Flaming Umbrellas

This is going to be SOOOO easy:

Drive through relentless rain, see wondrous sight.

Repeat as necessary.

I’m keep telling myself  that it has absolutely nothing to do with me, but based on the number of times in the recent past I’ve had to drive in torrential downpours with accompanying howling winds, it’s becoming harder and harder to convince myself that it’s purely coincidence. To be honest, I don’t really mind all that much since I’d be wasting the day anyway so what the hell. No, I feel sorry for the innocent bystanders - those hapless victims who’ve planned their itinerary down to the last detail and then spent a fortune on a ryokan to see the waterfall or temple, hike the trail or just walk around outside. I’m haunted by a vision of them staring forlornly out the rain-streaked window and sighing audibly. They are royally fucked. Sorry about that.

My biggest problem is that it’s hard to appreciate the scenery when you’re busy concentrating on trying to keep from running off a narrow road or skidding off a cliff. And doing it for five hours can get somewhat draining. Still, small price to pay.

First reward: Nachi waterfalls, the highest in Japan. And a lovely shrine thrown in for free.

Brief aside: In Shingu (“shitty little town” in spades), I did end up in a restaurant with a little old lady who spoke not a word of English. I just told her to give me whatever she was making and this is what I ended up with:

There was a pork dish as well which, like the stir-fried beef, was “normal”. When she indicated she was grilling some fish, it never crossed my mind that this would be the finished product. Yes, you eat the whole fish, particularly when the cook is watching you. I managed to get away with not eating the tail. Westerners - whaddaya gonna do.

Second treat: a hike on part of the famed Nakasendo Trail between the quaint post towns of Magome and Tsunago. The whole thing is 330 km. and at one time was an important route between Kyoto and Tokyo. Now tourists only, although, blessedly, not very many while I was there. Nice, in a folksy kind of way.

Ring the bell “against a bear”. 

Yep, that oughta do it.

Last, but by no means least: Mt. Fuji. I really had no idea how fucking huge this mountain was. It completely dominates the entire skyline. VERY impressive. Personally I find it hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would want to climb it, but it’s a BIG thing. Hard pass.

So, done & done. Now all that remains is to return the car tomorrow (a drive that, since I have to go through Tokyo, Google Maps tells me will take somewhere between 5 and 10 hours. Oh boy!), catch a train, or trains, from the airport and then find and somehow get into my cozy apartment.

It’s gonna be a L-O-N-G day.

Japanese Fun Facts 

Let’s talk driving - again. Since my initial report and now that I’m a grizzled veteran , I have to say things have changed. Or rather, my naive notions have changed. Yes, the Japanese are still often polite to a fault - did I mention that when you let someone into traffic, they actually bow as well as flashing their hazard lights 3 times? Well they do.

However, it turns out there’s a darker side to their driving. Contrary to what I’d read, they’re NOT merging masters - left, right, left, right. No siree. People rush ahead, people try to skip the line, people pretend you’re not there. Just like home. They also do some serious honking and have a very real propensity for running almost-red lights. And I cannot believe how many of them I see on their phones.

Shocking, I tell you, shocking.

Hallelujah Chorus

"I'm here! I'm here! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! Feast your eyes on me! It's too good to be true, but I'm here! I'm here!"

Sumimasen, Japan. All is forgiven. 

If you detected a small whiff of cynicism and self-righteousness in the previous post, I apologize. And now I‘m going to set things right with a glowing report on my time the following day in Nara and Koyasan. THIS is what I’m talking’ about.

Nara & The BIG Buddha

Behold Daibutsuden, until recently the largest wooden building in the world. Holy fuck! Look at that thing! In person, it’s both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. And it’s only 2/3 the size of the original.

And what’s inside?

Oh, just some more ridiculously huge shit. This statue is bronze and weighs -  oh I don’t know - as much as the sun. It certainly seems like that.

Supposedly if you can crawl through this hole (the exact size of the Buddha’s nostril) you’re guaranteed a long life.. Michael d’Eça claims to have made it, which undoubtedly accounts for his youthful looks and vitality. I didn’t even bother trying. God, I’m sad.

Obligatory deer shot. The poor things. They remind me of the geisha controversy in Kyoto - constantly taunted and harassed by asshole tourists and then insulted when they get fed up and respond. Sorry. Couldn’t help it.

Koyasan 

Koyasan is absolutely loaded with temples, but I wasn’t wasting any time or energy on them. I was going for The Ultimate Prize - the Okunoin, a 2 km long sacred area which contains over 200 000 gravestones,  memorial pagodas and towering cedar trees and ends with the great Kobo Daisha’s mausoleum, where according to believers he remains alive and in eternal meditation for the betterment of mankind. They still bring him 2 meals a day (which blasphemously makes me wonder how they explain the leftovers. “ See, Haraki? Didn’t I tell you he doesn’t like pickles?”)

And guess what? I had the place virtually all too myself

I’m not going to cheapen the experience by blathering on and on about it and trying to think of as many superlatives as possible. Honestly, fucking magic.

Japan, I love you.

Japanese Fun Facts

 Let’s talk police cars - briefly. Police in Japan do NOT drive giant SUVs. In fact, they drive featureless sedans, most of which look like they came out of a sleazy used-car lot. The interesting thing is that most - but not all - of them have this crazy light setup on the roof. When they turn on the flashers, the lights raise up with a scissors-like apparatus.

Not only that, but they have a loudspeaker that would wake the dead. I have no idea what they’re broadcasting over it when they pull someone over, but believe me, they sound like they mean business.

The other odd thing I’ve noticed is that in rural areas they’ll sometimes put on their flashers, drive down the road at the exact speed limit (or less) for a random period of time and then just pull over and stop. 

Why? Top secret.

Smoke & Mirrors

This blab contains endless photos of temples and shrines, as well as a fair amount of bitching and moaning. Not your thing? Fine. Move on - and keep that line moving, Mister, Don’t stop. Don’t turn around. Just keep moving. Baaaaa!

“When an irresistible force such as you 

Meets an old immovable object like me

You can bet just as sure as you live

Somethin's gotta give, 

Somethin's gotta give, somethin's gotta give”

                                          Frank Sinatra

Something gonna give alright: my brain.

Before we get to the nitty gritty, let’s define the parameters and participants:

ME (immovable object): I like being by myself.  There’s no-one’s company I enjoy more than my own. I can amuse myself endlessly and find that I’m  a true pleasure to be around. Family and friends? Not a problem. Others (particularly lots of others)? Different story. So, as you can imagine, crowds, particularly obnoxious crowds - which seems almost inevitable - are my worst nightmare. Not that I can’t do it, but let’s just say it detracts from the enjoyment significantly. However, by the same token, I’m not going to go to ridiculous extremes (like, for instance, getting up at 4 am) to avoid them.

KYOTO (irresistible force): For a number of predictable reasons, many of them good ones, Kyoto has become massively popular. It’s a “destination”, and social media is endlessly rhapsodizibg about its culture, beauty and vibe. Yes, thanks to the Interweb, everybody, including me, is very aware of this phenomenon . So there’s no claiming ignorance or surprise when you’re predictably faced with hordes of humanity at every popular attraction.

It’s not hard to see where this is going, is it? So, in the interest of fairness, I’m simply going to show you the aforementioned “must-see” attractions with as little commentary as possible. But, rest assured, there will be some and it could get ugly.

 Nanzen-ji - Buddhist temple

Ginkaku-ji - Zen temple

Right now, I’m looking pretty good. I’ve been able to walk to both temples and haven’t been overwhelmed by fellow enthusiasts. Yes, it has been raining the entire morning, as it will continue to do for the entire two days of my stay, but hey, that’s life, although it will come back to haunt me.

Kinkaku-ji (aka Golden Pavilion) - Buddhist temple

Here’s where it all starts coming apart. In Japan, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, uses an umbrella. Combine that with a restricted space, which is definitely the case here, and you’ve got a recipe for clashing apparatus and potential eye removal. AND they’re all stopping to take innumerable photos in a line that’s only allowed to move in one direction. It’s the beginning of the end.

Fortunately, I live to fight another day and wisely decide to wrap it up by taking a hopefully peaceful stroll and checking out one last temple along the way.

Philosopher’s Path

The route is so-named because two 20th-century Japanese philosophers and Kyoto University professors, Nishida Kitaro and Hajime Tanabe, are thought to have used it for daily exercise. All I care about is that there’s nobody else on it.

Also, see those trees lining the path? Cherry trees. Naked cherry trees. There’s a lot of very disappointed tourists here.

Honen-in temple

Very small, very nice, very quiet. Ahhhh!

Now that my heart rate is below 100 and I’m not audibly grinding my teeth, I simply have to stop in at Omen, grab a bowl of Udon noodles and congratulate myself on not having disemboweled anyone today.

I already know Day 2 is going to be a motherfucker.

Firstly, I have to drive and find a place to park. Still better than standing out in the rain waiting for a bus with The Unwashed Masses..

Even worse, I’m going for the two most popular sights. Double trouble.

Fushimi-Inari-Taisha - Shinto shrine

Notice any difference between the two torii gate photos?  That’s because in the first one there’s a human traffic jam. Why? It made no sense. Were there so many people that we were lined up to the top of the mountain? Had someone collapsed? Landslide? When I finally walked around outside the gates, I discovered the cause - a slew of “influencers” blocking the passage so they could take endless photos and videos for their vlog or YouTube channel without plebeians showing up behind them. For real. What I couldn’t understand was why everybody else was letting them get away with it. WTF!

The second photo is a bit higher up. I can only assume it’s too difficult to manage that many stairs in stilettos and a tight skirt.

Taken upon my arrival at 8:30

Taken upon my departure at 10:00

Now anybody with a lick of sense and an aversion to idiots would have packed it in and called it a day. Nope.

Onward and downward.

Tenryu-ji - Zen temple

NOT a good start. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Still doing okay and patting myself on the back - perhaps prematurely.

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

Here’s the thing. It’s not that the bamboo grove itself is terrible. It’s the mystique that’s somehow grown up around it and that has driven people into a frenzy. Check the Interweb. They’re literally getting up at 3:00 am to “beat the crowd”. It’s fucking bamboo, people.

But here’s the vision they have in their head, courtesy in this case of Lonely Planet.

And here’s the reality.

It’s okay, but not even within hailing distance of a knock-your-socks-off, jaw-dropping life-altering experience.

It reminds me of the time I took The Girls to see James Brown - WAY past his prime but, c’mon, JAMES BROWN! Last chance ever. Long story short, he was sad, a pathetic caricature of his former self. Cashing in, no doubt. Fair enough,  but so disappointing. On the way out, I’m profusely apologizing to my children and this guy walks by saying, “Wow! What a performance! Fucking amazing, man!” and I’m thinking, “Jesus! Did we see the same show?”

So maybe if you’ve never been out of Buttsville, Idaho OR you’ve spent a fortune coming to Japan and you’ve been dreaming of  “Doing the Grove” you’re gonna be in the same boat. Or maybe it’s just me. Yeah, that’s probably it. However, in my defence, let me just say that when somebody says “Workd Class” these are the pictures that jump into my head:

NOT a bamboo grove. Don’t get me wrong. Those temples and gardens are truly amazing, but more in the sense of “Good job! That’s really impressive.” as opposed to “Human beings built THAT! Jesus Christ!”

And if I may be allowed to put my other unpopular foot in my mouth,  the whole Kyoto thing rubs me the wrong way. Paris, Venice, Buenos Aires - those cities ooze history, culture and charm. Kyoto is a big city that happens to have quite few beautiful, historic buildings. But is it an icon? A cultural Mecca? No, it is not.

Kill me now.

Japanese Fun Facts

This post is already ludicrously long. Next time.