Kyoto Road Journal

6:15am
Back in Osaka now and standing before a fork in the road. One way leads back to my apartment, my bed and probably about six days worth of sleep. The other leads to Kyoto and mountains of fire. I’m a stubborn man. Those back home who know me can contest and Mog has discovered this over the last two days. When I set my mind, a mind trapped within the chains of a slight obsessive compulsive disorder, towards a goal, a route or a desire I am seldom deterred or deviated. This could be grandiose like coming to another country for a year or minute like, ohh, I don’t know, wanting some Smores Pop-tarts at 2am. The original five day plan was catching the bus out to Tokyo, spending two days there, climbing that leg twisting mountain, watching the sunrise, climbing down that leg twisting mountain, catching another overnight bus, arriving in Osaka at 6:15am and then taking a train off to Kyoto for the climax of the week’s Obon festivities. Everything had gone somewhat according to plan and now sitting at the fork in the road I had to make a choice to either finish that plan or pack it in for some much needed sleep. After getting off the bus (slept like a log strapped to a baby strapped to Rumpelstiltskin) I walked into a station bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I did not look good. In fact, I looked downright vagrant-like, a bum on the lame trying to keep three sets ahead of the law that wanted to bring him down for a crime he didn’t commit. (The imagination doesn’t run, folks, it gallops) My face was stained from the volcanic rocks of Fuji. I had finger streaks of black under my eyes. It looked like I’d been wearing mascara in the rain. I was either trying to convert myself into a raccoon or Alice Cooper. My hat was equally damaged. No amount of washing was going to get that mess out. I didn’t mind this so much. The hat was only a buck and stains and damage on clothing like this tell stories. My shoes are still stained red by PEI mud, a knick in the sole of my right sneaker was made on the Cliffs of Mohar and blotches of paint still remain on a few of my shirts from madly tossing colors at canvasses at 3am while listening to Chet Baker singing about how everything always happens to him. Now I had a hat smudged black by the rocks of Fuji. My hair was everywhere. I can’t even venture a guess as to what it was trying to do. Had a drunken barber visited the bus in the night to practice his trade? Was there some ceiling fan I’d caught myself upon or a light socket I jammed a finger into that I don’t recollect? I was a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and a overly hairsprayed women (circa 1987) after a night of wild lovemaking. This style might catch on, though, if I put enough advertising into it. A little celebrity endorsement and the Bride of Frankenstein Post Coitus Retro Chic will sweep the hairstyling nation. But riches later, it was decision time. I tucked my hair up under my hat (and I went in to ask him why). Being that stubborn man that I am I think you know what choice I made. The best course of action would have been to return home. I was a mess, both physically and mentally drained. Like Jackson Browne I was running on empty, fumes. The leg I had twisted on Fuji had become painfully worse over night and any attempt at bending it more then what it took to walk felt like an ice-pick into the kneecap. Sleep was a glorious thought but I was drawn to completion of the trip I’d been planning for months so I slung my pack over my shoulder, popped some fresh batteries into the camera and it was another train to Kyoto.




8am
I have a half hour before the Japanese tourist office opens. There is an English tourist office here in Kyoto Station but that one doesn’t open it’s doors until 10 which is a little inconvenient. With all this time to kill before the start of the mountain fires of Daimon-ji Gozan Okuribi (12 hours of time, to be precise) I’ve decided to revisit some of the temples I’ve already been to on days with less favorable weather. Today was beautiful sun and though my sunburned arms weren’t too keen on wandering about under those UV rays and my legs still wanted that apartment bed the rest of me overruled the four of them. I stuck around the station area while waiting for the office to open grabbing something to drink from a nearing Family Mart store. An entire liter of Peach Water doesn’t last long in the hands of a thirsty man under this blazing Kyoto sun. When I returned from the store the office was just opening up. Inside the woman behind the counter handed me an English map and circled her suggestion of the best viewing spot in the city for the evening’s festivities. She said that most gather where the Kamo-gawa branches off into two separate streams tapping the part on the map where the river became a Y.



I thanked her for he advice, purchased one of those all day bus passes (Tokyo really needs to get itself one of these) and started my day of Kyoto meanderings.















3pm
I started out at Kiyomizu-Dera. I’ve never been fully satisfied with the photographs I got from that temple the first time around and now I had a great blue backdrop. This is that temple with all the fortune stands and those love stones. Lots of people today what with the festival and all. I watched a few girls trying to obtain true love by nearly bludgeoning themselves on those “love stones” as well as those looking to cure whatever ailed them by catching the waters from the falls above the temple (for a fee, of course, always for fee). No goofy man dressed up like the world’s worst Samurai standing out front of the temple today. I have to say I’m a little disappointed. Here at Kiyomizu-Dera I ran into a couple from the southern United States. Falicia was a teach North of Tokyo and Bob was visiting for a week. Falicia’s red hair attracted more attention then the temple vying for a spot on the new 7 Wonders of the World list. Des and Steph, you two would be novelties here. In fact, people would pay you money to take a photo of you simply because of your hair color. I kid you not. I’ve seen it. You wouldn’t be able to make a living out of it but you might get enough for lunch. Red hair in the Japan fascinates not only because of the color standing out amongst the predominately (I have to make an allowance here for those who dye) blacked haired Japanese but also because of the images of Anne the hair color evokes. Falicia told me that she’s been pointed to and called Anne by many people and that her students often ask her to regale them of stories form the fabled Green Gables. Falicia, being from the southern United States, had no idea what they were talking about until doing a little biblio research. There she introduced herself to Lucy Maude Montgomery’s island heroine and now, she says, from time to time, she’ll braid her hair in the style of Anne simply for the facial expressions she sees when walking down the street. Today she looked very un-Anne like but the red still attracted looks, some finger points and the occasional good-natured greeting by a nervous Japanese girl. So my redheaded beauties back in Cornwall, should you want to obtain a sort of celebrity put your hair in braids, dawn a straw cap and head on over to Japan. You will be accepted with gawking eyes and open arms. After a few run ins with Bob and Falicia, and upon finding out they were heading in the same direction, we decided to become a trio.





Seeing as how our bus was making a brief stop in Gion and Bob hadn’t been to the Geisha district I suggested we set aside an hour for the area. When last I was in Kyoto for the Gion Matsuri I’d discovered that a place I’d believed from prior visits was a museum under construction was actually the Yasaka-Jija shrine. It had been driving me batty not being able to find that place and I had actually passed it about a dozen times on various visits. Duing the Gion festival the area was far too crowded for inspection and photography but today it was devoid of traffic. Bob and I walked around for about 20 minutes passing the trinket carts that take over the roads to popular shrines and temples. Nothing of interest today. I told the Southerners the story of the syphilis outbreak and of how the Emperor had sent somebody to this shrine to pray for the plague to be lifted. This is also one of the most popular places in Japan to visit on New Year’s Eve as crowds flock to it as the place for hasu-mode (the first shrine visit of the New Year, an important event in Japanese culture).



We took an alternate rout back towards Gion and stumbled upon a temple not in my Guide book. An English sign out said proclaimed it to be Kenin-ji. “Also known as Tozan, this temple is the headquarters of the Rinzai sect Kennin-ji faction. In 1202 (the second year of the Kennin), the zen priest Minnan Yosai, founder of the Rinzai sect, built this temple, the name of which was taken after the name of the era. When the priests Enni Ben’en and Rankei Doryu lived, this temple was established as a Zen temple and later during the Muromachi period it was ranked as the third of Kyoto’s five renowned temples. Chokushi-mon, or the imperial messenger gate, also commonly called “Yanone-mon”, was built in Chinese style in the Kamakura period and features a gable roof covered with copperplates. The superior’s quarters, which was moved from Ankoku-ji in Aki Province (Hiroshima Prefecture) in 1599, is a magnificent cooper-roofed building constructed in the late Muromachi period. This temple possesses many valuable paintings of the Momoyama period, including “Wind God and Thunder God,” the rest of the sign read. For all the horn tooting in those paragraphs this was one of the less dramatic temples I’ve visited but due to how tedious all these similar looking temples are shrines are becoming I suppose my lax attitude accounts for my disapproving verdict. Bob, showing that Southern hospitality, purchased me a cold vending machine Coke for my historical accounts of the area (if ever I were a tour guide in this heat I might just work for cold vending machine Cokes) and after a short visit of Gion where there were no Geisha to be found this early in the day we boarded another packed bus to Kinkaku-ji.




We’d part ways here at the Golden temple but first Bob wanted a photo of the Megan shirt. After Fuji the thing had become so dirty and smelly I don’t think I’ll be putting it on anymore. A bet’s a bet, though, Megs. I nearly lost the shirt at Kiyomizu-Dera because I didn’t want to put it on. It fell off the camera bag where I’d thought I’d securely tied it. I found it in a heap on the temple steps. Nobody wanted to pick it up. I don’t blame them. Writing of the Megan shirt now I am reminded of something that took place on Fuji that I’ve forgotten to write about. I think it was on the 7th station, still early on in the hike, anyway, when one of the stamp branders asked me if the girl on the shirt was my girlfriend. I laughed at the notion, pointed to Mog and said “Naw, he’s my girlfriend” leaving the Japanese guy laughing nervously as we passed by. Good times…good times. Now, in Kyoto, I’d told Bob and Falicia the story of the Megan shirt and he wanted a snapshot for himself thinking the idea to be perfectly ridiculous but fascinating. The Megan shirt delights all and now in a digital photo stored onto a memory card she travels to the Southern United States.












I think I fired off about sixty photos of Kinkaku-ji. The lighting was perfect and I wanted to capture this, my favorite temple, from every angle. Glimmering in the sun, the golden temple was even more stunning the second time around. There are many rip-off temples in Kyoto, folks, but this one is not one of them. Worthy of the Yen . With the afternoon quickly escaping into night and my stomach reminding me that I haven't eaten anything since those sandwiches a day ago I found a quaint little café in the area called the Café Zip and pulled up a window seat for lunch. The Café Zip service was not very zippy but I had lots of time to kill off. Outside the window was a perfect view of one of the mountains they’d be setting on fire later on that night and I was tempted to just stay there in the air-conditioned room enjoying a few cups of coffee and maybe some of that homemade pie on the menu. The food here was prepared by an old woman with a wide smile and it was delicious. I broke out my translation guide to tell the staff even though they spoke some English. I ordered teriyaki chicken which came with hot rice, a salad and a side of veggies and it was the hot meal I’d been craving since coming down from the mountain and entering into nearly 24 hours of trains and buses.













5pm
Nearly time to head to the river but I thought I’d try a little Geisha spotting first back in Gion. No luck. I guess with everyone heading down to the river or other viewing spots this evening there was little business for the painted beauties of Gion.













I sit now in Maruyama-koen, a small park off Kyoto’s Path of Philosophy. I was heading off to another temple but decided I’d seen enough and just wanted to walk a little bit, contemplate, lose myself in thought. I passed Tofiku-ji with it’s enormous wooden gate, walked by a family wading in the canal next to the path, walked over a stone bridge and into this park, a pleasant surprise as I’d no been here before. I sit in the shade of a tree weeping branches down to the grass. It makes for a perfect sunbrella though not really needed as the sun is sinking. Ducks swim in the pond and a vendor behind me closes up their ice cream shop for the day. Kyoto is closing down. Farther up the road a lazy cat yawns, stretches and falls back asleep and I think of how great it will be to crash into my bed after at the end of all this. Okay, time to get up and head off to see these mountain fire symbols. I mean, that’s what I came for. I’ll head back down the path, through the Yasaka-Jija shrine and catch a bus in Gion to the river banks. Oh, the legs disagree with that plan. Come on, boys, not much more now. Just give me a few more hours.

10pm
What brings me to Kyoto today is Obon and a city festival called Daimon-ji Gozan Okuribi. Obon is a over 500 year old Buddhist holiday to honor the souls of your ancestors. Like Christmas in the Western world, Japanese families come together on this holiday to celebrate and remember. Families will travel country, and sometimes much farther, to reunite with relatives and together they pay homage to those ancestors that have passed on. Grave sites are visited and thourougly clean. Some will travel many miles to do this. Obon is not only a peak domestic travel time for the Japanese but globally as well. The name Obon is a condensed version of Urabonne or Urabanna. The Ullambana Sutra is said to have been given to a monk named Mokuren by the Gautama Buddha. In this sutra the Buddha speaks of liberating souls that had been reborn in lower levels of the afterlife. By offering food to the sangha (community or assembly of beings with a high degree of Buddhist realization), in essence providing gifts to the Gods, the souls can be elevated or liberated. Such an offering, the Buddha said, must be mad on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and out of this legend was born the principals and practices surrounding Obon. Digging deeper into the origins we find that Mokuren actually envisioned his departed mother in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a sort of hell to the Japanese. There she was indulging in selfish decadence. Mokuren would ask the Buddha to have pity on the soul of his mother and it was here that the Buddha asked for gifts to the Sangha. Once the gifts were delivered at the proper time the Buddha honored his side of the deal and the mother was let go. Mokuren was now enlightened and saw only the goodness that was in his mother. So elated by his mother’s freedom from the lower realm Mokuren began to dance happily in what was called the Bon Odori. In this legend are the roots of Obon. It is said that the spirits of our ancestors return to this plain of existence during Obon. Today the Japanese still leave offerings to the Gods in hopes of securing a good afterlife for their departed love ones and is much happiness in the family gatherings as though this is a time to remember the dead it is joyous time to remember all the good our ancestors have brought us, a time to remember the greater facets of the deceased. The Bon Odori dance still takes place in modern Japan to remember those joyous times. There is a bit of a conflict in celebration times for Obon here. Whereas the legend makes mention of making offerings in July, in many regions of Japan Obon is officially recognized as taking place in August. Days off for Obon are allotted during the August dates making this time frame seem more official. Obon takes place between August 13 (Welcoming Obon) and August 16 (Farewell Obon). Various regions of the country have their own festivities although lighting of lanterns to welcome the spirits during Obon and setting lighted lamps out on the waters of the closest river (Toro nagashi) to guide the spirits back safety appears to be universal whoever you go. In Kyoto Obon cullminates with the called Daimon-ji Gozan Okuribi, a tradition so old the origins are lost to the passing of time. It is believed that the spirits begin returning back to their realm on the evening of the 16th. Here in Kyoto they are sent off in a grand fashion with this festival where five fires are lit on the surrounding mountains to form various words and shapes. A torri gate, a boat and the Kanji for “large” are a few of the images you will see enflamed on the mountainside. Taking the lady at the tourist office’s advice I settled in on the banks of the Kamo River to watch the fires (fire, as it turned out). There are hotels that offer their rooftops for a fee and from there all five fires can be seen but I was content with just a little mountain flame and the grass by the river was just fine. I was in a crowd of hundreds, some that looked to have camped here for the entire day. In the end, this was all a little anti-climatic and though seeing the symbol form on the mountainside in the darkness one little flame at a time was interesting I believe you really have to be behind the enter meaning and reason for the fires to enjoy it as thoroughly as the Japanese. People applauded so loudly you’d think Hendrix had just come back and was actually burning guitars up there. Crosstown Traffic! Play Crosstown Traffic. And then, what the hell, FREEEEEEEEBIRRRRDDDD!!!!!! The anticipation, much like a lot of things, was better then the climax and as we all sat there in the dark gazing in the same direction I think I expected the entire mountain to burst into uncontrolled fire, something biblical, but what followed was about a minute of small little flames, small from where I was sitting but obviously pretty big (and well controlled to form the shapes). The crowd cheered and I started heading away before everybody else did foreseeing overstuffed buses to Kyoto Station. The mountain burned on in a shape that looked like one of the twig men from the Blair Witch Project. It was an interesting sight but nowhere near as dramatic and exciting as the Nara flaming tree, ash and cinder showering from back in March. I wasn’t the only one with the notion of a quick escape and I’d have to wait for three buses before the line at the stop diminished enough so that it was my turn. I was squashed between a punk-rocker and a woman in a business suit. Now there’s a sitcom waiting to happen. When we turned it felt like we’d tip but we all survived. I thought I might be able to see all the fires burning from the Kyoto Station skywalk but either they were all out or the skyline was blocking my view because I saw nothing. Okay, I’d promised my legs only a few more hours and I’d lied to them. Sorry, boys, I’ll make it up to you with a nice bath. I’d been away from home and out on the road for over five days now. This was the most exhausting trip I’ve ever taken and that includes the three-day bus ride across Canada. It was an amazing ride, though, and now on the train back home, the end of my journey, I’m thinking of that perfect red sun and a view from the top of the world.