All that glitters is not gold

Unless it is.

Our flight to Osaka left at just after midnight and touched down some five hours later. Allowing for refreshments after take-off and breakfast before landing; that didn’t leave much time for sleeping; and it was pretty hard to sleep anyway. Consequently we arrived in a zombie-like state and staggered into the train to go to Kyoto. I paid an exorbitant surcharge for an early check-in at the rather splendid Granvia hotel which sits on top of the main Kyoto station and after a quick shower it was time to venture out for food.

This might be an appropriate time to admit that I was somewhat apprehensive about a trip to Japan. Conventional wisdom implied that it was a difficult place to visit due to language problems, from both the unintelligible signage and the limited English skills of the populace. It took me a couple of hours to discover that I had nothing to worry about; navigation is not that tough, and if you are lost the Japanese are very eager to help.

Our search for food took us to a collection of restaurants, most of which had dummy meals in the window with prices affixed. One place seemed to be offering a set lunch for a set price; so we thought we would try that, although there was nothing in English outside that indicated what might be on offer. But once inside, we were offered an English menu and a lady explained in halting English what was available. The food was excellent, especially the contents of a side-dish table which we could raid as often as we wanted. I have no idea what any of the dishes were, but they were all really tasty. Bill paid and arigato all round and then it was off to be a tourist.

We were exhausted, and so decided to visit just a single location which sat conveniently on a bus route. We eventually found the correct bus stand and I went to the machine to buy a ticket. I was there for a while, attempting to stuff a 1,000 yen note into a machine. Eventually, a Japanese man came over and showed me how I had to lift a plastic cover first….

We had not yet armed ourselves with maps and other information; so just sat on the bus and waited for our stop to be announced. When it was, we jumped off; only to find that we were nowhere near where we should be. Totally lost, she who must be obeyed collared a passing schoolboy who had no idea what we wanted, so he collared some other passing schoolkids and we soon had a whole classroom’s worth of students consulting books, maps and each other. Finally they came to a collective decision and pointed to a place on the map which was clearly incorrect. Much bowing and *arigato *all round; and then we took a taxi which was bloody expensive but at least got us there.

“There” was Kinkaku-ji, a gold leaf covered building which was originally built in 1397 and no doubt looked very old and authentic until a novice monk burned it down in 1950. The rebuild was still very pretty in the afternoon sun.

As we discovered at almost every location we visited in Kyoto, the attraction is not just the building, it is the whole site with the accompanying gardens. In fact the gardens are often more attractive than the buildings.

And as we visited each place, we always ended up saying the same thing: “Imagine how amazing this place will look when the leaves change colour in the Autumn”. Which is why I spent this morning arranging to return alone to Kyoto in November, where I will spend an entire week “shooting the shit” out of Kyoto’s gardens and temples.

Comments 🔗

2013-09-29 | Larry says

Does she who must be obeyed know about this trip?

2013-09-29 | Spike says

Full management approval has been received.

2013-09-29 | Andrew says

You might need more than a week - there are over 1200 temples and shrines in Kyoto alone ( temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto -most Japanese have a Buddhist wedding and Shinto funeral - they are equal opportunity believers..) …do try to get up in the mountains a bit to the east and north for the colours…

2013-09-29 | Spike says

Feeling stressed already, you are not helping. I have less than seven weeks to prepare a detailed plan of attack. And if the leaves don’t change colour by the time I am due to go, I will cancel and all the planning will have been in vain…

2013-09-29 | Andrew says

Well - here is a start : http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2014_when.html - I’m sure Japanese tv also tracks the colours as they do the cherry blossoms so that could keep you up to date - of course global warming not factored in…Kiyomizudera in Higashiyama is worth the visit..mountains and an amazing temple..also the Imperial Palace grounds…and there is ALWAYS something to photograph in Japan so anytime you are there is a good time for photos - no worries…

2013-09-29 | Andrew says

also Arashiyama is worth the visit as well - not far outside Kyoto…

2013-09-30 | Spike says

Thanks. I used that site for planning this last trip, and am now eagerly following their autumn colours report. May they be on time.

2013-09-30 | Spike says

We spent an afternoon there. Sadly much of the area had been washed out in a tropical storm a couple of weeks previously, the temple/shrine was under renovation and I found the bamboo path somewhat underwhelming. Gardens were beautiful though and worthy of a revisit when the colours have changed.