ToKyoTokyo

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The past two weeks have been so incredibly, absolutely, phenomenally, wonderfully, tiringly, amazingly, groin-grabbingly packed and full to the brim with activity. So much has happened that there is no way for me to recount everything through this blog. If you want to know about the goings on, you'll have to settle for asking me when I get back to the States. However, I will recount the most recent happenings here, and as I am moving into my gaijin house next week I will no longer be constrained by the necessity of coming downstairs whenever I want to use the internet, so you can expect updates to be more frequent. So anyway, on to the show....

Thursday Night: A Page Out of Order

After moving all my stuff out into another room, I set out with the late bus group to the screening of A Page Out of Order, Japan's first expressionist, avant-garde film. The movie was being shown on 16mm at an absolutly amazing venue called the "Super Deluxe" in Roppongi. It's the sort of pretentious, intelligentsia-frequented hole-in-the-wall that I always dream about (as you can see by the decor and all the people wearing black, thick-rimmed glasses). The host for the night was a man named Donal Richie, the most famous and well-respected of Japanese film historians. I had a brief chat with Mr. Richie before the movie about his experiences working with Akira Kurosawa (if you know me at all you can tell how immensely exciting that was). Mr. Richie then introduced the movie and one of the best hours of my life began. The movie was fairly heavily inspired by "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (which is a good thing) and was an expressionistic portrayal of insanity. The movie got me thinking heavily about Nietzsche, Freud, and the reasons why insanity is such a simoultaneously frightening and intriguing subject. After the film all too abruptly ended, I asked Mr. Richie a few questions during Q&A then went down front and asked him some more. As he was the man of the hour, keeping his attention for long was difficult, so I eventually gave up and we headed to Tokyo Station to catch the overnight bus to Kyoto. As I am still deeply wanting to talk to Mr. Richie about film, I might ask Kyle Cleveland at TUJ if he might be able to put me in contact with him (if this goes down, I will keep you posted).

Kyoto: Day 1

After a surprisingly great bus ride, we arrived in Kyoto around 7:30 in the morning. It was a rather dreary day, so the city wasn't looking it's finest. We soon arrived at the house we would be staying in for the rest of the weekend. The rest of the group had already been at the house since around 6 and were all on the verge of passing out. To their chagrin, we then set out for our day-long walking tour of Kyoto. The tour was guided by a late middle-aged man named Sakamoto-san. Sakamoto-san was very nice, if a bit daft. We began by taking the bus to the Heian shrine, one of the newest shrines in Kyoto. As you can see from the picture, the Heian shrine is best identified by it's enormous orange gate. The shrine's gardens were absolutely gorgeous, as you can see by the pictures I posted (of which there are many more). From there we moved on throughout the day to various other shrines and Buddhist temples. We went through a number of very pleasant little residential neighborhoods and small shopping districts and ate lunch at an equally pleasant Japanese restaurant. The final temple we went to (and my personal favorite) was the Kiyomizudera (Kiyomizu temple). The temple is built right on the steps of the mountains surrounding Kyoto and the stairs down to the valley below are absolutely breathtaking (the picture does absolutely no justice). Before the temple is long street of cheap chotchke shops (very reminiscent of Asakusa in Tokyo). This bears mentioning, though, because of this phenomenal local delicacy of Kyoto (whose name I've forgotten). It is essentially uncooked dough mixed with honey, rolled into sheets, covered with cinammon, then folded over little masses of red bean paste. This has since become my new favorite dessert, so I will have to find a place in Tokyo that sells these. After Kiyomizu, we headed back to the house and settled in for an thoroughly enjoyable night of Domino's pizza, cheap Japanese beer, and unabashed merriment.

Kyoto: Day 2

Saturday morning I was forced out of my incomprehensably comfortable combination of futon and 6" thick down comforter in order to start the day of traditional culture classes. The company that owns the house we stayed in is devoted to preserving old Kyoto architecture and culture, so they offer one day programs that offer introductions to Noh drama, Sadou (Japanese tea ceremony), waraku (very old Shinto martial art), and caligraphy. Since this was an incredibly long and in depth series of activities, I will give only a brief summary of each:

* Noh Drama: This was taught by two sons of a famous Noh family. We learned a few basic Noh moves (such as standing posture and glide walking) and got to wear some real Noh masks (which is apparently an exceedingly rare opportunity).
* Tea Ceremony: Given the time constraints and sheer number of people in the group, this was heavily truncated. It was very highly structured, but it certainly bestows an appreciation of old Japanese tradition. The only major downside was the fact that sitting in the formal Japanese way caused me to not be able to feel or move my toes for a solid hour.
*Waraku: This was taught by a man who at one point was one match away from being the world champion of Karate. We learned about the interplay between sound and energy and learned the kata corresponding to each of the six fundamental sounds (su, u, a, o, i, e). Was very relaxing and gave a bit of badly needed energy.
*Caligraphy: My personal favorite activity. We mixed our own ink and learned the basics of writing kanji using brushes. I wasn't terribly good, but the instructor actually seemed impressed and said my brush conveyed lots of motion and energy. My final pieces were the kanji for my name (by meaning), which turned out to be Shirokuni no Akihito. I would be tempted to start using this as an alias in Japan if Akihito didn't happen to be the name of the current crown prince.


Once the classes were done, I set out to meet up with good friend and fellow temporary expat Danny Neil. After getting royally screwed by the deceivingly unnavigable streets of Kyoto and being unable to get any help from the citizens of Kyoto (who for some reason refused to acknowledge that they knew where the river that Kyoto is built on was), I finally met up with my old chum and headed to dinner. After a great tempura dinner and fabulous conversation, we headed towards the Kamo River, which is the big hangout spot for young adults in Kyoto. After purchasing a few cans of a hard lemonade type drink from Liquor Mountain (the greatest store name in the history of capitalism), we met up with some of Neil's friends by the river and settled in for a great night. Most of the night went by just talking and watching the various young Kyoto-ites firing fireworks in very dangerous ways. I had a wonderful time talking to Danny's friends, such as Toby, a limey from Newcastle who is working at a Buddhist temple, and Sakiko, an international affairs student at Kyodai. I was quite disappointed when everyone had to leave in order to catch the last buses leaving the city, but I staggered back to the house relishing the good vibes accumulated throughout the night.

Kyoto: Day 3

And that brings us to today. I finally managed to sleep in a bit today, which was nice. We first headed out to find the Kyoto Handicrafts store, which, when we eventually wound up there after well over an hour of travelling around, turned out to just be a shitty store catering to low-brow foreigners. From there we walked throughout the city and went to the Kyoto Modern Art Museum, which I give a firm OK rating to. The day was fairly uneventful, and after going back to Kiyomizu for some last minute shopping, we returned to Kyoto Station (which is a magnificent building) and returned home to Tokyo on the Shinkansen (bullet train).


Well, ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to the end of this blog entry. I hope you all keep reading and don't get too angry at me for my lack of posts. I promise I will remedy this one way or another in the future.

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Photos

Amazing Venue
This is the amazingly pretentious venue in Roppongi.

Heian Shrine Garden
One of the many many many pictures I took in the garden of the Heian Shrine in Kyoto.

Kiyomizu Temple
This is my favorite picture from the entire Kyoto excursion

Kiyomizu Temple #2
A shot of people purifying themselves at the temple.

Waterfalls
Waterfalls you drink from at Kiyomizu-dera.

Dragon Ceiling
Painting on the ceiling of a temple whose name I have no hope of recalling.

Didgeridoo
Didgeridoo with bongo accompaniament by the Kamo River.

Kyoto Eki
Kyoto Station is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.

Shinjuku at Night
Red light district of Shinjuku the night of the awesome izakaya outing. This is the same area as my desktop background, but not as good since I had to take it while moving with a group.

Hachiko the Dog
The statue of Hachiko outside of Shibuya station. Look up Hachiko on Wikipedia if you want to read the whole story.

Yakult Swallows Game
Yakult Swallows vs. Orix Buffaloes

For Relaxing Times...
... Make it Suntory Time. Yes, I am drinking a glass of Suntory Whiskey at the New York Grill, which was the restaurant in which all of the bar scenes in Lost In Translation were filmed.