My friend told me to begin at the beginning. Fair enough, I said, but where does the beginning begin? Is it when I arrived in Kyoto? Is it when I boarded the Shinkansen in Fukuyama? Is it when I rushed out the office door in hopes that I would make it to my train on time? Or perhaps it begins with my blog post last Thursday, when I expressed my hopes for momiji in Kyoto?
For that matter, where does it end? I did far, far too much over the course of my weekend to divulge information on every single occurrence. And besides that, this is a public blog, you know. Some things are probably better left unsaid. Perhaps you're thinking "He must be exaggerating. How much can you do in just a few days?" If so, you've probably never been to Kyoto.
Okay, I've decided. I'm going to take the path of the wanderer, probably the one most apt for me. That is, I'm just going to say whatever comes to me as it comes to me. Let me begin with my last blog post, because that's where I last left you off and I'm not cruel enough to simply leave you hanging around like some lost little kitten.
There was no momiji in Kyoto. I had been misled. Not by anyone else, of course; no, I'd been misled by myself and my own experiences. That's the one thing you have to remember when you go to a new country and it's the one thing that I, of course, forgot. When you're halfway across the world, you cannot expect things to work in the same way. By now, back in Canada and the Northern US, leaves are probably changing colors. By halfway through November, the trees will be nearly bare. At that time, the first cold breaths of winter will be yawning after a long summer's nap. Not in Japan.
Here in Japan, the rice may be ripe and the humidity may have left us far behind, but the trees are not yet ready to change. True, a few select trees are now clad in a glorious red like the setting sun, but they are the exception, not the rule. While in Kyoto, I was told by my friend that momiji will be in its fullest splendor sometime in mid-November. Given the previous paragraph, you are probably not surprised that this was not what I expected. So, no momiji for me.
But that was probably the only disappointment of the trip. Well, that and the fact that I didn't see any geisha. But that doesn't really count, because Geisha are not a once-a-year occurrence and I will almost certainly be going back.
In truth, I may have seen a pair of Geisha and simply not remembered it. You see, my friend and I, along with a group of other foreigners that we met up with, decided to indulge in a little karaoke. But the price of nomihoudai (all you can drink) plus karaoke was a bit high, so we decided to bring our own drinks in with us. And I think you can see where this is going, so I will stop there. This is a public blog, after all. Who knows who could be reading it. Hell, my mother could be reading it... Hi Mum.
Anyway, the point is, I didn't see any Geisha. But I did get to sing Sum41, Beastie Boys, and Queen, so it all balances out in the end.
But let me talk a little bit about the cultural aspect of Kyoto, because it really is quite something. It is, after all, the city of a thousand temples. And I do mean that literally. In fact, it is so amazing that the president of the United States during WWII ensured that Kyoto was taking off the list of bombing targets. Neither regular nor atomic bomb touched the city at any point in the war. Military importance be damned, Kyoto would not be harmed.
Of all the temples that I saw, I would have to say that Sanjusangendo was probably my favorite. (It translates roughly to 33-length-hall, but I'd say it's something more like The Hall of 33 Spaces In-Between... not that that makes much more sense unless you've seen it.) Anyway, Sanjusangendo is famous due to its 1001 Buddha statues. But just saying it like that fails to paint much of a picture, so let me describe my experience.
First, I walked into the hall and looked to my right. I saw something like a set of wooden bleachers, upon which stood several shiny statues. As I came around to the front, I realized that these statues, each one of which was life size, had been lacquered in gold. And more over, every one of them was different in little ways. The angle of their hand, the slant of their eye, and often something major like what they held in their hand would be different from every other statue. You could practically taste the effort the original artisans had put into creating these statues.
So there I was, walking along, looking at these gorgeous creations. In front of them were 28 guardian dieties, the two most prominent of which are Fujin and Raijin. The inner nerd in me rejoiced to see those two dieties in particular. You see, I am a fan of the Final Fantasy games and Final Fantasy 8 features two characters named Fujin and Raijin. And now I have first-hand experience of the inspiration for these characters, who are far and away two of my favorite characters in the game. Anyway, enough of that.
I could go on and on about the deities represented in this hall. Fujin and Raijin, for example, are the gods of wind and thunder respectively and some of the oldest gods in the Shinto pantheon. They are feared and respected and almost always seem to come together. The statues in the Sanjusangendo are particularly important statues of them, as they date back very far and are some of the most detailed, unique, and well crafted versions of them. In fact, a great many subsequent statues of the gods were little more than copies of these two originals.
But it's probably better if you just research it yourself. There's far too much to say. It is important to mention, though, that the 1001 statues are all statues of Kannon, a very, very important god in Buddhism.
So there I was, in the midst of an intellectual amazement. I looked down the hall a bit and saw that the block of statues had an ending point soon. But as I walked a bit farther, I realized that this was not the end. No, not at all. In fact, the hallway went down even further than I thought. I reached the end of that first block of Kannon statues - it must have been about 500 - and was gobsmacked by a gigantic statue of Buddha. It was probably the size of 100 of the other statues. Its eyes were gigantic crystals, its cheeks were jolly, and yes, it too was lacquered entirely in gold. More importantly, I was only halfway through the hall.
Eventually, I reached the real end of the hallway. At that point I learned that in the Edo era (1600 - 1868), the hallway behind all the statues (which was just as long, I assure you) was used for a famous archery competition. The archer would sit down at one end of the hall and, for 24 hours, fire as many shots as possible at the far end of the hall. Mind. Officially. Blown.
After a short recovery period, we headed off for Kiyomizu temple to watch the sunset and meet up with some foreigners who were coming up from Osaka. The night was just beginning.
I could give you the highlights for the rest of the trip, but highlights are boring. Highlights are vague, non-descriptive entities for the lazy. I could tell you I played with monkeys, but that would leave out any description of the view from the top of the mountain, or the fact that we initially didn't even climb the right mountain. It would leave out the koi fish pond and the children's playground beside the monkey haven. I could tell you that I saw the kinkaku-ji temple, also known as the Golden Pavilion. But that would leave out a description of the reflection pool in front of it. That wouldn't mention the historical importance of the temple, the fact that it was designed as a zen retreat, the fact that only the most splendid of the temples has survived to the current day, and that even that most splendid of temples was actually burnt down in 1950 by a crazy monk/student guy, then rebuilt in 1955.
So I'm going to leave it at that. If you're reading this and you have not seen Kyoto, believe me when I say that you are missing out. I don't say that a lot, because I think that people should be happy with the choices they've made. But seriously, you need to see Kyoto.
~Jeffles
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