So hello there.
After a few days in tokyo doing the obligatory duty-free drinking, karaoke and people-watching I headed off to kyoto to see the real japan. It’s still a big shopping mall, though a lot more quaint. I explore, get overheated, spend, and explore. If I see one more shrine I’m gonna have a temple-tantrum.
However, I did manage to do some successful geisha-spotting last night. Magical girls with the mystique and vulnerability of rare birds. Fifty or so spotters (about 30/70 gaijin/japanese) wandered the street in Gion where they are said to appear, most of us wielding cameras and pretending to look at the restaurant menus. I paced, cause I don’t have a camera and I can’t even pretend to read japanese. A friendly though possibly dodgy man from Osaka took my picture. He said I was tender, I think his English needs work. Then the starlets appeared out of an alleyway, three maiko (geishas-in-training) and an escort geisha. They politely avoided making eye contact with the tourists, walked down the street followed by a little entourage of camera phones and me, and disappeared up another alley. Off to drink tea with very rich people, what a delightfully pointless existence. I wonder how their makeup stays so immaculate in this heat. I guess this qualifies as a brush with celebrity, though I still reckon meeting Mr Squiggle tops all comers.
Then I wandered around kyoto and hung out by the river. Yesterday was spent traipsing (if you can do that on a wobbly hired pushbike) round kyoto temples and seeing the sights. The day before the same on foot in the crazy humid heat of japanese autumn. It’s making my head fry, that and the fact that a cup of coffee in this town can cost twice the price of a packet of cigarettes.
Today I visited Nara, a small city half an hour away from kyoto with a bunch of old stuff in it. And squeaky deer. There’s a world heritage park(Nara-Koen) full of temples and deer and souvenir shops that sell deer puppets, deer phone toys, deer lollies and inflatable deer. So I wandered there. The biggest wooden building in the world, todai-ji, is in that park and contains an enormous buddha. He’s 16m tall and has his own personal roadies who come out and tidy the shriney stuff at his feet. A good Buddha should seem about to speak, they say; this one made me want to climb up into his lap and sleep. Close enough, I reckon. Most of Buddha is very old but due to many earthquakes, typhoons, fires etc his head and hands have fallen off numerous times. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, said the monks, and stitched him up. I have to hand it to them, they’ve done a seamless job. Schoolgirls took my photo in the foyer, schoolboys on the train home. Japan makes me feel mildly famous –it’s an entire nation of paparrazi. I continue to acquire souvenirs and wander around feeling heatstruck and weird. But i fed the deer and saw the sights, and prayed at the landmarks for all the things one prays for at these places.
The biggest wooden building used to be bigger before; they had to rebuild it, of course. I think the Japanese use ‘wooden’ as Australians use ‘in the southern hemisphere.’ No-one else makes big stuff out of wood, really, though I guess if shit keeps falling over in earthquakes, getting raided and so on you’d want to relish impermanence. With this in mind, I guess, Shinto temples are supposed be rebuilt every 20 years. This seems like a device to keep the monks busy, unless they have special construction monks who did a deal with the big priests years ago, like Meriton and the ALP, which makes sense to me.
Kyoto is a great little city. The east side of town is full of tiny lanes and crazy kids drinking on the street. Everyone sits by the river at night to watch the water and hold hands in a chaste sort of way or play terrible love ballads on the guitar. The best temples are the ones the locals use, like the garish orange Yasaka-Jinja with its nice little park up theback. There are way too many temples to see in four days, and most of them cost money to get in (complete with little signs – ‘worship Y400’). Still, I have found some peaceful spaces between the busloads and I think the number of prayers I’ve made here should last me at least until I get to Turkey and start whirling with the dervishes.
Tokyo is fun and crazy and weird, and Nadia and Cynthia and Dan are all great, but I’m enjoying hanging out here on my own for a little while, despite the fact that i’m sunburnt and already spending far too much. Budgets are rules, I suppose, and therefore made to be broken.
Well on that note i’m off to the Uno hostel with its assortment of carpet tiles and behavioural instructions from the management (like the notes you get when flatmates turn bad). I hope you are all welland happy.
Lots of love,
xjenjen
Ps. Found object haiku to follow. Be warned!
After a few days in tokyo doing the obligatory duty-free drinking, karaoke and people-watching I headed off to kyoto to see the real japan. It’s still a big shopping mall, though a lot more quaint. I explore, get overheated, spend, and explore. If I see one more shrine I’m gonna have a temple-tantrum.
However, I did manage to do some successful geisha-spotting last night. Magical girls with the mystique and vulnerability of rare birds. Fifty or so spotters (about 30/70 gaijin/japanese) wandered the street in Gion where they are said to appear, most of us wielding cameras and pretending to look at the restaurant menus. I paced, cause I don’t have a camera and I can’t even pretend to read japanese. A friendly though possibly dodgy man from Osaka took my picture. He said I was tender, I think his English needs work. Then the starlets appeared out of an alleyway, three maiko (geishas-in-training) and an escort geisha. They politely avoided making eye contact with the tourists, walked down the street followed by a little entourage of camera phones and me, and disappeared up another alley. Off to drink tea with very rich people, what a delightfully pointless existence. I wonder how their makeup stays so immaculate in this heat. I guess this qualifies as a brush with celebrity, though I still reckon meeting Mr Squiggle tops all comers.
Then I wandered around kyoto and hung out by the river. Yesterday was spent traipsing (if you can do that on a wobbly hired pushbike) round kyoto temples and seeing the sights. The day before the same on foot in the crazy humid heat of japanese autumn. It’s making my head fry, that and the fact that a cup of coffee in this town can cost twice the price of a packet of cigarettes.
Today I visited Nara, a small city half an hour away from kyoto with a bunch of old stuff in it. And squeaky deer. There’s a world heritage park(Nara-Koen) full of temples and deer and souvenir shops that sell deer puppets, deer phone toys, deer lollies and inflatable deer. So I wandered there. The biggest wooden building in the world, todai-ji, is in that park and contains an enormous buddha. He’s 16m tall and has his own personal roadies who come out and tidy the shriney stuff at his feet. A good Buddha should seem about to speak, they say; this one made me want to climb up into his lap and sleep. Close enough, I reckon. Most of Buddha is very old but due to many earthquakes, typhoons, fires etc his head and hands have fallen off numerous times. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, said the monks, and stitched him up. I have to hand it to them, they’ve done a seamless job. Schoolgirls took my photo in the foyer, schoolboys on the train home. Japan makes me feel mildly famous –it’s an entire nation of paparrazi. I continue to acquire souvenirs and wander around feeling heatstruck and weird. But i fed the deer and saw the sights, and prayed at the landmarks for all the things one prays for at these places.
The biggest wooden building used to be bigger before; they had to rebuild it, of course. I think the Japanese use ‘wooden’ as Australians use ‘in the southern hemisphere.’ No-one else makes big stuff out of wood, really, though I guess if shit keeps falling over in earthquakes, getting raided and so on you’d want to relish impermanence. With this in mind, I guess, Shinto temples are supposed be rebuilt every 20 years. This seems like a device to keep the monks busy, unless they have special construction monks who did a deal with the big priests years ago, like Meriton and the ALP, which makes sense to me.
Kyoto is a great little city. The east side of town is full of tiny lanes and crazy kids drinking on the street. Everyone sits by the river at night to watch the water and hold hands in a chaste sort of way or play terrible love ballads on the guitar. The best temples are the ones the locals use, like the garish orange Yasaka-Jinja with its nice little park up theback. There are way too many temples to see in four days, and most of them cost money to get in (complete with little signs – ‘worship Y400’). Still, I have found some peaceful spaces between the busloads and I think the number of prayers I’ve made here should last me at least until I get to Turkey and start whirling with the dervishes.
Tokyo is fun and crazy and weird, and Nadia and Cynthia and Dan are all great, but I’m enjoying hanging out here on my own for a little while, despite the fact that i’m sunburnt and already spending far too much. Budgets are rules, I suppose, and therefore made to be broken.
Well on that note i’m off to the Uno hostel with its assortment of carpet tiles and behavioural instructions from the management (like the notes you get when flatmates turn bad). I hope you are all welland happy.
Lots of love,
xjenjen
Ps. Found object haiku to follow. Be warned!
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