Japan - two days in Kyoto

Sunday 28th- Tuesday 30th March 2010

Just when it seemed like we were settled in Tokyo, we were up again and off to Kyoto, over 200 miles west in the Kansai region of Japan.

Kyoto was Japan's capital city from the 8th century right through until 1868 when the government transferred to Edo (since renamed Tokyo). Although originally one of the chosen atomic bomb targets, Kyoto escaped the heavy WW2 bombing suffered by much of the rest of Japan and is one of the few areas with a large number of prewar buildings, including traditional narrow wooden townhouses known as 'machiya'. This also means that many of the temples and other historic buildings are still standing in their original settings. 20% of Japan's National Treasures exist in Kyoto and a large area of the city and its surroundings is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Getting to Kyoto from Tokyo involved a highly exciting trip on the Shinkansen (bullet train)! On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel in Asakusa and made our way to Ueno station on the subway, where we joined a large queue to pick up our Japan Rail Passes (you purchase the pass from outside Japan and get an exchange order, which you swap for a pass at one of the Japan Rail offices in the main stations). The whole process took an immense amount of time, not helped along by the fact that we seemed to be the only people in the queue who had bothered to fill out the exchange form in advance. But eventually we got our passes - they have a shiny cover with a picture of the great wave on - and rode the JR line down to Tokyo station.

The next stage was to try to make a seat reservation on the shinkansen (there are some unreserved seats but we had been warned they can be busy, and we didn't fancy standing for 2 hours!). This was easier than we expected as there is a dedicated reservation counter and you can just point to the time train you want, although the girl on the counter helpfully spoke some english and told us our train and platform number. This done, we were off!



I guess I knew Japan was mountainous but I didn't realise quite HOW moutainous it is. It's very up and down! Taking the train across the country was a good way to see the landscape. It is also very industrial, which is also unexpected as I suppose you think of rural Japan as a little bit quaint. It is very modern though, which I guess makes sense as it's almost all post-war built.

We scoffed bento boxes for lunch on the train and pulled into Kyoto Station just over two hours later. Not as busy as Tokyo and with fewer connection options easier to navigate around. It took us a hugely long time to work out the subway tickets and there were no english instructions anywhere, but eventually we got it. It's actually very easy, just not really immediately obvious! 20 minutes later, we stepped out of the subway into a quiet, freezing cold street on the eastern edge of the city and followed a map along a beautifully picturesque canal path for a few minutes til we arrived at our hotel, the Kyoto Traveller's Inn.



Our Japanese style tatami room! We weren't expecting that at all, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. The futons you sleep on are rolled up in the cupboard during the day! There was a little bathroom, fridge and kettle with a large supply of green tea. It was like camping but indoors I guess (and with heating, fortunately). It was a great find.

We unpacked a bit then headed out to eat, heading into the city centre. It was absolutely freezing so we headed for a vegetarian restaurant we picked from the book, called Hale. We found it in a back street, an old-style machiya which you entered and walked down a long corridor, then through a sliding door into the restaurant itself, where we were greeted at the door by the two ladies who ran the place - a younger lady who served the food and an older lady who seemed to be cooking it. It turned out to be one of the best dining experiences either of us had ever had! We left our soggy, cold shoes next to a glowing heater and stepped up into the raised dining room. There were only two tables, each seating four people, and we sat down on cushions at the only two places left. The menu was very simple and was actually all vegan. I don't really know what a lot of it was but there were steamed vegetables, fried tofu, pickles, a dish of something that was a bit like rice but not... half the vegetables I didn't even recognise but I've since found out that there are some vegetables unique to the Kyoto region!
We accompanied the meal with hot sake and plum wine and green tea. It was so comfortable sitting in the traditional dining room, all dark wood and exposed beams I didn't want to leave! But leave we had to, with the two ladies coming out of the kitchen to bow to us as we went out (I love this custom in Japan - the whole staff of a restaurant will come out to greet you and bid you farewell). It was a fantastic meal and a fantastic experience - as close as we came to trying the high-class Buddhist vegetarian cuisine Kyoto is famous for.

After a long sleep on our futons, Monday began with a trip into the hills to visit Nanzen-ji, one of the most important Zen temples in Japan. We had a look round the main gate which is HUGE and imposing in dark heavy wood. Then, we sidestepped into Tenjuan, one of the little sub-temples. You had to pay to enter (only about $2 though) but it was well worth a visit as it was so peaceful. A neat little temple building stands in a wonderful garden, with a large pond of koi. It was so magical!



We were the only people there for most of the time, and we spent a good long while walking around and enjoying the peace, before heading back out and further up towards Nanzen-ji, at the top of the hill. However, we decided that Tenjuan had been so enjoyable that we wouldn't bother to pay to go into Nanzen-ji so instead we began the Philosopher's Path walk up the mountainside, a lovely walk along a canal with overhanging cherry trees and lovely old style houses and little cafes lining the sides. We stopped in for a cup of tea and slice of cake at one, as it was really bitterly cold and we had been outside a long while. The Philosopher's Path is so named as it was the favourite walk of one of Kyoto's more eminent philosophy academics.



At the end of the path, high up on the mountainside, lies Ginkaku-ji, the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, built in the 15th century. It was intended to be coated in silver to match the existing Golden Pavilion (more on that later!), but even though this never happened, the nickname stuck.

It is set in large gardens, the most interesting feature of which was this 'dry garden' - shaped mounds of sand - which is supposed to aid contemplation.



The gardens were like a fairytale - we realised then that all of what we thought was grass was actually moss, giving it this unusual, incandescent glowing green look.



The temple itself.

After exploring the gardens, we walked back to our hotel, picking up takeout sushi for lunch on the way which we ate in our room. Caught the subway to the city and wandered round the department stores for a bit, then had a hot starbucks. It had started snowing when we were at Ginkaku-ji and was still snowing now quite heavily.
The city centre area of Kyoto is nice. After Tokyo it felt very provincial, but it reminded me of a larger UK city centre but a bit more stylish, neater I guess. It felt very safe and cheerful.
We found a really cool cafe to have dinner at, called Sarasa. It did kind of modern Japanese cafe type food - lots of salads with different types of mushrooms, noodles, rice dishes, vegetables. It was really friendly and there were a lot of interesting looking younger people there, definitely somewhere to go back to. Then, back to the room to roll out our futons for the night!

Tuesday morning began with a trip right across town on the bus to visit the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkak-ji. This temple dates from the 14th Century, but has actually been rebuilt 3 times as it was burned down twice in the Onin War in the 15th Century, then again more recently by a suicidal monk in 1950. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic sight!



It gleams across the Kyoko-chi (Mirror Pond) and all around it is a beautiful Japanese stroll garden which gives some lovely views over the temple itself as well as further afield. It was however enormously busy, so we didn't stay too long in the gardens, just enjoyed the views for a little while, especially the layers of snow starting to melt and drip from the walls and fence posts.

We walked down the road a little way for the next stop on our day's agenda - the Kyoto Museum for World Peace. This had an interesting little write up in the Rough Guide and since the entry fee was cheap and it was close by, we thought we'd check it out. It turned out to be brilliant. Most of the displays were just in one large room, but they are enormously detailed and comprehensive without being overwhelming. Everything in the displays is in Japanese, but the lady on the desk at the entrance gave us English-language guides which were very good - A4 booklets which described each part of the display, as well as giving you a general history lesson on the relevant facts.

The exhibition traced the history of the 15-Year-War, which is what the Japanese call WW2 - they had already been at war with China for some years before WW2 proper started. It focused on Japan's militarism and the terrible effects it had on other Asian countries as Japan strove to colonise pretty much everywhere and make their empire the biggest in the world. The tried to 'Japanise' all the countries they took over, forcing people there to speak Japanese, celebrate Japanese holidays etc. It also didn't gloss over atrocities commited by Japanese soldiers, including the Nanking Massacre and the use of 'comfort women' - Japanese women shipped over and forced to act as sex slaves for the soldiers. However it was also very balanced and told of the hard life of the soldiers - enforced conscription and great onuses placed on them - for example, they had to promise to commit suicide if they were to "undergo the humility of being captured alive". There was also a big section on the privations felt by the rest of the Japanese people - extreme rationing (it was unbelievable what they survived on) and constant air raids, whilst being force fed ideas about the greatness of being at war - no dissent on this point was allowed. It was just drummed into them that war=good. There were even children's colouring books on display with pictures of tanks and guns, which was a little disturbing.
It went on to talk about war elsewhere in the world, basically touching on every modern war however small or large from WW2 through to Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland even. The basic message was just that war is bad. For everyone.

We left the museum and caught the slowest bus EVER to Kyoto station, ducked into the Isetan store for bento boxes and caught the train using our JR passes to Inari, 2.5km south of Kyoto.

Next to the station is Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the head shrine of the cult of Inari (Shinto god of rice and sake - yay!) The colourful shrine buildings at the entrance were great, but we had come to climb a mountain, Inari-san!

There is a 4km maze of paths climbing to the top, lined the whole way with hundreds of red 'torii' gates, each donated by a company wishing for business success.



It was a pretty steep climb, but every now and again the path would open out into a little clearing with tiny shrines and perhaps a little tea house to rest in.







The view from the top was well worth the climb. But by this point it was starting to get dark so we pootled back down to the bottom and caught the train back to Kyoto. Got a big bowl of ramen from a little place in the station food court for dinner, excellent!

Please visit Flickr to see ADDITIONAL BONUS PHOTOS! and also to see these same photos in a less rubbish, washed-out format (i have no idea what photobucket does to them but I don't like it!)

Get your democratic hat on.

So the UK is voting now! Go vote, British people, use your power, cherish your democracy, weeeee!

I've been doing a lot of reading of manifestos over the past few days - Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats...

I've nervously giggled my way through the BNP's main policies (they don't really have any...or at least they don't seem very well thought out unless they involve hating on black people or women) - you know the way you laugh a bit but on the inside you are very, VERY frightened? Their stuff always sounds to me like it's been written by an irrational 8-year-old doing a "How would you run the country?" primary school project.

I'm also interested to see the newly launched TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition). I'm very pleased to see a left coalition which will work to decrease the split in the left vote, giving it more chance against the right where the vote is only essentially split between 3 parties. Their main policies seem slightly on the vague side though, although of course as a coalition and not a party each candidate is acting for their own individual party I suppose. They seem opposed to the EU, a viewpoint which I strongly disagree with, as well as pledging to immediately withdraw troops from Afghanistan, which I don't think is the most sensible solution - what's started must be finished (all the 'big three' aim to support the continuing presence of British troops in Afghanistan, the Lib Dems suggesting that they would try to bring them home as soon as reasonable).

What has struck me the most is the essential similarity between key Conservative and Labour policies. But I suppose that, although there may well still be a bunch of old, rich toffs in the Tories, and a bunch of old staunch socialists in the Labour Party, the people who now have the power are essentially in the centre - white, middle class, educated people with similar ideas.

The Liberal Democrats' policies most closely represent my views, particularly on a couple of points that are particularly important to me.

Firstly, whilst the Conservatives and Labour faff on trying to get more and more people into university, leading to a degree simply being a standard, expected qualification that no longer guarantees you anything in life, the Lib Dems are the only party that will scrap the '50% in uni' aim.

Secondly, both the Tories and Labour want an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is a non-promise. No short-term promise allows them to ignore it. The Liberal Democrats also have the same 2050 target, but also pledge to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020. That's soon, people! That's immediate action! And that's what we need.

If you want 10 reasons why not to vote Labour, look here - it may be a bit of an attack, but it's all backed up by evidence.

If you want reasons not to vote Tory, I can give you a few :-P

Philippa Stroud and her 'gay cures'; bizarre tax breaks for couples who have a marriage certificate and have one member who doesn't want to work (do I really need to point out how discriminatory this is against families who don't fit some old-fashioned, stuffy stereotype of how they should live their lives?); the fact in itself that they seem to see marriage as some quick fix to society's problems (I could rant on about root causes of poverty and social disintegration for hours if anyone would like....); their plans to repeal the Human Rights Act, effectively removing easy access to the European Court of Human Rights and the Convention; David Cameron's face.... (he likes Radiohead!, AND he sometimes leaves his SOCKS on the FLOOR! He's so TRENDY!)

The impression I get from the Liberal Democrats' policies is one of fairness. Fairness and rationality. Obviously I realise that certain Tory and Labour policies appeal more to other sectors of society than the one i inhabit, but I don't believe I'm so mentally odd that my reaction is not that of the majority. I worry sometimes that so many votes come from ill-informed voters, making a decision based on age-old prejudices that the Tories are going to make us all go fox hunting and give all our money to rich people and that Labour are going to make us give all our money to poor people and join a waiting list for a telephone. That cannot be democracy.

I'm going to bed now. Go vote, dear compatriots, and in an informed and intelligent manner.

I'll leave you with a link. If you want a wonderful, eloquent, balanced article that is basically nice about all the main parties and doesn't try to tell you who to vote for, please visit Stephen Fry.

Japan - a day in Tokyo

It's time I begun to blog on Japan, don't you think, hm? I am ill with a bunged up head and a terrible chesty cough (thanks, sudden temperature drop) so my inability to do anything else leaves me some spare time.

SO on Friday morning we boarded the plane for the 6 hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo. The flight was dull as it was all over sea apart from the first 10 minutes and the last 15 minutes. Tokyo Narita airport is actually about 60km from Tokyo itself and looks to be in a pretty rural area. As we flew in, I looked out of the window at the landscape of and thought "oh my god, it's all flooded!" - later I realised they were paddy fields and meant to be like that, haha!

At the airport, we managed to buy tickets for the Narita Express train into Tokyo (possibly the nicest, cleanest, most spacious train I have ever had the pleasure of spending 55 minutes on!) as well as PASMO prepaid electronic swipe cards for the subway, which we then used to get from the main Tokyo station to Asakusa on the subway line.

The Tokyo subway is surprisingly easy to navigate as everything is bilingual, clearly colour coded and mapped, and generally well-signposted. Ticket machines also have english instructions, although it helps if you know the name of the ticket you want to buy as the passes are sold under brand names rather than descriptions. I think the only subway slip-up we had in the entire trip was accidentally boarding an 'express' train with limited stops, not realising it sped right through the station we wanted.

We emerged in Asakusa in darkness, freezing rain. Used the helpful station map to orientate us, we walked the short distance to our hotel and checked in - the hotel room was tiny but very clean, warm and comfortable. After a quick rest we headed out to find some dinner as it was getting late. We walked back into Asakusa and found the central area, a bustling street of little shops and restaurants. Asakusa is a quiet suburb compared to the modern centres of Tokyo so none of the crazy lights and huge crowds yet! We tried one restaurant but they were closing, so worried we were a bit late, we just ducked into the next place we saw that had an english menu, a tiny little place. Turned out to be a good bet and we warmed up with stir-fried eggplant and tofu, miso soup and hot sake. Then to bed.

Saturday was our first full day in Tokyo. After a Japanese buffet breakfast (weird!) at the hotel, we headed back down to the main street of Asakusa again to visit the Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo's oldest and most sacred Buddhist temple. It was founded in AD 628 as a shrine to Kannon, goddess of mercy, after two fishermen fished a tiny statue of the goddess out of the river. The statue is stored in the main hall, but is considered too holy to be on display.

The main entrance to the temple is through the Kaminarimon Gate, in which a HUGE paper lantern hangs.



Once through, you make your way along Nakamise-dori, a street of little shops and food stands, before you make it into the heart of the site.



The temple is obviously a massive attraction for visitors from Japan and the whole world and it was VERY busy.



The Belfry, which stands at the centre of the site.

We had a good explore, including inside the main hall which was incredibly ornate - the main shrine was covered in gold and fantastically detailed paintings on the ceilings. Outside stands the incense burner - wafting the smoke over yourself is meant to keep you healthy. I got a cold so it doesn't work, sorry.



After having a good explore, we wandered through the little gardens and shrines surrounding the temple. There was a pond, full of massive koi, with cherry blossoms hanging over it.



There were also loads of these little Jizo statues:



Jizo is a very popular god and there are statues of him EVERWHERE. He is guardian of children and especially of children who die before their parents. Japanese mythology says that these children are unable to cross into the afterlife as they may not have not had a chance to do enough good deeds and they have made their parents suffer. Jizo can save them, and the red bibs are put there by parents asking him to protect their children. The other clothes are just because it's winter (non-living things have a soul too!) - lots of them had little woolly hats on!

From Senso-ji we walked a couple of kilometres west to Ueno, through quiet suburban streets of local shops. One thing that surprised me was the huge number of people on bicycles, and the lines of bicycles lined up in front of every building. I never realised the Japanese were such big cyclists, it seems at odds with the image of the ultra-modern, neon city-scapes you think of. But really that side of Japan is in such a relatively small area, bikes seem perfectly natural elsewhere.

Ueno is home to Ueno Park, Tokyo's largest public park. Cherry blossom season was underway and we had no idea what to expect, we certainly weren't prepared for the sight that greeted us! The park was heaving! There were people everywhere, and loads of parties were going on under the trees. A lot of preparation seems to go into the viewing parties, and some people had some incredible spreads including low fold-up tables.







There were a number of food stalls set up in the centre of the park, and Mark managed to use the power of mime to procure a dish of delicious fried octopus which we ate with the bento box we'd bought in the station.



See those things on sticks? That's a whole fish on a stick!

We then had a good wander around the park, joining the multitudes of people photographing the blossom and visiting the Tosho-gu Shrine and Gojo Shrine which lie in the park.



Inari fox statue at Gojo Shrine. Inari is a Shinto rice god, and foxes are the messengers of Inari. You see a lot of fox statues around shrines.



Prayers hung outside Tosho-gu Shrine

From Ueno we took the subway a little more north to Yanaka, Tokyo's old town, to do a walk that was in the guide book. Yanaka has a very different atmosphere again to Asakusa and Ueno - it feels far more traditional, and there is a lot to see - a shrine practically every few steps!



These Jizo were just lined up at the side of the road. Yanaka has a little main shopping street called Yanaka Ginza, with lots of traditional tea houses and food stores - we bought a beautiful tea canister and boxes of edemame and sweet potato to snack on. Then as the sun started to drop and with it the temperature, we decided to make our way towards the bright lights of Tokyo's modern centre, Shinjuku!

Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world, and has 60+ exits. It was, as you can imagine, a NIGHTMARE to get out of! We eventually just picked one that sounded about right, deciding to orientate ourselves once on the street instead. We came out under skyscrapers, lights and business to rival London's Oxford Street in the last few days of christmas shopping. It was intense! Freezing cold, we headed into a department store and found a rather posh starbucks, which cheered us up no end. We perused the guidebooks over coffees, deciding on a conveyer belt sushi restaurant in nearby Harajuku for dinner - turned out to be a good choice and we made the journey back to the hotel quite stuffed!