II" (as in "The city was completely destroyed by bombing during World War II."). Kyoto was one of the few cities to escape that phrase, and unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they didn't get to pay for it in a big way at the end of the war (although Kyoto was on the short list to get the "special greeting" from Uncle Sam, before being removed at the insistence of Secretary of War Stimson). War is war, which is unfortunate, and the Japanese expansionist imperial regime brought that war on themselves, but despite all that, it is comforting to know that at least one city in the country avoided utter destruction.
There was a suggested one-day tour for Kyoto, and since I had one day to spend and not a great depth of knowledge on the place, I decided to follow it, more or less. It brought me down to the main temple district in the south east of the city, hitting the main sites of Kiyomizu-dera. As fate (or any of the involved gods) would have it, it had been overcast and drizzly all morning, but as soon as I got to the wide and unshaded confines of the temple area, the sun came out in force and seemingly vaporized all the clouds in the sky. Thankfully, one of the first things I ran into at the first temple complex was a Buddhist devotional exercise that was underground in darkness, the Tainai-meguri. You follow prayer beads along the wall in the darkness in an attempt to gain some insight through the sensory deprivation. Not only was it out of the sun, but it was quite a unique and tranquil experience, until some other Americans entered behind me and the children started complaining loudly that it was dark down there. So it goes.
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| Nishi-Otani |
The temples were just striking, and even in the scorching sun, it was hard not to get lost in the tranquility of the surroundings. After going through the temple complexes themselves (and wading through the sea of tourists that were heading up to the temples by mid-afternoon), there were several historic side streets full of tea gardens and shops (and more temples) that I wandered through for most of the early afternoon.
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| Crowded streets |
Completing as much of the temple circuit as I could, I headed back to downtown proper to try and find a washi store I read about. Washi is traditional Japanese paper, and I figured I had to at least take a look. However, the directions in the book I had were not exactly specific, and we had already established my complete inability to navigate the city well. A half-hour search that got increasingly desperate followed. I eventually asked at one of the countless police kiosks, and the officer was able to direct me to the one alleyway in the area that I had not explored to get to the store. Some good did come from wandering around all the sideways and alleyways south of the main drag in town, as I got a glimpse of real-life geisha. There are plenty of tourist geisha that wander those districts of the city, but the geisha proper don't go out in public much, as tourists have a tendency to be rude to them, and apparently their enthusiasm includes physical contact and near assault on their persons. She seemed suitably circumspect of an American wandering down the same small roadway as her, so I gave her as much room as the narrow confines would allow and tried to look as non-threatening as possible, which was probably not that effective given how haggard I was at that point in the day.
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| A fleeting glimpse |
After that much searching, I went to town once I got inside the store. Paper, notebooks, decorative items, even coasters all went into my bag. And particularly surprising was that everything I bought ended up being under $50, which nearly prompted another rush of purchases, only restrained by my limited and dwindling luggage space. After getting all my wonderful washi packed up, I decided I has a little more tourist left in me. I took the subway up to the Imperial Park and wandered around for a while. I made the poor choice of going out the main passage exit, just as the sun managed to make one last attempt to burn me to ash.
Bleary, battle-worn, and sun-blasted, I decided to make one last foray before retreating to my hotel. I took the subway to Nijo Castle, the shogunate palace for Kyoto. As it was getting close to last admission, a helpful, yet creepy PA system suggested in rather strident tones to go to the entrance of the castle immediately before the gates closed.
Suitably quickly, I availed myself to the entrance, removed my shoes, and began the castle tour circuit. One of the notable features of the castle was the "nightingale floors" installed everywhere, which is basically anti-ninja technology. The floor and joists are constructed in such a way that any step on the floor makes a noise similar to the song of a wooden-sounding nightingale. (It also made me wonder how anyone got any sleep, but I suppose some sleepless nights are better than getting ninja-ed at three in the morning.) I inevitably gave into every tourists temptation to try and get across the floor silently, and it is disappointing to know that I missed my career calling by about 500 years, as I was able to cross a section silently. I sheepishly accepted the praise of a staff member, whom I did not see right around the corner from where I was making my dry run assassination attempt. Okay, perhaps it is just as well I didn't get the chance to be a spectacularly unsuccessful (if quiet) ninja.
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| Castle moat |
After the castle, there is a winding tour of the estate gardens that, unsurprisingly, drops you at a gift shop, which I shamelessly indulged in (but to my credit, I didn't get the samurai sword letter opener). There was a large party of Australians in the shop with me, and I took the opportunity to get some English out of my system.
But brothers and sisters, I am here to give you good tidings: an age-old question of our existence has been revealed -- there is a greater power than ourselves, and it is good.
After I dragged my dehydrated ass back to the ryokan, cleaned up, and soaked for a good hour or so, I headed back out into the mercifully dark city to try and muster up something to eat. The nearby train station was mentioned as having several fine eateries, and so I went back and started going up a series of elevators that went higher and higher, culminating in a rooftop terrace filled with restaurants. The u-shaped terrace had over a dozen restaurants, mostly catering to the tourist trade, proudly offering menus in English, Korean, Chinese, and other sundry languages. Walking all around this terrace was getting tiring, but I took one more turn before going back to settle on a fix-priced multi-course place some vaguely-remembered path behind me. And that is when I saw the kobe teppanyaki restaurant.
A one-stroke question-answer followed.
"Kurejitokado?" ("Do you accept credit cards?")
"Hai." ("Yes.")
"Ichi, kudasi." ("One, please.")
It is best in these situations not to dwell on things such as price. After determining that we were keeping this under six (yen) digits, I ordered the dinner that looked the best, and just went with it.
Said experience began with a kimono-swathed hostess taking my drink order, placing my appetizers on the table, and then retreating once everything was delivered. The tables were all built into a counter overlooking downtown Kyoto from a location just slightly lower than the Kyoto Tower. The attendants absolutely disappear when not at the table so you are not disturbed. To summon them back, you have to press a discreet call button located on the table. This I did to check the identity of something rather shellfish-looking on my appetizer plate. After to a rather complicated and extensive back and forth, this supposition was proven true, and somehow a great embarrassment to the waitstaff, who were apparently of the opinion they should have known this quirky fact of my metabolism ahead of time. It also prompted them to ask my status on every last ingredient they put before me, which was appreciated, but unnecessary for the rest of the evening, as it turned out.
The hostess then returned with a plate of raw beef that would tempt Buddha, a pan, and various other accouterments. The pan was heated on an electric in-table range, and then a slice of gorgeous beef fat was dropped into the pan, followed in good time by a slice of the kobe once the fat began melting. Some sugar was added, and complex chopstick manipulation of the cooking meat was undertaken. An egg was also whisked with chopsticks and placed next to my plate. As the meat finished cooking, it was dropped deftly in my plate, and some simple pantomime instructed me to dip the meat in the egg, and consume.
At any moment before this, if you had told me that I'd eat anything better than the veal I had once at Pietro's in New York, I would have punched you in the throat until you were dead, and you would have died agreeing with me, because the last thing I would do is let you smell that veal, pounded so thin it was nearly transparent, breaded to a thickness that mocked science's ability to measure it, cut with a fork because nothing as crude as a blade was necessary to rend it, and so succulent as to melt in one's mouth without chewing.
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| Gone too quickly... |
That this was the best beef I had ever had was not even a question worth raising, as the answer was so self-evident as to render the inquiry ludicrous. It was merely now a consideration of whether this was the best thing I had ever eaten, period. And it was at that moment that -- depending on your point of view -- I either became the most despicable blasphemer to an old faith, or a shining, dappled convert to a new, better god; because of that much I am sure -- I touched the hand of a god.
As the attendant began cooking the rest of the meat, and the accompanying vegetables and noodles, I honestly started having deeper thoughts on what was transpiring. Did I deserve to eat this? What had I done with my life up to this point that could justify it? What was I going to need to do to make up the necessary moral deficit I was incurring? One meal was making me question my place in the universe and aspiring to be a better person.
It was simply extraordinary, and at a few times, my attendant checked to make sure my rapt enjoyment was not some other allergic reaction. Desert came and went, as did the bill, but I can still taste the meat, and I think I always will. And that actually makes me feel better about the world.
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| Descending at night |
I eventually left the restaurant to see the rest of the observation deck and head back to the hotel, in a daze that has not yet quite lifted.
The Accommodation:
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| Ryokan living |
As I mentioned, I stayed in Mastubaya Inn ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn, while in Kyoto. Frankly, Kyoto, heartland of Japanese culture, seemed the place to do it. This particular ryokan was slightly modernized, in that they rebuilt it completely with a steel frame, and then reconstructed the interior with all the original floorboards and other materials. But I didn't really have a chance to look at the place until I came back in the afternoon after my wanderings.
There is a three-tiered footwear policy that you have to take in affect. You wear your street shoes on the downstairs area, before switching to slippers to go upstairs to your room. Once you pass the main vestibule to your room, you remove all footwear before going onto the wicker mat flooring in the room. And then, if you are going to the bathroom, there are special bath slippers for that. Take notes, kids, this is important.
I had a single room with my own toilet, but I had to share a bathing room with another guest room. Then there was the sleeping area proper. There was a low, round table in the room that carried all the tea accessories. My bags were stashed on the only non-matted part of the floor. The futon bedding was bundled up in one corner and the robe in the other. A LCD TV was bolted onto the wall opposite where the bedding was to be laid out. Instructions for everything were provided in picture and book form on the table.
This was also my first introduction to an energy-saving method used in many Japanese hotels. The electrical system in the room would not activate unless you had a fob from your room key in a special slot just inside the door. The outlet power still works, so you can recharge items and the like, but you can't leave the AC running all day with the lights on, for example.
After getting back in the afternoon. I made a foray across the hall to the bathing room, in my proper bath slippers. It took my a while to realize what was going on in the room. The vestibule had a sink and mirrors, but the interior, with the shower and tub, were all closed off by one door. It finally dawned on me that the entire interior chamber was a water-tight shower area, with a central drain in the floor outside of the tub. While I had become a little jaded to futuristic toilet and bath furnishings at this point, the tub controls in the room still made an impact. You could set the exact temperature of the hot water, and a slightly Portal-ish computer voice gave updates in Japanese that I couldn't understand on the tub temperature and the like. It rode the razor's edge between creepy and soothing.
When I got back that night, I was able to assemble the bedding, get into my robe, and brew the green tea with the help of the instructions. It was all rather civilized, and since I had managed to walk my feet into bloody, blistered stumps, I settled in for a solid night of sleep.
2010 Japan I
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