Kyoto
Poppin’ Around? Here are the Japan links: Overview | Tokyo | Kyoto | Sendai | Final Day
Kyoto would be our base of operations for a couple of side trips. After the immense, sprawling, high-energy feel of Tokyo, Kyoto was a step towards relaxation, though still quite large. We stayed in a ryokan-style hotel a bit north of the main train station, with an onsen (hot bath) in the basement, sleeping on tatami mats under blankets.
Our first mission, after checking in, was a cat café. There are all kinds of animal cafes in Japan, including dog cafes and capybara cafes. This cat café had other animals as well, including a raccoon, a pig, meerkats, ferrets, and a rabbit who would join the cats for food. You pay to enter, pay for additional time, and can buy treats, both for humans and for the animals. We spent nearly two hours there, almost closing the place down.
The next day we had a tea ceremony and lesson. Our sensei was a longtime resident of Japan, originally from Canada. He had come to Asia as a young man to work in martial arts and movies, and tea became one of his practices, studying with a tea master. We learned the meaning and intricacy of Japanese tea ceremony, which can last for hours from the moment guests arrive; we learned how to pour, to serve, and to receive tea.
Afterwards we went to Kiyomizu-dera, a very old temple where, among other things, people used to hurl themselves off a a forty-plus foot drop to gain a wish (most survived; there is little data on the efficacy of this towards wishes coming true). A drizzle of water turned to rain, and the wind picked up, so by the end we were quite soaked and returned to the hotel by way of a covered shopping area.
The next day, we set out for Nara, a small town south of Kyoto known for its sacred deer, as well as a giant Buddha statue inside an enormous wooden temple – so big that a skinny and daring person can crawl through one of the support columns. Todai-ji sits in the same park as the deer, so it was easy to visit.
You can buy rice crackers to feed the sacred deer. The deer are mildly aggressive if you have food; if you don’t, it’s best to walk around hands up, palms open. The polite deer will bow to you if you bow towards them – and give them a snack. The impolite deer will nibble at your belt loops to get your attention.
We realized that we’d be able to stop at Fushimiinari-taisha shrine on the way back. This is the “10,000 Torii (gates)”. We didn’t have time to walk through all of the gates, and it was uphill and up some stairs most of the way, but we did find a nice cat and several interesting little shrines along the way.
On Day Seven – had it really been a week? We went to Arashiyama Park, a bit far by metro and bus to the northwest of Kyoto’s center. The park is large and includes a grove of formidably-sized bamboo and a small monkey park. Afterwards, we wandered through some shopping districts, bought some street food, and went back to our hotel.
The day after that, our primary mission was one of our musts: visit a family friend I hadn’t seen in thirty years, a Japanese guitarist named Taichi Tamura. Tamu was an exchange student who lived with my parents for the last two years of high school, who went on to the University of Tulsa to study music. We were able to meet up and talk a bit before hearing him play three sets with a pianist in a small venue in Osaka; clearly the other table knew the pianist, we knew Tamu, and it was a very cozy affair; in the end all of us were dancing to a jazzy guitar-piano rendition of “My Way”.
Before that, we saw the sights in Osaka. We went to Osaka Castle and toured the inside; we visited the famed Dotombori area, essentially a large, festive alley of food. M’s favorite was a slice of Japanese strawberry cream cake; I had a piece, and I have to say, it was marvelous.
We caught a late-night train back to Kyoto and prepared to leave the next day for the longest in-country segment of travel: Shinkansen to Tokyo, transferring to Shinkansen to Sendai.
Poppin’ Around? Here are the Japan links: Overview | Tokyo | Kyoto | Sendai | Final Day