Japan is not filled with beautiful cities. In fact, the identikit nature of the larger towns and smaller cities can be downright depressing. Obviously the same charge could easily be levelled at the other strange island I call home, and maybe it is just my familiarity with Britain that stops this sameness becoming grinding, but there is something indescribably dismal about the homogenous parts of Japanese towns.
Obviously, just like England, charms unique to each area can usually be found with sufficient endeavour. However, the heritage and character of comparable areas of Britain always seems to be more immediately obvious. Maybe it’s the longer lasting building materials used in Britain, or the amount of bombing raids suffered in Japan during WWII. Maybe my thinking this says more about the shallowness of my immersion in Japanese culture than I would like. But the fact remains I struggle to discern the unique traits of small cities like Akita, Aomori or Yamagata. These places are worth visiting, but often only for the festivals that define these areas, rather than any uniqueness inherent in their ambience.
Kyoto, a surprisingly small city, stands out a mile in this regard. It is easy to descend into clichés when describing the way a bicycle tour round Kyoto can reveal new delights round every corner, or to invent new and silly words to depict just how amazingly shrinetastic this place is. But trust me, just round the corner those delights are there, and the shrineyness of the shrines is certainly shrinetastic. I would also proffer Shrinemazing in this description, or possibly Templiffic. In the immortal words of Bill and Ted, it was most tranquil.
The best way to see this beautiful city is definitely by bike. Even in late July, when the weather is thigh chaffingly hot, a pootle around the enjoyably flat roads of Kyoto on a two wheeled steed is certainly the best way to go. I won’t go into the tedious specifics of me and my brother pedalling through kyoto, but there really is a WOW moment around every corner, and more shrines and temples than you could shake a stick at unless you shook that stick with a dangerous amount of vigour and pointed it at a lot of shrines and temples. We saw geishas in Gion and turtles at Kiyomizu Dera. I also had a fairly (i.e. very) stupid moment when near an enormous Buddha statue I wanted to get a closer sniff of the incense stick I was holding. One very burnt nostril and two watering eyes later I told my brother of my mistake (which anyone could have made). Naturally he was an unsympathetic little bastard.
Fushimi Inari Shrine is probably my favourite piece of traditional Japan. A tunnel of orange torii gates stretching through the mountainside forest for a 2 hour walk, and while we there, a temporary water slide induced by a thunderstorm louder than Armageddon (assuming the apocalypse will be really rather noisy). The torii gate tunnel is I believe the only one of it’s kind, and while kyoto’s pagodas and temples are fantastic, Fushimi Inari is the one thing that makes it a must see.
There’s also a must eat place in Kyoto, but this has more to do with the insistence of the owner that you MUST eat as opposed to the merits of the food. After having a ramen restaurant recommended to us by the hostel staff we strode confidently in and were instantly told the word PORK in a loud insistent voice by the good lady who was so evidently running this establishment. The words ‘menu’ and ‘miso ramen’ were met simply with a slightly louder shouting of the word PORK, until eventually we decided that having the pork was probably the best option. We assumed that this was standard treatment for tourists, that to prevent any linguistic barrier foreigners would just be shouted at until they agreed to eat whatever was put in front of them. Then we realised that to her credit this woman was actually just shouting the word PORK at customers indiscriminately, and some admittedly less startled locals were perfectly happy to acquiesce.
There are also MONKEYS. Monkeys make a fine addition to any holiday. Actually monkeys make a fine addition to almost anything, but especially holidays. The monkeys of Kyoto can be found in the hills of Arashiyama, and are best described as ape like. Incidentally these monkeys can easily become aggressive, so customers are warned not to look them in the eye. Having made that mistake once, the resultant tense face off showed that this is in fact very good advice. Monkeys do tend to augment the awesomeness of Holidays, but I bet en masse they could do someone a fair injury. That said, ‘I went to Kyoto and fought a monkey’ would be a good story to tell the grandchildren… maybe next time. And for the record, I could totally beat that monkey in a fight. I just didn’t wanna.
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