Kyoto

We are here in the city which for a large chunk of Japan’s history was the capital: that distinction has only belonged to Tokyo since 1868, while Kyoto was the capital for over 1,000 years prior to that.

We’re staying in a quiet neighbourhood, which is a change of pace compared to Canal City and (especially) Shinsaibashi. Actually, our neighbourhood reminds me somewhat of the back alleys of the inner west: here as there, the streets seem to have been designed before anyone contemplated that cars might one day exist.

Kyoto is a strange place. On the one hand it looks at first glance like any city anywhere in the modern first world: it has bus stops, fast food joints, tall office blocks, taxis and tobacconists. But the past is everywhere, dotted throughout the city, and if you walk for more than 10 minutes in any direction, you’re bound to encounter it. We’re staying a couple of blocks in either direction from two huge temple complexes with origins in the 16th and 17th century. Most intriguing are the tiny and seemingly ancient shrines nestled along city streets, which you come across suddenly in a gap between two shop fronts (and which are the same size as the adjacent shops, too). Kyoto, or at least the part of it we’re staying in, also seems to have more of an emphasis on religion, and Buddhist paraphernalia (incense, candles, statuettes etc) is much more common in shops than in the other cities we’ve stayed in so far.

This morning we visited one of the above-mentioned temples, Higashi Hongan-ji. The buildings were reconstructed in the late 19th century following a fire, so I was amused to note the presence of fire extinguishers every couple of metres inside the temple. Also odd was the fact that, although the place was very closely guarded (the guards were somewhat paramilitary, saluting each other and everything), the guards, like the temple visitors, were not wearing any shoes.

After Higashi Hongan-ji we took a walk though the Nishiki markets. Of all the foods that we saw there, I would estimate that we recognised approximately one quarter of them. For many, I couldn’t even guess whether they would taste sweet or sour (perhaps this information wouldn’t have helped me much anyway, since the Japanese seem to favour quite sweet dishes for their savoury courses anyway). There were places that sold countless kinds of green tea, live fish, crabs and (gulp) turtle, translucent white and green cakes, dozens of varieties of rice, tiny multicoloured sweets, and other, less recognisable things: what I thought must be candied nuts and dried fruit turned out to be processed or salted fish of some kind, and a shop displaying barrels and barrels of pickled vegetables had only a handful that we could identify (eggplant, cucumber, ginger and some kind of kimchi).

We roamed the streets this afternoon and did a little shopping. I must say that everyone who told me before I came here about the politeness and kindness of the Japanese people was right, and I’ve noticed it especially in and around Kyoto. Yesterday, a man gave me bread to feed some koi in a pond when he saw me watching others do it. When we got caught in the rain, a woman desperately tried to give us umbrellas (she seemed distressed when we wouldn’t take them, but we were only a block away from home by then and the damage was well and truly done), and last night at dinner our waitress scurried off to learn English words so she could answer our question about what we were eating (slivers of raw tuna skin – though the skin part she was able to successfully mime).

We thought five days should be enough time here to take things at a leisurely pace, but I think we may have underestimated the number of must see attractions in and around the city. Stay tuned to see how we go…