Tom: Kyoto (August 16)

Kyoto (August 16) · Oct 7, 08:51 PM

My alarm went off as planned, but I lay in bed and closed my eyes without resetting it. I wake up again at 5:30, half an hour before my high speed shinkansen rolls away from Tokyo station and here I am sleepy-eyed in Asakusa. So I was out the door quickly, and got to the train a full five minutes before the doors closed with a charming electronic melody. Rob called at 5:35 as I was walking to Ueno; I had asked him to call just in case everything went catastrophically wrong and I was still asleep.

The Nozomi Shinkansen was sleek on the outside, green like a double-headed snake. Inside it was clean and bright and comfortable. I slept a little, but enjoyed watching urban rural scenery roll by in fast-forward; trains in China were much slower than this. Anyhow, in Kyoto station I milled about, mulling over what to do and should I buy a tourist map.

I wandered — careful to stay in the shade where possible and careful to drink several liters of water — from Kyoto station at the center of town to Ryoanji Temple 10 to 15 km north-northwest, on the outskirts of town. My phone, the one Rob has lent me, rang mid-morning. Gernot was calling to touch base. I enjoyed and also sweated heavily my walk out from the central downtown through residential blocks to the touristed outer edge of Kyoto. Temples, parts, and graveyards lie all around (and even in) Kyoto, but I only visited the one — Ryoanji, which is built on grounds surrounding a small lake and which contains a famous zen rock garden with fifteen stones. You have to take your shoes off to enter the temple. People sat to contemplate the garden, and inside the temple an old man lectured to a small seated audience.

The walk to Ryoanji took several hours — at least two, probably three; I took a bus back towards Kyoto station rather than walk all that way again, but spontaneously disembarked several stops earlier than planned, following a crowd off the bus into a bigger crowd on the street. I found myself in a popular shopping district. A notable minority of the people are dressed up in formalwear — robes and sandals — for today’s holiday. From the bus stop I walked east over a river to where Shijo Dori (that’s a street name) ended in a complex of temples, parks, and a hillside graveyard. The parks were quiet, the temples and graveyards were heavily visited but also quiet. This is certainly not China. Hundred of white paper lanterns were strung all throughout the graveyards and temples. Visitors to the graveyards carried buckets of water and ladles to water the flowers set around the graves.

Before finally meeting up with Gernot, I returned on foot to Kyoto station to buy a ticket on a 12 o’clock Hikari Shinkansen back to Tokyo tomorrow. It was kind of a long walk after a long day full of walking in the humid heat, so I took a subway back up to the rendezvous with Gernot and his fiance. We began talking but were kept away from “bodyskills” shop-talk as company arrived for dinner. We had noodles, vegetables, bread, and a bottle of wine that led into pleasant small talk. Just before eight we climbed to the root — it’s a warm, comfortable, and cool night — to watch the fires. At five spots around Kyoto large bonfires are lit in the shape of a ship and several Japanese characters, including 大 (the meaning is “big”, pronounced “dai” in Japan and “da” with a falling tone in China). The fires commemorate and say goodbye to ancestor spirits, who return to their homes on earth once every year. You can see three of the fires from our rooftop.

Back inside we were joined by two Russians. Sergey is a cognitive science post-graduate student; we got along famously. It was a good evening and when all the guests had left Gernot, his fiance, and I stayed up till three. We talked martial arts, body conditioning, and other random topics. In the end, they brought out a futon mattress for me.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/10/08/tokyo-august-17

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