We had a long list of things we had half planned on doing in Kyoto, and most of them didn’t happen. We didn’t get to the Imperial Palace, or see Ryoanji’s famous dry garden. I even had to miss out on the Manga museum, and the cinema dedicated to the works of Tezuka Osamu (creator of Astro Boy). But one thing I refused to miss was the walk to the Fushimi Inari shrine, even if it meant waking up at 5:30am.
Tonight for the first time we ate a Japanese meal without the benefit of any of the following:
– an English menu
– a picture menu
– plastic models of food we could point to when ordering (I don’t know who makes these, but they have them for everything, including non-Japanese food like pizza)
– restaurant staff able to explain our meal to us using verbal communication, written communication, pantomime, interpretive dance or any other means.
Beside all the temples and gardens in Kyoto, it also has a rather famous castle – Nijo-jo. Himeji, an hour west of Kyoto is best known for its castle Himeji-jo. Today (perhaps rather ambitiously) we visited both of them, so it’s only natural that I try and determine whose castle reigns supreme.
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.
Yesterday we back tracked along the Shinkansen line to Osaka, then headed onwards to Kyoto. We’re staying in a ryokan here, which is meant to be a traditional Japanese style of accommodation. However judging from the private bathrooms, air conditioning and LAN port, I don’t think this place can be considered too traditional.
Here in Fukuoka we’re staying at the Grand Hyatt (strictly in honour of our anniversary; we can’t afford three weeks of it), which adjoins Canal City. Canal City is a shopping mall such as only the Japanese can create: flamboyant, luxurious and bewildering. Instead of an information desk, information robots (infobots?) patrol the centre, automatically stopping and entering info mode if you walk up to them. A series of fountains rising out of the canal (which flows through the centre of the arcade) does a choreographed routine to music every hour on the hour: on our first day we were present entirely by accident when ABBA started playing.
I think it’d be fair to say that Iron Chef had quite a bit of influence on our decision to travel to Japan. After seeing some of the amazing (and strange) creations on the show, the idea of eating some of this food ourselves was rather appealing.
Today we took photos of the most photographed thing in Japan. We’re such tourists.
Continue reading Miyajima (or Misen: Halfway there and back again)
Spent today getting sunburnt and sore legs. We covered a lot of ground – first stop was Osaka Jo, a castle that has been built, destroyed and rebuilt many times. We ran out of time to take a look inside, but spent a few hours wandering through the gardens that surround it, quite a nice change of pace compared to Shinsaibashi.
It’s been an exhausting first full day here. Of course we woke up at about 7am and thought we’d get up and around and not waste the morning – only to realise that we’re staying in an area that doesn’t wake up before noon. I’m psyching myself up to try the Japanese version of breakfast at our hotel: this morning I chickened out with toast, while at the table next to us a man ate rice with raw egg and fermented soy beans. And orange juice; I guess some things are universal.