A Twenty First Century Eunuch |
Kyoto was Japan's capital city for
over a millennium and is regarded as Japan's most beautiful city which boasts ancient temples, hidden gardens and traditional wooden
houses. Although areas of the city show classical
Japan as you might imagine it can be hard to look past the urban
sprawl that has chaotically been pieced together to form modern Kyoto. As such I found it
difficult to really engage with the undoubtedly amazing history and culture of
its celebrated past. With most major
sites spaced out around the city and the crowds gathered for the Sakura it
proved difficult to get around. We therefore separated our trip into different visits
seeing the east, west and centre over three days although there was still some
serious walking involved to even get around these smaller sections of the city. This
could have been made easier if we had decided to make use of the ‘slaves’ that
were pulling wealthy individuals around in strange carriages like trussed up
horses. I couldn't escape the idea that
these men dressed in tiny shorts and a tight t-shirt were 21st Century eunuchs as they came trotting past with their gleaming black carriage in
tow. The only disappointed/surprise to
me was that the occupants didn't have a whip to complete the image. Despite my
insistence on walking everywhere the ancient sites we did see in Kyoto were
impressive and we got to visit the International Manga Museum to learn more
about Japanese modern culture as well.
One of the amazing flowers in the Zen Garden |
We had to base ourselves in Osaka
as Kyoto was far too expensive and I of course managed to book a flat in
what turned out to be in the centre of Japan's largest red light district (who
knew their second biggest industry was sex – worth $24 billion a year!). We therefore had to catch the train to Kyoto
each morning and although this was only 30 minutes (if you managed to catch the
rapid service) it made for very long days exploring. On our first visit to the city we headed west
to explore the bamboo forest and a few of the Buddhist temples. The gardens at Tenryuji Temple were without
doubt the most immaculate and sculpted that I have ever seen and were full of hundreds
of brightly coloured flowers and cherry blossom trees. Outside was the famous bamboo forest and as
we walked between the soaring bamboo trunks if felt as though you had entered a
world from a sci-fi film.
From the bamboo forest we walked back into the
city and chanced upon a type of traditional Japanese theatre known as Noh that
is now rarely performed. Noh is
structured around music and dance and combines very slow, exaggerated movement
with an even slower storyline that quickly sent a number of the older
members of the audience to sleep. It is
famous as the Shite (the central character in the play – hahahahahahahaha) and the
support cast wear haunting wooden masks and so despite the monotonous 30 minute
routine it was interesting to see whilst sat in a traditional temple. Our final stop was to the impressive
Daikakuji Temple which is regularly used as a filming location for period
dramas. Set alongside a pond and with
perfectly raked gravel gardens the highlight was the ‘nightingale floor’. This is made of dry wooden boards where the
nails are designed to rub against a clamp to make squeaking sounds that warned the
occupants of invading Ninjas and Samurai – very cool!
A Shinto shrine in the bamboo forest |
Rather than discussing all of the
temples we visited (they are fairly similar) the religion in Japan as a whole
is unique and interesting as it combines Chinese Buddhism with traditional Japanese
Shintoism and so each temple has various shrines inside to pray to. Upon
visiting a Shinto shrine worshippers wash their hands with a tiny wooden barrel
on a stick, often in a beautiful pool, and then ring a bell to summon their
audience, light some incense and say a prayer. Many people also opt to write
messages on paper or wooden plaques and tie them on the various displays with some
shrines even having robot machines that select and hand to you your
fortune! Even the Catholic Church could
learn a little from the money making of these temples –as
each temple is usually dedicated to a number of gods people end up paying a small
fortune to offer prayers to each shrine as well as to purchase all of the sacred
paper and incense. It makes the Popes
money making trips to South America seem more like the disappointing work of
second hand car salesman!
Glossing over
our second day (The Imperial Palace in the centre is totally hidden by walls
and surrounded by a wide gravel path – well worth the two hour walk -not!) we
stumbled upon the International Manga Museum.
This turned out to be a huge library for Manga PHD students as well as
teaching Manga heathens such as myself about one of Japan's biggest
industries. The museum was full of all ages
as young and old packed the sofas to read Manga comics from a 70 year
period. It turns out Manga comics are
aimed at all types of audiences from teenage high school dramas to more perverse
male (and female) adult comics with most things in between. It is a trillion dollar industry in Japan and
I sat in the garden and I looked at a survivor’s recollection of the A-bomb in
a translated Manga series under a cherry blossom tree for the afternoon.
The view from Kiomizudera Temple |
Once I had
finished a rant about the length of bus queues and terrible public transport in
Kyoto our final day was spent in the east of the city where surprisingly there were some more
temples and a lot of beautifully dressed women dressed as Geisha amongst the crowds. Avoiding the temptation to cross dress for
the day (Kimono renting shops are big business) we visited the impressive
Kiyomizudera Temple that has a wooden platform 40 foot above the ground made
using no nails which offered amazing views across the city and mountains beyond. Heading further north for lunch we bought our
standard Bento (boxed meal) and settled
down by the river where we were treated to a very strange drumming performance by
what appeared to be the Japanese version of the seven dwarfs as they marched up the footpath. After the unexpected concert we visited
the unusual Nanzenin Temple that has a huge brick aqueduct running through the
middle of it but at this point we felt a bit ‘templed out’ and headed back to our
base in Osaka for our final night in the red light district.
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