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kyoto, japan.

date. 2024

locations: kyoto, uji, kurama

Image by realfish

June 26

 

“You have to visit Kyoto!” they said. “You just have to.”

“It’s nothinggg like Tokyo,” they insisted, seeing the skeptical look in my eyes. “It’s traditional and beautiful and filled with culture.”

 

They’ve won. Here I am. At a small diner in Shimogyo, finishing my coffee as I flip through the copy of The Tale of Genji that I picked up at the airport.

 

The bright room is filled with the soft murmurs of conversation and gentle pop. So quiet, you can almost forget you’re not alone.

 

A steady stream of pedestrians and the occasional tourist pass by the window.

 

Japan.

 

That object of ultimate American fascination.

 

Kamikaze. Nintendo. Hello Kitty. Sushi, Samurai, Karate, assassins, emperors, vending machines, manga, and shame.

 

Zen and suicide forests. Geishas and karaoke.

 

What does Japan mean?

 

Perhaps it’s the impossibility of an answer that draws us in.

 

Yesterday, I wandered mindlessly through the streets of Kyoto. Searching for something to see, and only finding other groups of white people looking for the same.

 

I returned early to my hotel, visited the bar downstairs and chatted with the hostess in broken English.

 

She saw my copy of Genji and noted that “Every child in Japan must read Genji. But I can’t remember the story anymore. The ancient Japanese is too hard to understand.”

 

I told her that the modern English is just as difficult.

 

She laughed and turned to greet some guests who'd just walked in.

 

 

June 27

 

I ate breakfast at a cafe — I believe it’s called Murmur — which only serves a single dish.

 

Toast.

 

That’s it. I swear. They serve a single slice of toasted bread with some honey drizzled on top and a scoop of butter.

 

And let me tell you, this place was PACKED. More than packed. I had to join a waiting list.

 

Today I picked a new place for breakfast.

 

 

My approach to traveling seems to be just about the same as my approach to dating.

 

When I was younger, I’d cut to the chase. I moved things along. I took a girl out, and then took her home — or she took me home. Or I got dumped. Either way.

 

Now, in my old age, I linger — I pause at the edge. I explore the ambiguous moments and the excitement of what may still be to come.

 

When I was young, I’d arrive in a European capital and immediately hit up the main tourist attractions. I'd stroll right through the center of town. And then… onto the next one. Rarely would I spend more than a handful of days in a single place. I want to see it all! My curiosity ceaselessly fuelling me forward.

 

But Kyoto is different. She’s no easy lady. And she disapproves of my bachelor behavior. Kyoto demands commitment.

 

In what is to follow is an account of my week in Kyoto. I’d considered splitting my time with Osaka, or perhaps Nara. Or why not Tokyo?

 

But now, two days in, I realize that won’t be possible. I’m in it for the long run.

 

I’ve read the blogs. I know all about the temples, palaces, museums, Fushimi Inari-taisha, and the bamboo forest.

 

But for some unknown reason, I spend my first days quietly walking Kyoto’s quiet lanes.

 

I don’t yet know what I’m looking for. I don’t yet know what this city has in store. And for the moment, that’s how I like it.

 

Kyoto is different than the others. Irreducible to a checklist, a series of must-sees and can’t-misses.

 

Last night, at the bar downstairs, there was a poster for a Takashi Murakami exhibition at Kyocera. So I guess that’s my next stop.

 

Kyoto, like all lovers sighted from across a crowded room, is best approached discretely.

 

 

June 28

 

Before today, I had never heard of Takashi Murakami, let alone seen any of his work, but by the time I left that magical garden of an exhibition, I felt like I’d seen it all.

 

The dizzying heights, filled with rainbows and laughing flowers. And the darkest of lows. Question: Are skulls scarier when they are pitch black or pure gold?

 

What was it that Murakami wrote on the entrance?

 

“The reason Japan’s character culture has developed and taken the world by storm is because the anxious spirit of Japan, grounded in the sorrowfulness of a defeated country, strikes a chord.”

 

Grounded in the sorrowfulness of a defeated country.

 

Sorrowfulness. Defeat. Strike.

 

But Murakami is not dark. And neither is Japan.

 

It’s been dawning on me. It just took a 50 foot tall golden flower sculpture standing on a rainbow-colored Louis Vuitton suitcase (true story) for the right words to materialize.

 

Japan is not dark or silent. Japan is absolutely fantastic.

 

 

How is it that I’ve learned

Far more about Kyoto

Standing at her bus stops

Waiting in the rain

Than all my prancing about through her

Temples.

 

I feel absolutely ignored in Kyoto.

Even on Bumble. Girls match with me,

Only to ignore me.

In Kyoto

One learns to be quiet.

 

 

The first time I visited Fushimi Inari, it was raining.

I now realize why Japanese umbrellas are all transparent. Even in the rain, there’s so much to see.

 

Back in Manila, she’d asked me if I really believe that raindrops are the tears of angels. I asked her is she really believes in love.

 

At the entrance to the shrine stands a 6 foot tall wreath. A sign reads:

 

“It is told that, when you walk through the Cogun Grass Ring: Different diseases you are suffering from, sins that you have done, the Kegare (defilement) in you will be taken away.”

 

Do you believe in magic?

 

———

 

My next stop is the Thousand Buddhas Temple. It’s a temple filled with a thousand buddhas.

 

Here are some excerpts I jotted down while reading Kyoto’s own Tale of Genji, one of the oldest novels in existence:

 

The silence of death was unbroken

The public was afraid he was too beautiful to live long.

The dreamlike sorrow.

 

The waves roll back,

But unlike me,

They come back again.

 

In our parting cup

The tears of sadness fall.

 

Like the reflection of the broad star-lit sky in a basin of water.

 

 

Or this poem I wrote, while visiting the Heian-junger shrine behind Kyocera:

 

There is a park in Kyoto

Let me lead you there

Where dragonflies still dance

To the trickle of crystal falls

 

Where emerald lilly pads sunbathe

neath the shade of wizened trees

peering lazily over their canes

of maple and of honey

 

There is a park in Kyoto

Where lullabies come to rest

where time waits patiently

and dreams nod off to sleep

 

there is a park in Kyoto

where, if you’d only sit for a moment,

beside me (just for a moment)

on this warm stone bench

we might live forever

or disappear in the breeze

 

we could swallow up eternity

or drown in an angel’s tear

or wet our fingertips on that 

fresh paint while the gods color us in

 

there is a park in Kyoto

where lost hopes come to rest

and first kisses find their home

where endings come to begin

and beginnings never end

 

I traveled the world for 12 years

Searching for the place where lullabies are born

And where ships-in-a-bottle lay anchor 

 

There is a park in Kyoto

One day, I’ll bring you there

 

I lived all my life in this city

And learned nothing at all.

 

 

My Day in Uji

 

Uji, a small town just south of Kyoto, is primarily famous for three things:

 

  • Byodo-in Temple: a thousand year old palace-cum-temple-cum-museum. I personally liked the museum more than the temple. After all, with all of these tourists, even the temple is something of a museum.

  • The Tale of Genji was written here.

  • Uji is the birthplace of matcha.

 

Ask me which one is my favorite. 

 

 

June 29

 

It’s Saturday and I have the day off, so I made my way to the northeast of the city to tick off a few boxes.

 

  • The bamboo path thingy. Pretty but short and completely overrun with tourists. I wish I’d skipped it.

  • Ryoan-ji. Yet another medieval temple, but it was quiet, beautiful, and expansive; stretching around a lovely pond. I spent about an hour here and grabbed an ice cream on the way out to keep me company on my 20 minute walk to the next location, the famousssss kinkaku-ji.

  • Kinkanku-ji. Okay, here’s the thing. Unlike sports stadiums or night clubs, Zen temples don’t really do well with crowds. Serenity is kind of their thing. And I think this is something Kyoto really struggles with. It tries to open itself up to tourists as much as possible, but then… at what cost? And I’m equally guilty of this myself. I trot around the carefully planned routes through the temple grounds, camera in hand.

    That being said, some temples are just much worse at this than others. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a popularity thing, or a geographical thing, or maybe it changes day-by-day, but certain sites manage to maintain that energyyyy, in spite of it all. Certain sites overwhelmed me with their beauty, design, and frankly their poetry.

    And then, others… nothing. I just lamely follow the crowd in a circle, happy to reach the exit gates and move on.

 

If the great European cathedrals are designed to yank us out of our reveries, Zen temples serve to put us to sleep.

 

 

June 30

 

I first heard of Mount Kurama from a girl on TikTok.

 

It then, momentarily, reappeared in an unexpected place: The Tale of Genji.

 

When Prince Genji falls sick, he relocates to Mount Kurama just north of the capital. When he hears the sounds of the waterfall, he remarks:

 

The wind blows about

Down the depths to waken me

From the dream I had —

In my eyes the tears well up.

The sound of a waterfall.

 

And so I find myself, too, on my final morning in Japan, boarding the Eizen Kurama line, making its way up the mountain on this grey drizzly day.

----

 

I have come to learn that there is a place where art, religion, and philosophy all appear as one. And since learning of this place, I’ve sworn that until I’ve reached it, I would never become a philosopher, and artist, or a rabbi.

 

One without the other is useless. Worse still, it’s vain.

 

Well, today I’ve found that place. On Kyoto’s Mount Kurama, art, philosophy and religion become indistinguishable.

 

 

In some countries, you have to be very careful about what you put in your mouth. But not in Japan. In Japan, you’d be best advised to eat everything they put in front of you.

 

“What are you doing with your life?” she asked in that judgy way that is trying desperately not to sound judgy. There was a short pause, as I thought it over. “Nothing at all,” I smiled.

 

 

There’s something I’ve been trying to say about Japan. For days now, when I’ve sat down to write, I’ve tried to say it, but then just end up writing about temples and food and rain.

 

Hopefully it’ll come to me one of these days. I’d really like to share it.

 

In a way, it’s all I really want to say.

 

In a way, it’s all that Japan has ever shown me.

 

I’ll admit it. I don’t like Japan. I find it boring, inscrutable, distant, and illusive. I think it’s the most overrated country on the planet.

 

But this time, during my week alone in Kyoto, I felt something. Something from afar. Something I’ve never felt before.

 

Kinda like that smile that only appears from behind a stranger’s eyes. Like they’re trying to tell you something very important, but it's not something that can be put into words.

 

Like adults are always saying, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Or worse, “You’ll know when you know.”

 

Well I got a bit older this week in Kyoto, and I knew when I knew. And I’d like to put it into words.

 

But I’m forbidden.

Daniel Rhodes © 2024

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