Day 1
2:37 PM – Limousine Bus to Kobe
Arrived at Kansai Airport about 30 minutes ago. This is my first real trip within Japan (Hokkaido road trips and Tokyo conferences don’t count), and have been wanting to visit Kyoto and Osaka for a really long time. Last time I was here, I remember looking out from the glass concourse onto the mountains beyond and the bridge that links the airport to the mainland, and wondered if I was ever going to cross that bridge and see the real Japan. Fast forward 12 years, and now I’m crossing that bridge. Hell yeah.
6:56 PM – Kijima residence
Met up with my cousin who lives here in Kobe and went out to a late lunch where we talked about family and life in Japan. Sounds boring? He’s a priest in the second-largest metro area of the country, and I’m an English teacher in the middle of nowhere.
Afterwards, he showed me the house that one of his parishioners had prepared for me. Read: a huge house, bedding and linen all prepared, in an affluent area of the city to boot. Pimpin’. If Kyoto weren’t an hour and a half away, I’d stay here for the whole four days. Or everyday for that matter. But as I plan to do most of my sightseeing in Kyoto, I’ve booked a guesthouse there and will only be sleeping here tomorrow.
Day 2
10:30 AM – Shijo Station
Good first night. I arrived at the GoJo Guesthouse in Kyoto at around 10 pm, settled down and decided to go for a late dinner as I hadn’t had any real food since the afternoon. Luckily it was right around the time that the guesthouse was closing for the night, so I ended up going with one of the girls working there, Zeni, who was Japanese but could fool anyone with her partial British accent. We ended up going first to a Chinese restaurant, then a British pub, then a Reggae bar. Welcome to Kyoto, the cultural heart of old Japan. Dead emperors must be rolling in their graves.
One thing I really hate going without when traveling is sleep, and I haven’t had much as of late (insert dirty joke here), so I’m not in the best shape to go around the city. A meditation session at a Zen Buddhist temple should take care of that.
7:50 PM – JR train to Osaka
Just what I needed. It was at this place called Shunkoin Temple, where the abbott led us through a 30-minute meditation session, then a tour of the temple and the surrounding garden, followed by some matcha green tea and Japanese sweets. I read about the place in the Japan Times earlier this week and just couldn’t pass it up. Small country, turns out the abbott is friends with one of my homeboys here in Hokkaido. The place itself was really nice, very relaxing, and postcard picture perfect (now say it 5x). The tour was interesting because, like many parts of Kyoto, it spans hundreds of years of Japanese history, and even had some Christian influences. But above all, I can say that at one time in my life, I was meditating in a Zen Buddhist temple in the middle of Kyoto. And that feels f’n awesome.
There I met another wanderer, Katie from Edmonton…Alberta, Canada, on her first leg of a seven-month whirlwind Asian expedition. As all Canadians do, we talked about Canada as we explored the city, first with this cafe that served good Kyoto-style vegetarian food, then Ryoan-ji to see the famous stone and rock garden that’s supposed to work on your subconscious and calm onlookers. Instead, the hordes of tourists just made me angry. Afterwards we headed towards Heian Jingu Shrine, home of the biggest torii gate in the country, getting lost and wandering through a huge kendo tournament along the way. We split up after dinner, and I don’t think I’ll be able to say “alright well, you’re going to Tokyo and I’m going to Osaka” ever again.
Lonely Planet calls touring Kyoto, “visiting temples ’till you drop”. Well I’m just about ready to drop, but I’m not quite done yet. I heard Osaka gets crazy at night. Perfect.
9:27 PM – Dotombori
Eating my second batch of takoyaki in the middle of the most insane collection of humanity I’ve ever seen. This place puts Times Square to shame. And to think, I was meditating in a Zen temple and reflecting over a rock garden in Kyoto this morning. No more appropriate background music than X Japan’s “Silent Jealousy”.
Day 3
12:29 PM – JR train to a cooking class in Kyoto
Went to Mass presided by my cousin this morning, then had a nice relaxed breakfast at his place. I hadn’t seen him in 12 years prior to this, and who would’ve predicted I’d ever be hearing Mass from him in Japan, in Japanese? During breakfast we talked about him needing a car, and as I won’t be needing it after August, I asked him, “Do you want my car? Wait, how am I going to get it from Hokkaido to here?” And then I thought maybe I could take a cross-country road trip after I leave Erimo. Hmm…
For the record, I love making stops in Osaka for takoyaki: my favourite Japanese food and the king of this city’s street food culture.
6:59 PM – JR train back to Kobe for an unscheduled dinner
I certainly hoped for more actual hands-on cooking, but I still learned a lot, and the food we made was really good. There were two other people taking the class, Wes and Karen from Vancouver (see a pattern here?), on their way home from a trip to Bhutan. Huh? In between peeling broad beans and stuffing shiitakes with minced prawns, we talked about, that’s right, Canada. No wait, Quebec.
As I learned from my teacher Emi, Kyoto cuisine is more subtle, using seasonal ingredients and natural flavours without relying too much on seasonings. The produce is also different from up north, with weird mountain vegetables and seafood I’d never seen before. It was just so awe-inspiring to learn how to cook old school that when I get back to Hokkaido, I decide that I’ll be a Kyoto snob. Nope sorry, I only eat Kyoto miso.
Anyway, I’m on my way back to Kobe for dinner that the couple who owns the house I stayed in last night invited me and my cousin for.
Day 4
8:10 AM – JR train to Himeji Castle
Add the Kijimas to the list of great people I’ve met here. This amusing couple not only provided me with a nice place to stay, but also cooked one of the most memorable dinners I’ve had in Japan. Nice local food, good conversations, and the best sake; can’t ask for anything more than that. This morning on the way to dropping me off at the station, the husband showed me an area with a great view of the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world, which was literally right at their doorstep. Dream #450 fulfilled: I did a project on this bridge in high school. Was it worth the $25 that I lost by not staying at the guesthouse? Oh yeah.
2:04 PM – Himeji –> Kyoto
I’ve got samurai and feudal lords running around in my head. Kind of hard not to; I just visited Takeshi’s Castle Himeji Castle, the most spectacular castle in all of Japan-land. Some ruler of a port town in 1333 decided to say “yo, this is my territory and I want a castle right there”, and it has stood since then, becoming home to 48 shoguns and withstanding wars, typhoons, earthquakes, and Britney Spears’ VMA performance. Obviously the place wasn’t just built to look pretty. It was built with warfare in mind. Among the clever structures were strategically placed holes in the castle and surrounding walls, from where hot oil could be poured in case an enemy manages to cross the moat, sneak through the gates, break through the barriers, and attempt to scale the castle walls. But probably the most interesting area of the castle was Harakiri-Maru, the place where samurai would commit harakiri (suicide through disembowelment) and beheadings. Right beside it was a well where bloody swords and severed heads were washed. The well itself was nothing special, so in taking pictures of it, I purposely cut off the heads of people peeking through. Artistically.
5:41 PM – Kiyomizu-dera
Kyoto UNESCO World Heritage Site #1,709. Very scenic temple complex up in the mountains overlooking the city. Awesome view. It would have been even better if I had been here for the cherry blossom season or in the fall when the leaves turn fiery red, but I guess being surrounded by green isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, being surrounded by busloads of tourists is.
Also got to see some geishas on the way up here. I don’t know if they were actual geishas, or maikos, or some girls who decided to wear elaborate kimonos and white make-up to fool clueless tourists like me. I’ll take it for what it was.
Day 5
8:45 AM – Fushimi Inari Taisha
Finally, a peaceful and quiet morning up in the mountains, surrounded by bamboo and stone foxes, away from the crowds. This is just like how I imagined this place to be. I decided to get up early this morning and get here before people start filling up the place, a Shinto shrine complex, and I can’t think of a better way to end my stay in Kyoto. The path on the way up was lined with thousands and thousands of orange torii gates, which look pretty spectacular in pictures but even more so in real life. If passing underneath one torii symbolizes the transition from the secular to the sacred, this place must be hallowed to the bajillionth degree. Wish I had more time to explore the place, but I got a flight to catch.
12:20 PM – Kansai Airport
First time traveling alone in the country, and in the process met some great people and did things I’ve always dreamed of doing. Chatting about cultural differences (“what do you mean Osakans don’t dip tempura in sauce?”), sharing experiences about being an ALT in Hokkaido (“YES, I really live in Erimo”), practicing the language (“namara in Kansai dialect means what?!?”) made me feel I’ve come a long way since arriving in the country. I also see it as a test-run for my possible odyssey around the world after JET. But for now, home is calling, and I’ve still got three months to enjoy it. I just bumped into my fellow Habitat peeps from up north, Suzanne and James, and it can’t get any more apropos than that.
1:09 AM – Somewhere over the Sea of Japan
Darn. I left my souvenir on the train.
