picturesque
it was a beautiful day, filled with many sights that were quintessentially “japan.”
we met up with tsukasa-sama for the final day of our kyoto journey, where he borrowed a car to personally drive us around rather than taking trains to our destinations.
we learned here that because parking is so scarce in the big cities (especially kyoto), essentially all parking anywhere in the city is paid. but not paid the way it tends to be in america, where you park the car and then pay for it. in this case, he had to reserve the specific parking spots he would be using today two weeks in advance. he has a monthly subscription to a service that lets you reserve parking spots, but you have to grab them early to make sure you get them.
non-subscription rates for parking space seem to average about ¥200-500 ($1.32 - $3.29) per hour so it is pretty cheap. you can even buy a full month of parking in a specific spot for as little as ¥7333 ($48.29) or as much as ¥40,000 ($263.40) depending on the area you want to park in.
cars are so rare here that parking them is somewhat of a luxury. everyone takes trains. it was interesting because the parking lots we used today were either completely empty or very nearly full. there were no halfway full parking lots.
our first destination for the day was kinkaku-ji, a famous temple also known as “the golden pavilion.”
kinkaku-ji
kinkaku-ji, also known as rokuon-ji, is an extremely iconic building, making the short list of most popular photos of japan. just as a test, i googled “kyoto” and went to images, and it is in the third row down. googling “kyoto sightseeing” has it as the third image. this is a major tourist destination, and there were a ton of people there.
you may be wondering how this bright gold building is still in pristine looking condition despite being built in the 1300s. well, the answer is a phrase i have typed a surprising number of times on this blog. it was burned down in 1950 (not by america this time, but by an angry monk), and was rebuilt in 1955. but by 1984, much of the gold leaf on the outside of the building had begun to peel. so it was replaced with gold leaf that was 5 times thicker.
there is some mild controversy about whether the building was originally this golden. this is a painted photograph of the structure in 1885, notably less golden:
worth noting that since it was constructed in 1397, there are nearly 500 years of decay in this photo, so it is hard to know for certain whether the current bright gold building is an authentic representation of the original.
there is actually quite a bit more to see here than just the big golden building.
there are beautiful gardens and ponds. this place is very well maintained. it felt like there was no angle you could look from that wasn’t something beautiful. highly recommend visiting if you are in kyoto.
at the end, i held the group up for a bit because i wanted to get my goshuin. but i did end up getting it.
toei kyoto studio park
this was an unexpected and very fun experience. we went to the toei kyoto studio park, which is a mix of a few different things, most notably a outdoor recreation of a traditional japanese village, used to “jidaigeki,” japanese period dramas that take place prior to the meiji era, which began in 1868. i only got a few pictues here, as there were a lot of people, and i try to avoid getting pictures of people.
as you likely see in one of the above images, they also have a section dedicated to evangelion, one of the most famous pieces of japanese media. evangelion is hugely popular in japan. i believe i posted this in the blog for the 26th, but evangelion is so popular that you regularly see references to it or dedications to it in random places. i’ll post it again, but when i was at the ropeway station to go up to owakudani on my mt. fuji trip, there was just a random large evangelion statue in the station.
i have not seen all of evangelion, so i can’t really comment on why. i’ve only seen 8 out of 26 episodes (i have been watching one every night before bed for the last week or so). it is (at least so far, where i am in the story) a plot that uses what my roommate would call “big ass fightin’ ass robots” as the medium to tell a story about psychology / existential dread / childhood trauma.
so far i can say i don’t really get the hype. maybe it will end up being like the wire, where watching it now sort of loses the magic because so much media since its release is directly influenced by it, to the point where it makes the show not feel particularly revolutionary or interesting.
but japan is really into it. it is considered one of the greatest anime series of all time. just the pachinko machines based on evangelion have generated over ¥700,000,000,000 (4.6 million dollars). if you ever visit japan, you will see it everywhere, even in quite unexpected places.
we also got lunch at a restaurant in the park, where i got kitsune udon. i ordered this specifically because it is one of the dishes i know how to make, and i wanted to see how it compared. as expected, it was much better than mine.
arashiyama
our next stop was the quite popular arashiyama, a district on the western edge of kyoto.
we had to take a train to get there, and i got this photo while we were waiting.
i wasn’t sure what to expect out of arashiyama, as the only thing i really knew about it was that there is a park where you can see the same kind of monkeys i saw in nagano on the greatest day of my life, the japanese macaque.
the area is much larger than i thought, and has a lot more to do than just look at monkeys. in fact, in a perhaps unexpected move, i elected to separate from the group and not go see the monkeys, instead opting to go on a photography quest and also rest my legs.
for some reason, here of all places really got me thinking about what it means to be able to easily go and see things that are significantly older than the country i live in. i think maybe this sunk in now because it was my first real period of taking photos alone since arriving in osaka. i was more in my head at this part of the trip, and i was really fascinated by this area.
once the rest of the group had seen the monkeys (and i had rested my legs), i met back up with them and we continued on to Tenryū-ji, a 685 year old buddhist temple, and one of the most important cultural sites in kyoto.
this temple is particularly beautiful this time of year, as the petals are falling from the trees, creating a truly beautiful atmosphere. visiting these places makes me extraordinarily grateful that i get to see them.
temples and shrines have been my favorite part of japan by far. i don’t think i have visited enough of them. i plan to visit more if possible in the other cities i am seeing on my trip.
i really wanted to get my goshu-in here, but the trip was on a tight timetable and there was quite a line, so we had to move on.
arashiyama bamboo forest
our next stop was directly next to the exit of the temple, the arashiyama bamboo forest. this was a pretty short uphill path, but it was really beautiful. there were hundreds of people crowded onto it though, so i didn’t get very many photos.
definitely a unique sight. this is one of the places i would have planned to visit if i was here alone.
sagano scenic railway
the group’s last stop for the day was the sagano scenic railway, a beautiful train ride from kyoto to the countryside city of kameoka and back. this was a more traditional train, using diesel fuel rather than the electric maglev super trains japan usually deals with. as such, it was a significantly bumpier ride than the trains i have been accustomed to over the course of this trip. but my god, was it beautiful. the photos and video i got do not do it justice.
this was really enjoyable. though it did highlight for the thousandth time that i am a giant in this country, as the seats were hilariously too small to fit me comfortably. both width and height-wise.
saying goodbye
this was the end of the group activities. my roommate, his father, and tsukasa-sama were all headed to the formula one race at suzuka circuit in the morning, and were staying in kyoto for the night in tsukasa-sama’s home. so this was the time to say goodbye to all of them. we were taking the same train, but they were only going one stop, while i had to go seven.
i want to dedicate this space to give enormous thanks to tsukasa-sama. basically everyone reading this probably wants to know why i keep adding “-sama” to the end of his name. i don’t want to write a paragraph about japanese honorifics, but essentially it is just an even more respectful version of “-san,” the most commonly used honorific.
tsukasa-sama has made this part of the trip incredible. he perfectly planned all the events of every day in a way that flowed from one stop to the next. i really think he could be an incredibly successful kyoto tour guide if he wanted to. it was a perfect mix of the stuff everyone imagines going to do when they visit kyoto with the more off-the-wall unexpected hidden gems. i think if i had come alone for this part of the trip, it would have been far less interesting, and i would have done maybe one kyoto day and tried to bite off more than i could chew.
i cannot thank him enough for how awesome he made the last 3 days. from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
