京都の旅行：Kyoto Trip

Well, I can’t say the rather rowdy group of foreigners that was our small troop leaving from Shinjuku’s bus terminal was a welcome sight for the other passengers of the night bus, but damn it we had to do something to pass the time. The cheapest ride from Tokyo to Kyoto runs about $60.00 each way, and is a 7 hour jolting roll along Japan’s midnight highways. Assuming the worst for our evening sojourn, we liquored ourselves up just enough to aid the coming of sleep in the approach to the wee hours of the morning. Of course, in the process we may have become slightly verbose, but only to the point to perturb the most irritable of our nighttime compatriots. Had we known what we were truly getting ourselves into, I am sure the one bottle we brought for all six of us would have become six so as to adequately knock ourselves out. The night was spent in inordinate amounts of sleepless discomfort. Within an hour, the second story windows of our double decker vehicle became awash in the precipitant of fifty odd bodies, and the air left a lingering taste of humanity at the back of the tongue. The cramped seats afforded no comfortable sleeping position, an irritation exasperated by the snores of the Japanese passengers. The Japanese have the uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time on their feet, the street and occasionally even in their own beds.

We debarked to a brisk fall morning in front of Kyoto Station, a greeting of rather surprisingly modern architecture compared to the traditional side of Japanese culture that we had traveled so far to see. A short train ride and long walk later, we were meandering down a side street in search of our youth hostel. The first quality of Kyoto to be noticed is the sky. While there are several tall buildings, nowhere in Kyoto do colossal skyscrapers blot out the sky. The most limiting factors to the view of the horizon are the colorful mountains that surround the city.  The man from Amsterdam and I fell back as others in our group surged forward down the street as the typical click-click of a rushing Japanese woman’s heels grew louder in our wake. I turned in response to the light tap on my upper back to find a, generously, five foot in stature, young woman huffing and puffing having just caught up to our long strides. “Are you guys looking for the hostel?” After a quick mental double take at the perfect English with which we had just been greeted, we affirmed her suspicions and flagged the other four members of our group. Apparently six lost foreigners in Kyoto stick out like a sore thumb. Especially the six gaijin who had made a reservation at the hostel they had just walked past without a second glance. The hostel had opened its doors just that morning and we were the second guests to check in. Our room may have been absent a trash can, but the three bunk beds with memory foam mattresses and pillows were a welcome sight.

The sheer amount of traditional Japanese culture nestled throughout Kyoto feels so right. The temples do not seem as out of place as they often do in Tokyo, where foreign influence cannot be escaped and fellow gaijin roam every street. While the temple grounds of Tokyo sometimes seem to remain standing despite the encroaching modernity, Kyoto’s old places of worship stand because they belong there. Not to say that wooden structures still erected in Tokyo are out of place, but the hustle and bustle of the metropolis detracts from the atmosphere of peace and reverence that was at the forefront of the minds of the ancient architects. The most evident difference between the two cities is not so easy to discern, but the longer one spends time away from any major city the sweet silence that relaxes the ears becomes palpable. However, silence may be too strong of a word. Kyoto is not noisy but the sounds of the world can be heard without the swelling population of Japan’s capital… wind ruffles the leaves of trees and birds twitter about their daily business. What is not so overbearing though, are the revving of bus and taxi engines, the chatter of multitudes lining sidewalks or the screech of trains on their tracks that life in Tokyo would not be complete without. In Kyoto, I could hear myself breathe. I will not waste words on the serenity of the temples; rather I will let them speak for themselves.

Half an hour from Kyoto Station is Nara. I frolicked with deer in Nara. Compared to the other areas of Japan which I have seen, Nara truly is a place of silence. Tourists do create some white noise, but that is to be expected. As night fell though, and we continued to enjoy the scenes of Buddhism after dark, the quiet set in. Funny to think that the one place where whispers were the most audible was under a bell. This was another place where pictures speak much louder than my words.

Food was a delight in the higher altitude. The rotating sushi shop we brunched in had an interesting novelty of delivering special orders via small bullet trains (see video). The sushi was surprisingly tasty despite the rumors that surround kaitensushi restaurants in Japan. Simply put, they sell a product at a price so cheap, there is no way for them to make a profit unless they are cutting corners. It comes as no surprise when sushi at one of these places of business is lackluster in flavor with disguised fish composite being used instead of real slices of sashimi. Our dinner that night was an amazing okonomiyaki and yakisoba meal that left all of us satisfied to no end. In my past experiences with okonomiyaki, it has always been delicious despite being perhaps a little too flat or lacking in meat. The okonomiyaki at this restaurant were like pies sizzling in front of our eyes. The yakisoba was remarkable as well, the best I have had in Japan, which is saying something. Yakisoba is everywhere, good yakisoba is not. Finally, the next night we went to what turned out to be a chain establishment, Akakaranabe (literally red and spicy nabe). The Korean barbecue sizzled and popped before the main course was revealed in its devil adorned crockery.

Stuff to look for in the future: Crazies Encountered in Kyoto and embarrassing a construction worker, weird small errors in Japan

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