Travelling: Kyoto

Another long weekend, another excursion somewhere into deepest darkest Japan. This time, Japan's cultural treasure and number one tourist destination - Kyoto. Very well preserved from the Edo period, as before this most of the city was destroyed in the civil wars, and having survived being target number one of the atomic bomb (removed from the target list by one of America's higher ups - apparently he honeymooned there), Kyoto is an interesting mix of old, traditional architecture and huge, sprawling modernity that comes with Japanese cities.

NB. You have to forgive some of the photos with this post. There are two things my camera doesn't like, and it had to put up with extremes of both: dark and bright sun. If you feed it any slight dimness whatsoever, it claims it wants a flash and when you don't give it one it sulks and blurs whatever photo you take. In bright sunlight it decides to either bleach everything or to miss out a colour or two. So, some of these pictures are edited to try and get the best out of what I took. Funnily enough, some of the best photos (in my opinion) on here were taken perfectly naturally, which goes to show it's not a bad camera after all.

Koyo
This trip to Kyoto was going to be with Lena, another exchange student, from Germany, and we would be meeting up with her old Japanese friend, Gen. Reachable from Nagoya by normal trains within two hours, en route it slowly started to become obvious that everyone around us was also going to Kyoto. At this I cottoned on that Japan's "koyo" season was really in full swing. "Koyo" is the very popular appreciation of leaves changing colour in Autumn, and of course there's no better place to fully observe and appreciate orangey leaves than in Kyoto, where you can see them alongside a lot of well known beautiful temples. This was most evident when we arrived at Kyoto station to find people everywhere and enormous queues for every bus, taking new-come tourists to various parts of sightseeing.

An interesting observation was that the overwhelming majority of the tourists were Japanese, aka domestic. I can't really imagine a similar situation of national vigour to appear in Britain, unless you think about actual events such as the Fringe in Edinburgh or New Years celebrations. Perhaps X-Factor, however depressing that may sound.

Kyoto Garden
Anyway, first stop was a garden nearby to the station, called Shosei Garden. Was a good example of a relatively uncluttered, fairly traditional Japanese garden, and you could almost feel why while walking around - the high walls block off most of the noise and also restrict everything to the garden, which in itself has its own small representations of landscapes, life and the world in general, meaning the whole garden experience oddly does become a small world of its own if you spent enough time in there.

Kyoto Streets
From the garden, it was then off on a trek to find Nijo Castle. This wasn't after a burning desire to see the castle, though I was very curious to experience the Nightengale Floors (floors that creak slightly musically as you walk across them, designed to wake the local lord up before you murdered him). It was much more of a curiosity to find Reizeiin, the locale and scene of the Kyoto ghost story I'd translated for the Classical Japanese module the previous year. After a long, long walk around countless small crowded streets, even asking a nervous-looking postman where I was (the fact that he didn't know either was a both reassuring and not) I eventually found the castle, and started eastwards from there. I couldn't find the exact street, but soon realised why - the clever folks who owned the hotel built over that particular block in Kyoto had built it over the road too, effectively replacing the whole Reizeiin story with the ANA International Hotel. Ah well. I didn't have the classical road map in the first place, so I can't really be sure anyway.

Kyoto Castles
Nijo Castle itself seemed very empty - once you'd taken your shoes off and wondered around the interior, squeaking as you went, you then simply had the gardens to look around. I suppose it's important to note that when we say "castle", this one was mostly as a palace, having both never been attacked and being used mostly as a private retreat for the Shoguns, so it's not as if there's much to the castle in the first place, save the floors. The gardens were very nice however, and did a good job of illustrating the fascination of Koyo, providing some good examples.

Kyoto Koyo
After Nijo it was back to the station to meet up with Lena and her good friend Gen, and then take a crowded train to Tofukuji, one of the most popular spots for Koyo in the whole of Kyoto. And it showed - I had seen similar masses of people when I'd gone to Tokyo, but this that same number all crammed into a much smaller space. Of course, there was only one spot that you *had* to take the picture from, so it was each for his own as you pushed around to try and get to the edge to get a view. I learnt that being big and foreign does indeed have its advantages. It wasn't even a very good picture.

Kyoto Buddhism
From there we went to the (cameras forbidden) Sanjusangendo, the longest wooden building in the world at 118m, containing no less than a thousand near-identical statues of the bodhisattva Kannon. The unbroken length of the building and sheer number of statues was fairly mesmerising to say the least. The hall's name, Sanjusangen (lit. 33 intervals), refers to the lengths between the supporting pillars, which add up to the same number. Apparently the building also hosts an annual archery contest, where contestants have to fire arrows down the length of the building (outside, of course).

Kyoto by Night
That evening, we attempted the famous Kiyomizu-dera, the temple on stilts in the hills above Kyoto. Two problems with this - first, it was dark, and so my camera threw a fit and refused to take anything seriously (boom boom), and second, everyone else in Kyoto had the same idea. The pictures here are stolen shamelessly from Gen's camera therefore, and you should be able to get some idea of just how crowded the street was. Even when we'd made it to the top however, it was hard to distinguish where exactly you were or on what bit of stilt you were standing on because of the sheer number of people around. I did manage to get to drink some of the water though (Kiyomizu means "clear water"), which falls from three streams in front of you, and you have to reach out for it with little cups on sticks. According to Gen, the streams apparently represent health, love and money, though he'd forgotten the order. I drank from stream number one in any case, so we'll see how that goes.

Kyoto Living
We spent the night at Gen's appartment, not too far away by taxi, and far enough away from the temples to avoid the crazy numbers of people swarming all over Kyoto. I've valued this overnight experience ever since, however odd that may sound. Having never seen a "Japanese room" as it were, it was very enlightening to see how the style completely differed from the idea of a room we have in the West. Although I know it can't be the absolute rule for rooms throughout Japan, and it would be foolish to assume so, I marvelled at the design. Three rooms - small bathroom/toilet/shower combo, small kitchen, and a larger square plain room. On one side were some shin-level shelves, with books, a TV, and any personal effects. Aside from these there was no other furniture, save for a Kotatsu (square, foot-high table with a duvet attached with a heater underneath). Everything else belonged in the large cupboard in the wall. When it came to sleep, the kotatsu was dismantled and put in the kitchen/genkan area, and futon and duvets were brought out of the cupboard to make beds. In the morning the process was simply reversed.
Like I said, I don't know why, but I still strangely like this way of organising things. Of course, it's no good for anything but living by yourself with the occasional friendly visit by a small number of friends, and the space might get a bit restrictive, but equally I was impressed, and it will always stick in my mind somewhere.

Kyoto Outskirts
Next day, it was off to Uji, a short and extremely crowded train journey away (Tofukuji was on the same route). You know the infamous videos of people being physically pushed and squashed on to trains in Tokyo? That kind of crowded. I tried to the be humanitarian and make as large an area as I could for the children squirming somewhere around my knees. Once everyone got off at Tofukuji everything was much better, and we could even sit down. Uji is famous because of the building called Byodoin, or the Phoenix Temple, which is the temple that appears on the back of the 10 yen coin. It was very pretty, with extensive pieces of art, especially from India, and it was very clear how much Indian culture and influence had succeeded in travelling the Silk Road however many thousands of years ago. Uji also is famous for its tea, and I made sure to buy some before I left.

Kyoto by Evening
Once back in Kyoto, and having had lunch on the sunny river bank, we made for Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion Temple. Again, swamped with tourists, it was a simple enough visit of walking with the crowds along the path, but my camera behaved itself in the sunset and actually took some pictures I'm rather proud of, one especially that I've had as my computer's background ever since. On the way out of the complex, there was a small temple, and we decided to throw some money in and ask that whichever stream of water we'd chosen to drink at Kiyomizu would be the "right" one. After sneaking past an enormous bus queue we managed to catch a bus back to the station for some quick coffee and then the train home back to Nagoya.

Tools of the Trade

Eesh, it's been almost three weeks since I last wrote. I couldn't say where the time has gone - the weeks go by quickly, since it's very easy to simply concentrate on a day-by-day rather than some sort of larger scale. Work and lessons are going well, though we have enough tests that they are no longer something special and it is easy to miss revising. In terms of extra-curricularness I haven't managed to acquire anything yet. I suppose I can use some sort of language acquisition still-early-days as an excuse, but it's stark contrast with my life in Sheffield where I was almost never in my room during daylight hours.

So what has been happening? I managed to make it to Tokyo for one of the long weekends (Japan has plenty of bank-holiday-like Mondays off), which I will try to mention more about in a different post. I've been slightly ill for a time, but nothing serious enough to put me out of lessons. I had a birthday - thank you very much everyone for all your messages/presents/confetti bombs hidden in inconspicous cards! - I managed to have a small celebration, as it fell on a Sunday most people were either away or buried in work, but I still had a good time. I've finally managed to acquire bananas, but at the expense that my room is now regularly invaded by small (fruit?) flies which incredibly annoying. Ah well.

Anyway, for this blog I figured I could do some small descriptions of one or two things I find useful for life in Japan, at least, life so far.


The Bike
Three main reasons for getting a bike in Japan: in Japan bikes ride on the pavement, so it's a lot safer; there aren't any rules about safety equipment, so it's much easier just to hop on and off wherever you feel like (bikes are extremely popular in Japan so businesses/places in general are a lot more cyclist-friendly); and finally most of Japan's cities are built on largely flat ground, meaning it's easy to get around.

My bike cost ¥10,500 (roughly £50) second hand and in very good condition. It is about as cheap as you're going to get, as second hand bikes are very scarce. This is mostly because of the Japanese respect for others' property - when people abandon bikes, no-one is prepared to remove them unless they're distinctly getting in the way. There are actually bikes on campus half-assimilated by bushes, happily rusting away, which could otherwise be taken away for a bit of oil and a resale.

This bike is single speed, with a handy basket for shopping and whatnot. There is no real lock as you might expect - seeing a bike chained to something here is a rarity - instead it has a small bolt you can lock through the rear spokes. It makes things a lot easier getting around Nagoya, since although the university is only a 10 minute walk away, it speeds up getting to the shops, which are more at the 20 minute mark. It also encourages exploring a bit, as it's all too easy to simply rely on the subway map for all of your geographical interest.

The only downside to getting a bike is the registration process - once bought, you must register it in your name and put goodness knows how many stickers on it (my bike already has enough to shame the average rally car), and after that you might have to register it at whatever institution you want to park it outside (eg universities/dormitories, supermarkets and other public places are exempt fortunately). The registration process also restricts your bike to the city you register it in, but to be honest with this kind of single-gear bike you're really not going to stray far in any case.


The Phone
Ah, the magic of Japanese technology. The phone is a Toshiba 912T model, with plenty of the bells and whistles you might expect (although I've yet to use most of them).

Text messaging in Japan is slightly different to how things are in the UK, and much more efficient and common-sensical. Like UK phones, they have normal text messaging (SMS) and can call other phones. However, what the UK calls "MMS" or Multimedia Messaging Service (ie sending pictures, music, videos etc) and is charged for at a set rate per message (50p minimum on O2!), the Japanese have simply used normal email protocol, and charge for the number of packets (size of the email in data), for some tiny fraction of a yen per packet. As a result, most Japanese phones can also send and receive email like a normal computer without having to sign up to some ridiculous overpriced "Internet Access" plan as you have to in the UK. Since they work using data packets, they can usually also browse the internet, and retrieve all sorts of news and information from all over the place.

My phone's functions thus stand at something like: voice call, video call, text messaging, email, 3G internet browser, SaifuKeitai (Wallet-phone, I can pay for things by waving my phone at the till - haven't used it yet as I have to link my bill to a credit card), 3.2megapixel camera, OneSeg (free to watch TV on my phone), mini-SD card slot, and a spinnable screen for easier watching of TV and picture taking. Oh, it's also got a GPS feature, but that's an extra 300 yen odd a month, and I haven't yet got lost enough to need it.

Sounds expensive? Well, I bought my phone from Softbank, one of the main companies in Japan (the others being Docomo and Au). All emails, messages and phone calls within Softbank phones anywhere in Japan are free from 1am-9pm, and most of the the foreign student community here use Softbank also. I also bought my phone before October, meaning I got a special student discount - so long as I paid a (discounted) price for the phone, which was 19,500 yen (just under £100), I could pay a meagre 350 yen (about £1.75) a month for use. This roughly works out at around £10 a month for effectively unlimited use of my phone, since the things you have to pay for are extremely cheap in comparison to the UK. If I manage to sell my phone before I leave the country I will have paid peanuts for a great phone service.

The Dictionary
There are a lot of reasons not to get an electronic dictionary in Japanese and an equal number in favour. One on hand you might end up too reliant on its speed of use and easy to check kanji functions, while on the other hand there really is no way to guess words in Japanese if you don't know them without a wordy work-around explanation. In any case, my Denshi-jishou (electronic dictionary) has been consistently invaluable throughout my learning of Japanese, and I will always be thankful to Amako-san for her huge generosity in kindly bringing it back from Japan for me all those years ago. Having started Japanese from scratch, I'm still learning how to use it, since they are designed for Japanese people learning English and so have no real "English Menu" option for the reverse situation. The irony of using it to look up its own terms isn't lost on me of course ;)

Prices for Denshi-jishou can range from anything from £50 to maybe £300, depending on what features you require (more modern dictionaries have more than one language, character recognition, touch screens and even TV tuners), so if you want one choose carefully. I find that a simple word or kanji look-up is enough for me - the extras (list of Japanese proverbs and automatic formal letter writing!) are more than enough. I think I've changed the battery in it once in about three years, so they're fairly long lasting, also this one has survived the same time living up to its portable nature in some pocket somewhere. If you have the money I'd certainly recommend one but by no means think you are losing out without one.


More in a bit...

Travelling: Tokyo, Shinkansen, Capsule Hotel

Japan has a lot of national holidays - weeks where the Monday becomes a holiday, effectively giving you a three day weekend - ideal occasions for travelling. As such, I told myself I would go somewhere and travel around Japan on each one of these long weekends, so long as I didn't have so much work I couldn't forestall it till later. This holiday was actually meant to be "Culture Day", so I suppose going to the nation's capital was a suitable way of spending the time.

Shinkansen
First though, to get there. There were three main options:

- Nightbuses run from Nagoya every evening to Tokyo, dropping you off tired and grouchy (so I've heard) at a bus depot in the early hours of the morning. This is the cheapest option, and would have given me the most time in Tokyo, but I wasn't in a hurry and didn't fancy the overnight bit.
- JR (Japanese Rail) operate easy enough trains to Tokyo, which are reasonably priced, and would get you there in maybe a few hours. But of course...
- I chose the Shinkansen, or Bullet Train. The tickets were expensive, 24,000 yen for a return (just over £120), but it's the fastest way of getting to and from any point in Japan, and I wanted to experience the fastest train on earth for myself at least once. When buying the tickets I discovered that foreign students, not being the "real" flavour of students, can't get student discounts. Hm. There was also the strange feeling looking at the train schedules that, actually, this time, there would be no scope for lateness - the trains would turn up at exactly the times shown, which, the following morning, unsuprisingly, it did.

On the train itself it doesn't actually feel that fast - it's very smooth, very comfortable and that's about it - you arrive at your destination a very short while (an hour and a half) later, no questions or complications. Of course, on the route I was taking was the famous view of Japan: the shinkansen in front of Mount Fuji surrounded by fields. However, being on the train I only managed to get the Mount Fuji bit, which was always nice to see I guess. From arriving in Tokyo station I had to find my way to Shinjuku to meet up with Woody who'd show me around for the day, and that was made more interesting by how train maps' lines aren't labelled. Stations fine, line names not. You have an interesting experience matching the shades of colour to the signposts in the ceiling to find your way, though I cheated and asked at the station office.

Shinjuku
Full of tall buildings, loud signposts, and big neon everything - a very Tokyo place to come to first in all accounts. Met up with Woody, and we had some Okonomiyaki (cabbage and whatever, cooked on a hot top) for lunch, although I failed marvellously at cooking the runnier version, Monjayaki, which instead decided to see how much of the table it could spread to while I wasn't paying attention.

Wondering around the area between all the enormous skyscrapers, we came across the Government Towers, two towers with free viewing decks on the 42nd floors. From up there you get a very good idea of just how big the whole place is.

For the evening's entertainment, we met up in Shinjuku for a trip to an Izakaya and Bar. Awesome to see everyone again - it's hard to realise we're all still on the same course somewhere. Apart from much drinking and swapping of adventures, it was back to the station before the last train.

Akihabara
The next day I ended up looking around here, dumping bags into a railway locker for the day. It's a great place... if you're looking to buy something. Otherwise, it's good for a couple of hours browsing. However, any more than that and you're likely to start going a bit mad - the whole !!we L0Ve An!mE1!! movement is very much in your face, and you end up thinking about bombing the place. But not before buying some sort of technological gizmo or other in one of the countless twenty-storey warehouses of the things.

From here I walked to Ueno, upon which was born the theory of "train station accumulation", detailed in the "Tokyo vs Nagoya" bit below. The reason being was that there's actually very little between the stations, or at least seemingly. There was a fun market like place where I sussed out some "magical" street magicians selling hopping cardboard men, and then I found myself at..

Ueno
..home of the unescapable park. Goodness knows how I did that - I got in easy enough, but to get out I had to walk down the side of a road and into a train station. True gaijin style.

Anyway, Ueno Park was great. Full of small temples, statues of this and the other, street performers, people and boys and girls on their 3/5/7 kimono visits. There was an old man playing a sombre melody with a reed sitting by one of the temples - I wanted to record him, but he managed to escape before I could try. It was also here that I had a very Japanese moment. I passed a Mum&Dad-esque couple taking turns at taking pictures of their little girl wearing a beautiful kimono. Were I in England, I wouldn't have hestiated in offering to take pictures of them all together, but some odd sense of intrusion kept me from bringing myself to ask. I didn't know these people, I told myself, and I wasn't entirely comfortable with the feeling that they were no concern of mine, but that's how Japan works. Their moment was working, and while it could be improved, it could also be dashed to pieces by a clumsy gaijin offering to take pictures for them. Doing nothing was the best way of leaving things "unrippled" as it were.

Sensoji
A short train ride away, in a place called Asakusa, you can find a temple called Sensoji. A large complex, very popular with tourists and Japanese people alike, with it's very distinctive huge red latern, is also the oldest temple in Tokyo. Not much to say here really, though the enormous shopping district in the street running up to the temple was very interesting, especially considering that people have been doing exactly what I did at Sensoji for centuries, perhaps even stopping at the same shops.

When I left, I came across a shop with a large scale version of the old English game Bagatelle (you fire marbles up and past pins to land in holes worth points) and had a chat with the owner, who was friendly enough for me to have a go. She says it is the origin of the Japanese phenomenon Pachinko, although there is only hers and another shop in Osaka left. Needless to say, I didn't win anything.

Shibuya
Following dusk, the Sheffielders met up at Shibuya again, where I've never seen so many people crossing the same road at the same time before; almost mesmerising. This was followed by a curry house where you could buy "extra hot" and "extra spice" separately. Following this, a trip to Karaoke, with a mix of feeling sorry for the bartenders for keeping them busy and feeling sorry for the company for having to put up with our singing. Karaoke with (nearly) all English peeps though was most enlightening - all the good songs came out of course, and everyone could join in.


The Capsule Hotel
Here's a bit without pictures - it didn't seem very polite to go around taking them.
I decided the best bet for staying overnight in Tokyo would be to find either a DVD-Cabin (rent a seat overnight with a film or two) or to find one of the magical and mystical "Capsule Hotels", where you're given a comfortable coffin for the night. I chose the latter, a) because I wanted a proper bed and b) because then you can tell everyone about it later.

So, I found myself a 4000-yen Capsule Hotel and checked in by removing my shoes, locking them in a small compartment and handing the key into Reception. They ask me to fill out a small form, whereupon I'm given another key and directed upstairs, where my small cupboard is waiting for me with a dressing gown (woefully short but never mind), towels, toothpaste and toothbrush and a shaving kit. You get changed into your dressing gown (ok, so it wasn't THAT short) and then go off in search of your cabin. According to my brochure, my cabin was 1mx1mx2m, though for some reason I was still a couple of inches off fitting into it. Ah well. If you don't feel like sleeping, you can wonder downstairs to use the internet, have a shower, use the beer vending machines or even stay in your capsule and watch TV. In all honestly I thought it was a brilliant experience, and had I not had a rubbish night due to a small head cold it would have been ideal. Turfed out at 10am, then wondered to the nearest bit of civilisation, Akihabara.
The website to see where I stayed is http://www.capsuleinn.com/index.html

Akihabara (again)
Waited for the others to turn up for an hour or so - like I said before, probably a bad decision, since now I feel like avoiding it for the foreseeable future lest I start thinking dark thoughts again. Anyway, we found a okonomiyaki restaurant, had something to eat, then went to a "Maid Cafe". I found the appeal of this hard to grasp - it's a cafe, where all the staff are dressed as maids, and who serve you your order with a small side-order of supposedly cute haplessness. I didn't really have time to order anything, since I had to get back to Tokyo Station and catch the Shinkansen back to Nagoya, but I wasn't sold on the cafe. I guess I'd have to give it another fairer chance before I condemn it to the murky depths of Akihabara, as hereby it shall be known (like 'being sent to Coventry' I suppose, only much worse).

Shinkansen Home
Slept. How Japanese. It was all dark anyway and since the train didn't really move a lot save forwards it was very easy. Oddly I woke up at the right time - still don't know how I managed that.


So...
Tokyo vs Nagoya
While in Tokyo, I was always drawn by the bright colours, narrow, often pedestrianised streets, and the large amount of people everywhere. Nagoya is meant to be the most "developed" city in Japan, but its much more obtuse: the streets all seem to be four lane roads with wide pavements next to tall faceless company department stores, making the city seem much much bigger than Tokyo, regardless of actual land-mass occupied. To that end as well, it is much easier to think of Tokyo as a collection of train stations, each with a mini-city spread out around it. Nagoya is just one, enormous, spread out mass of concrete, without even half the interesting places to go and keep your attention away from the spready-outness.

That said, I still wouldn't want to live there. The costs are ridiculous - student rent is five times Nagoya's, along with higher food prices and the general cost of things. Also, I heard that in the 5 odd weeks of Woody's commuting to and from University by train, it had been stopped because of train-jumping suicides no less than 4 times already. A lovely way to start (or even at least for one person, end) the day, I just wouldn't want the same degree of desensitisation. Tokyo has its plus sides of course. If there's nothing going on in your particular neck of the woods it's very easy just to hop on a train and find something else. There are a lot more foreigners around, if you see that as good or bad. There is a place for everything and anything you might want to do, and so long as you can put up with a city sprawling on all sides and half your life spent on trains then Tokyo will give you no problems.

Will I go back? Of course, perhaps in the Spring. And hopefully I'll meet up with all the peeps again for some more Karaoke and general Pub-going.