Kyoto or Be Weary, Weary Qwiet...I'm Hunting Geisha

I was back home now with one day left of my Golden Week (actually Golden Week had finished last week…this was now Bronze Week) vacation. After returning from Hiroshima on Sunday night I was exhausted and pretty well burned out form the week of walking, busing, street caring and boating my way around Japan. Monday was used as a day to rest up although it was far from satisfactory. I don’t think I moved much on Monday. I just sort of lay about like a man paralyzed, a slug on a couch bed like thing who very well could have been dead. If you would have poked me with a stick I may have batted a finger in retaliation. Today I may have waved an entire hand and this was enough energy left, I figured, to make one more trip to cap off the 9 days of traveling before getting back to wanting to cattle prod small Japanese children. A lot of my Nara and area travel ideas steamed form a wonderful map and walking tour flyer I lost back in April while nearly leaning over a cliff to obtain a good photography in Yoshino. I miss that map. I miss that map like I miss Bridgehead coffee. So many great trip suggestions which I now only have inklings of in recollections. One that stuck was the Tanise Suspension Bridge, the longest bridge of its kind in the country. I remember the map book telling me that I had to get there from my home station. Now, one would think that because there was only one place to catch a bus to this suspension bridge that it had to be relatively close by, right? I slept in a little, although not for wanting to. I just couldn’t win the battle over my tired body to want to regain conciseness again so early in the morning. The bus station didn’t open until 9 anyway so I didn’t feel exceptionally guilty for losing that war. The bus station window was just opening when I arrived. I had taken along my phrasebook to help with this conversation and was able to communicate where I wanted to go using it and a varied collection of dance moves that could only be described as tribal. I was handed a time table that informed that this bridge which I believed to be so close was actually a four hour bus ride away. I had missed the early departure and was now looking at 1130 which would land me there in late afternoon with no time to explore what with the last bus returning here at five. The bridge was now out of the question. I walked back home trying to think of where else to go. How could I end this Golden Week properly in a nice, big fashion? Golden week and big? Wait, a memory stirs? What else do I remember being Golden and big? Ah, yes, the Golden Temple in Kyoto. I was by time I head into Kyoto for some exploration and ending my Golden week at the Golden temple would be a nice conclusion to my vacation and with that I was back out the door and on a train Northward to Kyoto and another day of wandering.

And it was the wandering aspect of things that made what I thought would be my first real trip to the city I wanted to see the most a not so thrilling experience. As Red can very well contest to, I am an insane planner and tend to not go into anything with some forethought as to what I want to do and accomplish. This could be anything from hoping a plane to another country to going to get some donuts. Do I want chocolate glazed? Do I want blueberry filled? Maybe two creams in the coffee today. I need an extra pick me up. How am I going to get to the donut shop anyway? Normal path or should I go a different way. Oh, let’s take the different path through the park. Should I stop in the park maybe and read the newspaper. Yeah, that’s a good idea. You get the gist of it. Now, that is not to say I don’t have my moments of spontaneity. When they come they are big! Although the amount of planing to come to Japan, for example, was very detailed the actual choice to spend a year in another country came relatively quickly. However, I am more detailed orientated then I am spontaneous and in being so I tend to enjoy myself more. Yes, I wander around most of the time without a map but I tend to have an idea of where I am going. This was the case today in Kyoto but met with less than favorable. Before I talk about where the wandering took me let me explain first why Kyoto has not been able to claim the throne of my favorite place in Japan from Nara (at least not on this first outing). Nara has all the main attractions centralized and within some reasonable (reasonable to an insane walker like me, anyway) walking distance. As did Hiroshima. Osaka has a great train line to get you where you want to go in a quick fashion. Kyoto, however, has all the places you want to see scattered around the city with most of them only accessible by bus, lots of buses, not just, say, one touring sightseeing bus. Now, you already know my current dislike for Japan bus travel. True, Kyoto makes things much easier for the English traveler but this was still bus travel, cramped bus travel. You think the subway maps are confusing to look at, my bus map was a mess of colors crisscrossing all over to place. Bus travel also takes time. You have to wait for the bus. You get caught in traffic. Things are just slower. All the sights of Kyoto cannot be seen in a day, I know, but packing in a few of them by means of bus travel makes for quick tastes instead of full enjoyment. I am sure all the places to see in Kyoto are beautiful I just wish it wasn’t such a pain in the ass to get to them. So, by virtue of ease of transport Nara wins out. Now, this all could very well be the fact that I went in without a game plan and, as you will learn, with another disproportionate English map I found that my lack of planing meant for a lot more walking then my already tired body could handle. I didn’t look at bus routes until I was on the train to Kyoto. I really didn’t know where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see outside of the Golden Temple. The day was hot. Murderously hot. Walking around in this heat was tortuous. Finally, as you can probably astatine from this rant, I was quite cranky. I really should have taken another day to sleep but there I was again desperately trying to hurriedly pack in sights I feel I have little time to see when, in actuality, I have a whopping near 10 months of time remaining in my stay. All in all my first trip to explore Kyoto was half-assed and poorly timed which hampered my enjoyment of the whole pie of the day. Slices, however, as you will see, still salvaged the day.











It is an hour train ride on the Express bound for Kyoto from my station and though I should have used this time to plan I spent the first half hour sleeping and the second quickly thumbing through my Lonely Planet guide for suggested Kyoto itineraries all the while trying to make sense of the bus map. My map, like most maps I tend to pick up here, made things out to be much closer then they actually were and most of my day in Kyoto was spent on long walks trying to find temples and shrines I believed were mere minutes away but turned out to be hours. I love exploring cities without a map and am prone no to really use them as I am a poor navigator, as I have said, and wandering aimless around most times leads to the best discoveries. Today, though, tired and easily irritable and under that blazing sun I was in no mood to constantly get lost and I found myself cursing under my breath at each wrong turn. There were many. That is not to say there were still not some interesting finds. The Kyoto tourist shops are less tacky then the ones I have found elsewhere and you can find some very pretty merchandise there. I was very fond of the painted fans. Like everywhere else I have been in Japan you can bet on finding some very interesting statues and Kyoto was no different. As well, Kyoto seems to bring out the most in traditional Japanese dress as many women can be seen walking around in their kimonos, dainty umbrella resting on their shoulders to shield out the sun. Monks, many monks on the streets with one of them, and I could swear he was following me as I noticed him, or his identical twin, all over the downtown area, had on an oversized hat. This was not a BIG pilgrim hat. This was a MASSIVE one. I don’t know if this is the norm monk headwear in Kyoto or if the many times I saw this guy he was actually different guys but it was very, very distinguishable. Then there was that guy with the samurai shaved head, fake sword and his own dainty umbrella posing for photos outside of a temple. I have no idea what was up with that guy!


I started off at Nishi Hongan-Ji, a place that looked strangely familiar. In fact, hadn’t I taken this exact same photo before? When I returned home later that night my assumptions were correct. I had been to Nishi Hongan-Ji, a block or two away from Kyoto station, on my first visit here and had taken the same photograph. I am now starting to collect doubles. The one taken today is slightly better, though, so the redundancy is not worthless. From here I walked up to Gojo street, one of the main streets in the city, and headed towards the river or canal, hard to tell from the map. I was looking for another temple that looked to be close by but would take me on my first out of the way trip of the day as getting to this thing took an hour more then I thought it might and I found myself lost in alleyways most of the way there. There are many English signs to guide you in Kyoto, it being a popular tourist spot, but I just kept losing site of them. Eventually I just crumpled up the map and shoved it in my pocket relying on my own sense of direction and gut which fails me less often then lines and words on printed paper. The internal compass wins again. The temple was found.
















Kiyomizudera is known as the Pure Water Temple and is one of the most famous in Japan as it is associated with one of the oldest sects in Buddism. The temple dates back to 798 and is located in the green forest hills on the eastern side of the city. The name Pure Water Temple comes from the waterfall on the temple grounds. This temple is quite large elevated over the city by many pillars placing the main hall over the hillside. The views from here were very good even with the sun blinding you. There is an expression here that dates back to the Edo period: “Jump off this stage!” It is believed that if one can survive jumping from this massive structure then they will have one wish granted. I did not attempt to find out if that was the case although it is reported that 234 people had indeed made the leap with 85.4% having lived. Good odds, yes, good odds. I ain’t jumping! The current claim to fame is that this site is being considered as one of the NEW Seven wonders of the world. Posters were plastered all over the streets that take you to the temple, an array of souvenir, craft and restaurants known as Teapot Lane, advertise this fact and a large poster at the temple itself seemed to all but claim victory in the inclusion on the list of new wonders. There was a lot of contrast here as dark brown wood met flaming red structures. Also there sure was a lot of selling going on at this place and for a Japanese temple there was a high cheese factor that seemed more fitting at a carnival midway then here. Lots of shops were selling good luck charms and other merchandise and there were many gimmicky wish granting devices around the temple site including the already mentioned jumping off the temple. One of these were paper fortunes you set in water to dissolve to grant you great wants or ultimate destructions. Another, probably the most popular, were the Love Stones, two rocks located in a side shrine on the temple grounds called Jishu-jinja. This shrine, dedicated to the good of Love, is said to be able to grant you one romantic wish should be able to walk from one stone to the other, about 18 meters apart, with your eyes closed. Trying to do this with a crowd around is not easy as the path is not kept clear and crashing into somebody is inevitable. I waited for the people to subside, closed my eyes, started walking and veered so far off course that it looked as though I would fall off the temple ledge. Of course, if I lived I could have one wish granted, right, and I would have wished for Love. Win win situation! Three girls from he US, I assume, gave me a hander in loudly guiding me towards the other stone and I managed to touch it and thus now am granted with enlightenment from crawling through a Buddha nose and love for touching two rocks. Japan sure is wacky! At the bottom of the temple you can find people scooping up the water from that pure waterfall and tasting it to gain purity. Yes, this place was very much like visiting Niagara Falls. All they needed was a wax museum. Still this place was mighty impressive.






Kyoto has so many temples and shrines that I have no idea what the names of the ones are that I visited. Most of them were stumbled upon quite by accident. I was looking for the Path of Philosophy (or Tetsugaku no Michi) which takes you along the canal through some nice sakura and other trees that would look wonderful in the autumn. Finding the place proved difficult and again I just pocketed the map and wandered and by doing so find these unnamed places.



The signs did eventually place me towards someplace recognizable from some online and travel guide photographs. Chion-in temple, built in 1234, is part of the Jodo sect of Buddhism. The oldest building remaining on the site dates back to the 17th century. Here you will find the Sanmon gate, the largest temple gate in all of Japan. It towers above you at 24 meters. Built in 1619, this gate is an intimidating structure to pass under. The temple was made with boards that would squeak loudly to warn of approaching enemies.



Next up on my lost walk to find this philosopher’s path was the Heian shrine. This large red Shinto shrine was built to resemble the Kyoto Imperial Palace and dates back to 1895.








I did find part of the Path of Philosphy, although not the start of it that I was looking for, and walked the peaceful way lost in thought. I was happy to be away from the crowds and cars and loud city noises that were detracting from my want to get lost in history. Here it was nice and quite. The path led me to the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. Ginkaku-ji’s pavilion, I can report, is not silver. What a bait and switch! This 1474 temple was constructed by then shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He was out to copy the famed golden temple that was to be the culmination of this 9 days of travel and, in doing do, he captured the likeness but not the grandeur. What was to be silver never really came to be as the Onin War stopped what was to be Yoshimasa’s grand design before the silver paneling could be placed there. What remains is a wooden construct that could surly be removed from most Kyoto itineraries if not for the mossy garden around the site and the rock and sand garden made out to symbolize Mount Fuji with an elevated collection of perfectly raked stones. Worth the $5 it costs to get in to see a not so silver temple? Well, you be the judge.

Just before Ginkaku-ji I had met a friendly old Japanese man, like I had in Nagoya, who offered his services as a guide to the temple areas near us. His spoke great English and it was nice to have somebody to talk to on my walks for a change. He was on vacation as well and lived in the Southern area of Japan. He had not visited Kyoto in 20 years. He went on to explain the history of some of the temples and their religious significance before pointing me towards the Golden temple. He told me that it was to close in just under an hour so I had to hurry my way onto a bus and out there before the doors shut.





From not so silver to brilliant gold, Kinkaku-I delivers and was the finest site of the day. Built in 1397 it has become one of Japan’s more famous sites. It was once a retirement villa for the Shogun and is now a top tourist attraction. Almost all of the temple is bedecked in gold with a golden phoenix perched on the roof. The reflection of this site in the waters around it is often photographed and I could see why as I snapped away. This, though, is not the original and the demise of the Golden Temple is actually a strange story. A young monk began to obsess with this temple and in 1950, in a mentally disturbed rage, burnt it down. Five years later the temple would be rebuilt.

And there I was, the Golden temple at the end of my Golden week vacation. It was near closing time. The guard looked at me impatiently. I thought I was the only remaining when a pretty young Asian girl rushed around a corner, a Canon S3 in hand, to snap just as rapidly as I had been. She spoke to me, the sun setting over the sparkling gold, asking me to take a picture of her and the scene in front of us. I thought her to be Japanese, an honest mistake with her being here and Asian but she was actually on vacation from Hong Kong. She had lived in Toronto for many years studying at the university, which accounted for her amazing English. She now lived back in China. The guard eyed us angrily and soon started to slowly push us out, both of us taking as many shots as we possibly could before they shut us out of the Golden temple after nearly locking us in. At the bus station we exchanged email addresses and wished each other well on our separate travels offering tours and conversation should we manage to one day find ourselves in each others homelands. Another pretty girl of the road slips away on a bus at dusk.



And as it was, at the end of the day, the sun lowering and the sky a pastel of orange and red, I found myself in the Gion district of Kyoto hunting women not with a gun but with a camera and felling very much like one of those asshole paparazzi awaiting the next Brittany Spears fuck up. In Gion you find a famous endangered species dying out quickly year after year. The Gion area of Japan goes as far back as the middle ages. That’s a long time, folks! Okay, so it would be a longer time if it was the beginning ages but it isn’t the now ages or the after ages and the middle part of the ages is still a long ago age. Here you will find old homes, restaurant and tea houses lit by Japanese lanterns creating a glow of ambiance about this block that seems detached from the rest of the city (but would be more so if not for the rushing cars and taxi cabs threatening to make you Gion area roadkill each time you turn a corner). Here is where, if you are lucky and patient, you will find one of the staples of Japanese tradition, an image known the world over but here, in the old Gion district, this beautiful wonder is fading into modernization. Gion is the working home of the few remaining Geisha.



Geisha are not prostitutes, a common misconception, but are traditional entertainers of ancient Japanese arts. They play music, they sing and they dance all the while engaging clientele in conversation and this has been that way for years. There are two kinds of geisha: a geiko and a maiko. Geiko are fully trained in the ancient arts while maiko are apprentices. Maiko form the image of the geisha with their white face paint, colorful kimonos and hairstyle. In the Gion district, come the early morning, you can spot the un-made up maiko.




You may also spot them in full dress attracting crowds at some of the popular temples and shrines or in large shopping area. I was told, however, that many of these geisha are indeed fakes put out and made up to entertain the tourists. The real deal are far more elusive.





Geisha training begins at a young age. These young girls in the early stages of shikomi are put to work as maids or on other menial tasks in an effort to sort out the women with the strongest will. This is a very hard time for the girls are they are in the service of the old, more established women and these hardships early on may be one of the reasons why the geisha are fading out. Modern women in Japan are turning form the ancient ways. The next stage of training, after a series of tests, is called minarai. Here the girls no long are maids and they are now out to train mainly by observation and be pleasing to the eye with brightly colored kimonos. The final part of training makes the women maiko, apprentices. This stage can go on for years as Maiko learn from their mentors. They accompany the Geisha on their engagements. When this period is over the women are named full Geisha and hold that status until retirement. In Gion Geisha still reside in okiya, traditional Geisha homes. The Gion area is a hanamachi or flower town.

The most recognizable aspect of a Geisha is their appearance. A white face paint and bright red lipstick accentuate appearance as do the kimono and obi (kimono sash). Kimonos colors change with the seasons but in the young maiko are always elaborate affairs of color. The hairstyle is a tedious and timely process for the women and some women these days use wigs to offset this process. Find these beautiful, graceful women in Gion this evening was a moment filled with excitement.

It is no secret that Gion is where you come to find these women and the street was full of people, cameras poised, ready to get a snapshot. In many ways it was like hunting. You sit, you wait, you think you spot something but it turns out to be a tourist in a bright red shirt. You go back to waiting. Again, I felt like some sleazy reporter awaiting a Hollywood celebrity to make an appearance. These moments of anticipation were the best part of my time in Gion. And then in that one moment when a Geisha makes her appearance it is over usually all to quickly. These women are accustomed to this adoration but by no means seem to enjoy it. If you spy one they are usually walking, nearly running, into a doorway or towards a taxi cab to avoid the crowds. Trust me, these women can move. I wonder if they have motors under their kimono. Next to me with a large camera was Creepy Geisha Guy. This man has been living in the area for 3 years and comes here once a week to photograph Geisha. He has thousands of photos he says he is using to make a book or some kind of art show. His facts and knowledge about the women, including the names, was fascinating as well as frightening. This guy had all the makings of a stalker. His pricey camera was able to freeze beautiful shots of these women but all of mine remained very blurry making the girls seem ghost like in their motion. Finally I had had enough of terrible photos of these staples of Japan and I simple, slowly and politely stopped one of the women with the little Japanese I knew and asked if she would mind posing for a photo. She did and offered me a pose and a smile. I thanked her, feeling very shy and embarrassed as though I was back in highschool next to one of the girls I had a crush on. These women are just so elegant and stunning you are spellbound in their presence. Later I managed to stop one more for another but the girl raced off as others followed quickly behind me to take their own photos




One of these people was a large Australian man named John. Of course he’s Australian. If you are out here and are not Japanese you tend to be either Canadian or Australian. He was traveling with his wife Susanne and we struck up some fine conversation as we both looked out for the Geisha. I told him the interesting story of the tunaki’s balls (I will share another time) which had both of them doubled over with laughter and we became instant friends. Susanne was thinking of teaching English over here and I provided some details on my short time in this country outlining fairly both the pros and cons. For my help in answering her questions John offered to purchase me a beer. Now, as you all know, I don’t drink but you don’t turn down a beer from an Australian and we soon found ourselves in a restaurant by the train station getting drunk. At least I was. The beer bottles in Japan are about the sizes of wine bottles back home. The beer is strong. I think I was near wasted on the alcohol in the neck of the bottle alone. After exchanging emails and John’s repeated offers to tour me around Australia (maybe one day) I staggered out of the bar and across the street with only a few minutes to catch the last train. When I turned around I saw the neon lights of the city looking down on me. My vision was blurred. It looked like a painting by Pollock. Tomorrow I would have a hangover and would have to return to work but watching the world go by outside the train windows on my way home I looked back on the week thinking that if for some reason I had to go home now I could do so a happy man. Well almost happy. There is still Tokyo and the great Fuji in my future. Onward!