From Modern to Traditional by an ultra cool route

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Today we are leaving the neon lights of modern Tokyo behind and heading into the modern yet quaint area of Kyoto. I was very excited about this for 2 reasons:

1)I have always wanted to go here. It was number 3 in my top 10 place to visit, right after Mongolia and Antarctica.
2)This is the home of the traditional Geishas! I have always had a fascination with the world of Geishas ever since reading Memoires of a Geisha (which as a side note is MUCH better than the film).

To get to Kyoto we went by the ultra sleek bullet train that can get up to very fast speeds. The first class section of this train was better than most airlines (every time the stewards came in or left they bowed!), we got hot towels, comfortable seats that you could revolve to make into a four or two, they also reclined a long way back. It was a very enjoyably two hours. Passing Mt Fuji - which we totally missed by the way (oops). While it was very nice, it wasn’t like I have never been on fast trains before. I have been on the TGV in France which has clocked the fast speeds for a train and Eurostar (although that probably clocks the slowest speeds for train while in England - snails go faster than the Eurostar while it goes through the suburbs of Bromley). What made it unique was the fact that this is moved by magnets! How flippin cool is that? It is like a science project we did in Year 6 but only on a much larger scale.

Before we left the hotel this morning we were joined by our new guide Motoi. He was probably the funniest guide we have had on the trip. He was a carpenter by trade and was doing this as a favour to Duffy who was organising this part of the trip. Motoi didn’t pretend to know anything that he didn’t know, so we were saved from the long and sometimes boring facts that have been reeled off by other guides. He kept it simple, and so we got more of an introduction to the culture than the history of the country. Now that that introduction is over let’s get on with the day.

Once we arrived in Kyoto we had a quite stop at the hotel to drop bags off. This wasn’t really a hotel, but a traditional Japanese Inn called a Ryokan that came complete with paper screens/doors and futons for beds. HB did manage to put her book through one of the screens but that comes much later in the trip (just giving you something to look forward too). After the quick bag drop it was off to lunch in a tiny restaurant that only fitted 10 or so people in it. There was no menu; you were just given food to eat. Tip - if you don’t like seafood or raw food and you go to Japan you are basically screwed. I was basically screwed for the next week or so. I detest seafood (cooked or raw) and I am not too keen on raw meat. I like my food cooked and simple. Thankfully for me in this restaurant I was sitting next to Motoi who was more than willing to eat the food I did not want. We had a very good giggle over that. HB spent most of her time making soup out of everything. I think if I had done that in a restaurant when I was small my mother would have made me eat it (am I wrong mummy?).

The Japanese also love their tea. Oddly enough, I don’t really like tea that much - I know shock horror for an English person not to like tea. The only tea I will drink is Green Tea, yeah hey - I am in the country of Green Tea so that is okay then. The tea I was offered in this place tasted like smoked wood - not the nicest tea I have ever drunken. They also like to refill your glass a lot and as we all know drinking lots of tea equals needing the loo. So here comes my paragraph on the Japanese toilet. It is the strangest thing in the world. The loo seat heats its self! Then you can press lots of different buttons to squirt water onto varies parts of you bottom. Not sure where that water comes from (I hope it isn’t the water that you have just peed into). There was a funny incident when HB pressed the wrong button so got a big shock when she got sprayed by water instead of the loo flushing. There was also a loo in one of the airports that sung at you! It was the sound of rushing water, and you could turn it on and off with a button on the panel. HB and I laughed ourselves silly over that, we still do actually. It really is the strangest thing in the world. They also had in some of the stalls in the public restrooms a place to sit a baby while you spend a penny! That is rather ingenious I thought, as you can’t always take buggies into the stalls.

Enough of this toilet talk. We were met at the restaurant by another local guide who showed us around a local UNESCO temple called Sanjusangendo. It was a very Zen area, a world away from the hustle and bustle of the modern world. What made this a UNESCO site was not the fact that this temple had 33 doors (that is how many versions of Buddha there are), but the fact it was filled with 1001 of these gold statues that were called the 1000 armed Kannons! Wow, how impressive to have 1001 of statues that have 1000 arms each. That would have been very impressive. These, despite the name, don’t have 1000 arms each. They have 40. Still remarkable, but not as noteworthy as if they had had 1000. I don’t see why they weren’t just called the 40 armed Buddha’s. At least then people wouldn’t be disappointed. I am sure that I am totally missing the point here though. Each of these bogusly named statues looked slightly different from each other. Walking around looking at the guardians of the statues it was astonishing to note just how much had been borrowed from Hinduism and their gods. Just goes to show how interconnected all the religions truly are.

There was another temple to visit but Mrs G thought it would be a better idea that HB and I were dropped off at the Hiragiya Ryokan. I heartily agreed with this. We had a nice relaxed bath time and then got dressed up in our Kimonos for dinner. Dinner was like a never ending nightmare of courses. This was the menu (there was no choice you had it all)

Aperitif (Shokuzen-Shu)
Nigorizake
Appetizer (Sakizuke)
Pea-Tofu, Lily bulb, Wasabi
Boiled beef and Chinese cabbage
Konjack, Long green onion, Vinegared miso
Simmered Dishes (Nimono-Wan)
Clear-soup with paste of white fish and yuba, wakame sea vegetables, carrot, bracken, hosta, KINOME
Sashimi Dishes (Mukouzuke)
Flatfish, Yellowtail, Japanese spiny lobster, Iwatake mushroom, Green perilla, Flower of young perilla, Carrot, WASABI
Feature Dishes (Hassun)
Shrimp and beans, Roast duck, Boiled sardine with ginger, Boiled UDO-edible wild plants with Ume plum, Sea bream bound together with egg, Grilled DBIIMO-taro with miso, Board shaped Ume plum, Dress conola blossom bods with mustard!
Middle of Dishes (Oshinogi)
Sushi of beef, Ginger - this is actually were I bowed out, I couldn’t face seeing any more food or trying to force fish down my throat. I felt physically sick, after seeing all this uncooked fish. But there are more dishes coming just to show you how much there was.
Grilled fishes (Yaki-Zakana) - please choose between 1 of these 2
-Japanese bluefish soak in SAIKYO-miso, Japanese ginger, broad bean
-Crab, Crab bello miso, Ginger vinegar, lemon
Steamed Dishes (Mushi-mono)
Turnip, Sierra, Prawn, Kikurage mushroom, Sticky kudzu sauce, Wasabi
Deep-fried Dishes (Age-mono)
Pond smelt, Mountain fern sprouts, butterbur scape, sause for dipping tempura, salt
Soup (Tome-Wan)
Sake-lees and shiro-miso soup with Fu, Japanese white radish, carrot, deep-fried bean curd, KUJYO-long green onion, seven flavour chilli pepper
Rice (Gohan)
Rice mixed crab, pea
Pickles (Kou-No-Mono)
Japanese white radish with Ume plum, Suguki-Turnip, Taro
And in case you have room
Dessert (Mizu-Mono)
Setoka-orange, strawberry, mint
Bracken-starch mixed green tea dumpling, soybean flour

That is copied from the menu that I stuck in my diary. As I said, it was a never ending hell for me which caused much hilarity with Mr and Mrs G. They kept telling that the look on my face when they brought out a new dish was priceless. I am sure it was, but I could have cried. I actually felt really bad as a) I wasted so much, I barely touched most of those dishes and b)they were paying $10,000 per day that we were in Japan! Bloody hell, I hate to think what this dinner cost them.

I was rather happy to make my escape with HB. They told me the next morning that Mrs G only lasted 2 more rounds and F and Mr G asked for dessert after that. So I didn’t do too badly.

To be continued...

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Photos

a portal for individuals
I wonder where it may take us ... only to the temple so dont get your hopes up.

You have to be clean
so lets all share these cups with 1000s of other germ carrying individuals

A temple with 33 doors
isn't that a little excessive? 1 should do, 2 at the most.

Old Streets of Gion
where the real Geisha come from!

Our room
complete with futons and paper walls.

Our own little Geisha
isn't she a doll?

Comments

[Eric]

I really enjoyed your Japan post. I have always wanted to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, email us at [e-mail] or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric

[Susan]

Wow!
Hi Anita! I'm just blown away at everything you're seeing and doing. What an amazing experience! I really look forward to your blog entries. I hope you're holding up well. Real life may seem boring after this!

[Elaine]

How can Japanese people be so thin if they eat all of that??!!