Japan 2012: Osaka > Kyoto

Monday, 12 November 2012

Tired.

That was the key word about two-thirds of the way around the day's exercise routine, and with one final day's exertion to go as I sit typing on a Tuesday morning where the forecast says cloudy in the morning, later turning to rain, that's just as well.

The day's assignment seemed straightforward enough on the surface. A late rise after a big sleep made sense, since we wanted to avoid the morning press of salarymen and other workers making their way into central Osaka. A morning transfer to Kyoto made sense, since it would leave the afternoon free for sightseeing, and an evening without appointments would probably leave us fresh to face a more adventurous schedule on Tuesday, after which it was all a downhill run, so to speak, with Wednesday taking us back to Kobe and Thursday devoted to preparations and packing prior to the return Down Under.

That's pretty much downhill all the way from here, folks.

Of course, there were complications along the way. The first came when The Mother's Phone started making buzzing noises. Given the linguistic issues involved I passed the Incoming message to Madam, who was otherwise (naturally, in an expression of Murphy's Law) engaged in the bathroom. Equally, given the fact that it was probably a text message rather than a voice call, it wasn't that urgent, so someone had time to complete the morning ablutions.

Checking, she established it was a message from a rather concerned Sponge, who we wanted to catch up with, whose communications had been overwhelmed by spam and had, in turn, been waiting to hear from us. We, of course, had been away from email access for the best part of a week, so there wasn't much we could do in terms of contacting him.

In any case, the flurry of text messages following that initial contact established that he was off to Himeji early on Tuesday morning, which effectively ruled out Monday night, and whatever happens on Tuesday is going to depend on how he feels at the end of a longish working day.


Still, that meant we 'd managed to shine a bit of light on the last remaining issue that needed to be resolved, so we duly packed up and set off for Kyoto. That wasn't such a major operation after the transition from lugging the Black Monster to carrying the Little Red Travelling Bag, but we were reminded of the way things could have been as we made our up and down staircases and in and out of subway carriages.

Around ten in the morning things weren't quite as hectic as they would have been an hour and a half earlier, but we made the subway transition to Umeda and the Hankyu connection to Kobe without too much difficulty. I hadn't quite been on the ball the night before when we were headed into the Spanish eatery and the party space across the road was operational, but we passed that particular side street on the way to the subway station so I grabbed a quick photographic record along the way….

Things got a little messy once we'd made our way out of the railway station and set off for the hotel, which turned out to be a bit further from the station than expected, and on the opposite side of the street. Still, things could have been worse.

The initial influence that brought things unstuck was lunch. That might seem like a minor matter, but for some reason The Supervisor set her mind on a particular French/Italian option that came highly rated and wasn't that far from the hotel. Actually, it was a bit further than expected (there's an emerging theme here) and was, when we eventually found it, booked out.

I'd initially suggested I wasn't particularly concerned about the nature of lunch, provided it was conveniently close, and we'd already passed a number of places I thought might have made perfectly acceptable options, but when a decision was called for I pushed us towards a curry place that wasn't that far from the booked out place, so at least we didn't have to go far.The meals, while they weren't anything to rave over, we're perfectly adequate and reasonably cheap.

With lunch out of the way, we set off for the afternoon's sightseeing, which involved a visit to Kiyomizu temple, which is, and I really should have picked up on this earlier, Kyoto's major temple attraction and is almost invariably packed. As it happens it's on the same side of the same river as the places we'd visited on the Sakura Sunday four and a half years before, and I really should have been looking at a map before I ventured an opinion on the relative wisdom of walking as opposed to catching a bus.

Given a slighter better grasp of the geography I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

Given a slightly better grasp of our current location vis a vis the river and the city's major transport axes, I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

Given an awareness of the number of steps and winding uphill paths involved, I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

From which the astute reader will no doubt have inferred, we walked.

Now, it doesn't really matter whether you catch a bus or not. The bus doesn't get you that close to the actual temple, so you're going to be doing a fair bit of walking whichever way you approach it and walking wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that it was a bit further than either of us expected.

Actually, we'd made our way across town to the river, crossed the appropriate bridge and started the gradual ascent towards the temple precinct when I looked ahead and realized that we were headed for them there hills and them there hills weren't as close as you'd have liked. Still, the walk wasn't too bad in the early bit. The footpath wasn't that crowded, but as we headed uphill all roads, it seemed, lead to the temple, and each road was delivering its share of pilgrims and sightseers.

Founded in 798, Kiyomizu-dera (Pure Water Temple) isn't the only temple in Japan operating under that title. There's also a Kiyomizu-dera in Yasugi, Shimane, on the 33-temple route of the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage through western Japan, but the one under consideration here gets its name from from the Otowa waterfall within the complex, which runs off nearby hills, splitting into three separate streams whose waters are supposed to bring a long life, ensure success at school and guarantee a successful love life. Visitors use cups attached to long poles to drink the water, though drinking from all three is considered greedy. You can't have everything, but I guess if you could manage two you'd be singing along with the Meatloaf song.


Although Kiyomizu-dera dates back to the early Heian period (794 to 1185) when the capital moved to Kyoto the present structures were built in 1633, on the orders of Tokugawa Iemitsu and were constructed without the use of nails. Given the size of the Main Hall (Hondo) and its veranda that opens off it, that's a rather impressive achievement. The veranda, supported by 13 metre high pillars, juts out above a precipice, offering impressive views across the city, and a spectacular view of cherry and maple trees towards the hills in spring and autumn.

Similar structures were apparently erected at a number of  sites visited by large numbers of pilgrims during the Edo period. According to a tradition dating back to that era, jump off the verandah and survive the fall and your wish will be granted. That's the origin of the Japanese equivalent of taking the plunge, to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu. Two hundred and thirty-four people are supposed to have tried it during the Edo period, and, allegedly, 85.4% survived.

I did the maths to figure out an actual number, and came up with a figure of 199.836, which probably shows how rounding off affects your calculations. Multiplying by 85.5 comes to a tad over 200. In any case you're not allowed to do that any more.

The temple precinct contains fifteen buildings classified as Important Cultural Properties, including the inner Temple (Okunoin) a smaller scale version of the Hondo, Amida Buddha Hall (Amidado), and a vermilion three-tiered pagoda and several other shrines including Jishu-jinja, dedicated to Ōkuninushi, god of love and good matches. Visitors who succeed in walking between a pair of love stones with their eyes closed are supposedly guaranteed to find love, or their perfect match. Attempt to do so with assistance and you'll still find it, but will need the assistance of a go-between or matchmaker.

There are also halls dedicated to the historical Buddha and another that contains close to two hundred statues of Jizo, protector of children and travellers. A visit to a structure at the southern end of the temple grounds is said to bring about easy and safe childbirth. Like most of its peers, the complex has an assortment of talismans, incense, and omikuji (paper fortunes) for sale, and when I spotted one that's supposed to protect travellers on the road I thought of the inimitable Staggster, and bought one.

We'd seen our share of temples and religious sites over the preceding two and a bit weeks, and there's a fair possibility that I was more or less templed out, but I must admit Kiyomizu struck me as a bit of a disappointment. There's no denying there's a great view back across the city, and the verandah, with its sheer drop is impressive when you're up there, and very impressive when you're standing on the bottom looking up, but the crowds were getting to me and a fair part of the complex was closed and undergoing repairs.


Anyway, with the walk through the temple out of the way it was a matter of making our way back to the hotel, which, basically, should have been a matter of making our way down to a bus stop and proceeding from there.

Unfortunately, the way down from the temple itself takes you through the steep and busy lanes of the atmospheric Higashiyama District, winding streets lined with shops and stalls, and this is where the failure to take the bus on the way up kicked in big time.

The actual Higashiyama District (Higashiyama-ku, or east mountain) covers the eastern part of Kyoto's city centre along the lower slopes of the Higashiyama mountain range and extends a fair bit further than the section we traversed, as far, in fact, as the Philosopher's Path to Ginkakuji Temple which was one of the sakura season highlights last time around.

Fortunately, as subsequent research revealed, it's the sort of place you're going to be heading back to, hopefully with the tiredness taken out of the equation since it is, by all accounts,  one of the city's best preserved historic districts and a genuine reflection of traditional Kyoto, especially between Kiyomizudera and Yasaka Shrine where the narrow lanes, wooden buildings and traditional merchant shops invoke a feeling of the old capital , which was the way we went. They've even gone to the extremes of removing telephone poles, doing away with the spider web of cables and wires you find above most Japanese streets and and repaving the roadway to maintain the traditional feel of the district.

Streets in Higashiyama are lined by shops, cafes and restaurants that have been catering to tourists and pilgrims since some time around the 14th century, selling local specialties such as Kiyomizu-yaki pottery, as well as gift culture staples like sweets, pickles, crafts and other souvenirs.

The walk through Higashiyama from Kiyomizudera to Yasaka Shrine is around two kilometres and could be done in half an hour or so, but you you could easily spend much longer visiting the temples, shrines, shops, cafes and restaurants along the way.  Maybe next time around we'll be walking beyond Yasaka Shrine past Chionin and Shorenin Temples to Heian Shrine, and possibly even further via Nanzen-ji Temple, with a collection of architecture and artwork from the the late 16th century Momoyama Period. The area also contains the Kyoto National Museum. I expect we'll be back, but next time we'll be getting there by bus, won't we?

The businesses along the way gradually morph from establishments catering to the temple visitor/sightseer trade into a network of interesting streets in a neighborhood that gradually, in turn, morphs into the Gion District, and the further we got away from the temple the more the crowding eased, though you're never in danger of finding tranquility and solitude in any Japanese city, and that's particularly the case when you're in one of the must visit areas of Kyoto.

Kyoto's most famous geisha district, Gion dates back to the Middle Ages, and the shops, restaurants and ochaya (teahouses) located around Shijo Avenue between Yasaka Shrine and the Kamo River originally catered for travellers and visitors to the shrine, but by the mid-18th century the area was Kyoto’s premier pleasure district. From there, the district evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in the whole of of Japan.

There are actually five geisha districts in Kyoto where geiko (Kyoto dialect for geisha) and maiko (geiko apprentices) entertain clients, and since geisha are entertainers, not prostitutes, Gion is not, despite popular misconceptions, a red-light district. If that sort of thing floats your boat research suggests you head for Shimabara instead.


Traditional wooden houses called machiya are a major drawcard in Gion, and since property taxes were based on the width of the street frontage, they tend to have narrow facades but stretch up to twenty metres in from the street. Some of them are ochaya (tea houses), traditional establishments where patrons have been entertained for centuries. As expert hostesses, maiko and geiko engage in conversation, serve drinks, conduct drinking games and perform traditional music and dance. Other preserved machiya houses now function as restaurants, serving Kyoto style kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine).

Having made my way through Gion I was ready to get away from the crowd, and the boots that had seemed so comfortable back when we'd bought them before the Cooktown trip were starting to squeeze the feet, probably as a result of having been worn solidly for a fortnight, with a pinch of prolonged exposure to wet weather thrown in for good measure.

Actually, I suspect that having got wet the outer layers didn't dry out completely and had shrunk marginally. Hopefully further wear will push things back into shape, but it's very much a case of wait and see.

Having made our way through Gion, we were off to the hotel, and here those factors involving unfamiliarity with the public transport system and lack of knowledge of the local geography kicked in again,and they kicked in big time, along with a pigheaded reluctance to say "That's enough, my feet need a rest."

After all, I figured, it wasn't that far, and, off course, following up on that emerging theme, it wasn't a bit more than we expected ("May as well walk," as I recall we're my exact words, "it's only a few blocks."

But it was considerably further than I'd bargained for.

Back at the hotel where any sane man would have had the boots off and laid back for a well-earned rest someone had to check out the Wi Fi situation in the lobby and while it was there, it was painfully slow until Madam joined me with her iPad and ventured into the territory of the bleeding obvious, wandering over to the Front Desk to ask about minor administrative details like passwords. Things sped up considerably thereafter.


A spell upstairs after that gave the feet a welcome respite, and around six-thirty we started making Dinner noises, at which point lunchtime's failure to get in where she'd wanted, along with Hughesy's suggestion we opt for a curry place kicked in big time. Madam had located another French/Italian wine bar sort of place and pointed us in that direction. It wasn't as highly rated as the first one, but that, hopefully, meant it wouldn't be full either. There were two (actually, make that three) major surprises when we arrived on the doorstep. It was another of the basement type eating and drinking establishments, which meant signage above the steps going down.

The first surprise came in the form of the business name. Cheers isn't the first name that springs to mind when you're looking for a French/Italian wine bar sort of place, but maybe the American sitcom never made it to Japan. They probably serve beer, but given the quality of the wine I sampled there I don't think I'd be bothering.

Surprise #1 had a significant addendum, since Cheers seems to be aimed pretty solidly at the female market. That mightn't be quite accurate, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion based on signage and a Girls set section of the menu.

Surprise #2 kicked in when we walked inside to find the place was practically deserted. Maybe Monday nights are quiet, maybe the crowds arrive later, but when we walked in there were two tables occupied. one emptied while we were there, and no one else came in. Strange.

Because the food and wine quotients there were rather good. We did the sharing a variety of small plates thing, and everything was very good, from the oyster and shallot gratin that arrived with the salad to the pizza that finished the main courses side of things. Madam finished with a chocolate mousse that was very tasty and had me wishing I'd done the same. Full marks on that front.

Even better was the wine selection. There were other by the glass options that didn't appear in the actual by the glass section of the menu, but I limited myself to the official version, and the results were very satisfactory.

There was a Prosecco that might have been a tad on the sweet side but worked nicely as an aperitif, a Sauvignon Blanc from Touraine that was obviously SB and obviously in the mould the Kiwi exponents of the variety are looking towards, a Chardonnay from Burgundy that would have received ticks of approval from the New Wave Oz Chardy crew and an Italian Primitivo (a.k.a. Zinfandel) that wrapped things up nicely. Madam limited herself to the SB while I had the other three, but there were glasses passed back and forth, and if she'd weakened I'm sure the result would have been another interesting wine and an excuse for Hughesy to go one more beyond that.

All in all, a very pleasant little evening, and the perfect prelude to a good night's sleep before an early start in the morning.