Well, I'm back home now, didn't manage to get another Japan update in while I was there (probably a good thing; I was too busy having fun!). So, here's a recap of the last half of my Japan trip (apologies for the length of the entry).
When I
last signed off I was on my way to Kyoto on the bullet train. Kyoto was a dream; it was a mixture of a pretty standard "big city" (although not as fast and bright as Tokyo), some real Japanese tradition, some amazing shrines and temples and some really challenging weather. I arrived late Monday night and went for a wander into a street festival (photo's in the last update). However, the next night I quickly realised that it must've been "the warmup festival" I wandered into, because on my return the following night the festival was in FULL swing (and was certainly a sight to see). I'll put a few more photo's up of the following night in the next set.
My first day in Kyoto was spent on a full day tour (and it was jam packed). First we visited
Ryoanji Temple, a World Heritage site, which contains a rock garden apparently representing the Zen philosophy. The surroundings were beautiful, but to be honest I was a bit underwhelmed by the rock garden itself. Anyway, it was the start of the day, and I had plenty more to be amazed by. From there, we went onto
Kinkakuji Temple (The Golden Pavilion). This was certainly an "Oh, Wow" moment. The pavilion almost looked too gold to be gold (but it is). The lake surrounding it is also a sight to behold. After The Golden Pavilion, we made our way to
Kyoto's Imperial Palace. This was very formal (we had to go through a few hoops and loops to get in there), but was quite grandios in it's scale and majesty. It was stupidly hot though at this point, and I definitely welcomed the next stop; a 7 storey shopping destination (actually it was the official Kyoto Handicraft Centre), where we had lunch and an hour's stop to do some shopping and exploring. I picked up a few gifts there and mainly rehydrated for the afternoon ahead. We went from there to
Heian Shrine and then
Sanju-Sangendo Hall. This hall was really impressive, containing 1001 life-size statues of Kannon, the goddess of Mercy, in a HUGE long wooden hall. These wooden statues date back to the 13th century and were exquisitely detailed. Last stop on the day tour was
Kiyomizu Temple, a temple set high in the hilltops of Kyoto which afforded great views of the city, and very tired legs at the end of the day walking up and down stairs... It was a nice place to finish the tour though; I made a few wishes at the temple and drank from a lucky stream. We made our way back to Kyoto and got caught in an amazing downpour - rain like I hadn't seen for a long time. I made a mad dash from the bus to the hotel (and still got absolutely soaked), and after the rain died down an hour later, went for a stroll through the festival.
The next day I had another tour booked for the morning and then made my way back to Tokyo that night on the bullet train again. The tour I had in the morning was probably the more intense of the three tours I went on; it was a morning walking tour, and boy did we do a lot of walking in the space of about 4 hours. And not just leisurely strolling either, I'm talking a good pace, up and down hillsides, old narrow stone steps and through beautifully cultivated gardens and overgrown forests - it was great! The tour itself was around
Sagano and Arashiyama, and it was a good tour in that there were only about 8 of us on the tour, so it was a smaller, more intimate tour, and probably a bit more tailored to our questions / interests. The tour guide herself, Yagi, was very knowledgeable. I took some of the more amazing photos on this tour, but by the end of it (i.e. halfway through the day), I was just knackered. I went back to my hotel, picked up my stuff and caught a bullet train back to Tokyo, arriving at about 5-ish.
Given it was my last night in Tokyo, I decided to make the most of it (despite my exhaustion), so did some more wandering around Shinjuku and then headed down to a bar I'd read about called "
Anti-knock". It was a tiny place that hosts live bands, so I checked out a Japanese punk band called "The Usual Suspects". They weren't too bad - their final song was quite good actually, less punk and more rock. It was a good experience; there was about 40 people in the crowd and I was definitely the only foreigner. All the between song banter was in Japanese (which made it all the more surreal) - it was really quite odd to listen to the singer talk to the crowd in a language I really don't know, but see the same interactions as at a normal gig, and be able to pretty much guess what the singer was saying; Thank you, We have merch for sale, this is a new song, this is our last song, etc. Anyway, I was glad to see a band, and it'll be something I'll remember for a long time (regardless of how good the band was or not).
The next day was my final day in Tokyo, so I tidied everything up ready to leave and decided to spend the majority of the day walking the streets of Shinjuku in the daylight (which I hadn't done) and to do a spot of shopping. I also wanted to check out a record store I'd heard about called
Disk Union. I wandered out from my hotel at about 9:30am and headed over to Disk Union, only to find it didn't open until 11am... but the excitement set in immediately. I realised that Disk Union had
6 (yes, SIX) stores within about a 2 block radius. Their main store (8 floors) covered mostly rock, J-pop, LPs and memorabilia, which was impressive enough, but when I discovered they had
an entire store DEDICATED TO PROG ROCK, I was stunned. Had I known this earlier in my trip, I think I would've returned with far less money than I did :) So, I had to keep my mind otherwise occupied until 11am; I checked out some department stores, some smaller boutique-y shops and just wandered aimlessly really (with a constant eye on the time of course). I made it back to Disk Union and spent about 45 minutes in the Prog Rock shop. It was insane; they had so much stuff it was really quite unbelievable. They must've had about 70 Pink Floyd live bootlegs from the 70's (whole tours...). They had more Prog Rock than all the stores in Melbourne (maybe Australia!) combined. Anyway, I dragged myself away from there to go over to the real treasure chest; the store dedicated to Metal and Punk. Three (3) floors, 2 of which were pure metal, the top one punk/ska/hardcore. After about an hour on the first floor of metal I experienced the chemicals in the body that make it impossible for gamblers to stop. I was still wandering through there, looking at every single CD, and I had about 30 CDs bundled in my arms. It was ecstacy; anything I could think of, they had it. And not only what I thought of, but alternate releases, live bootlegs, side projects, deleted issues, you name it. For fear of missing my flight home to Australia and ending up living in the store, I had to leave (but I did manage to buy about 15 CDs - which I didn't think was too over the top). This single store alone is reason enough for any self-respecting audiophile / music collector to visit Tokyo.
After my Disk Union experience, I wandered a little bit more and then said my goodbyes to Tokyo and headed off to the airport. The trip home was pretty uneventful, other than our flight being late into Sydney (thus missing a connection to Melbourne). It meant I was a few hours later getting home than planned. Also, Sydney airport duty free had sold out of Nintendo Wii's (which was very disappointing). All in all though, those were the little things compared to this fantastic adventure I was lucky enough to go on. Japan certainly romanced me well, and I look forward to returning there again someday. I absolutely loved it.
Labels: Japan
