Vessels*

6 April 2010
Today was to have been the day we visited galleries and museums, primarily to view ceramics but also some of the great Japanese art treasures housed in Kyoto. With the whole of the National Museum closed for refurbishment, not just part of it we had to opt for second and third best. Our first stop was the Museum of Contemporary Art which houses a collection of ceramics – but not this month. The whole gallery has been taken over by an exhibition called “My Favourite Things” and as far as we could gather from reading the blurb the only ceramic piece in the exhibition was Marcel Duchamp’s urinal! The second place we tried was the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art – the only pottery they could direct us to was in the museum’s coffee shop. Undeterred we continued to the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts; the museum provides an excellent introduction to the whole range of Kyoto crafts, from roof tiles and metal work, through bamboo work, fans and ceramics (hooray) to textiles, kimonos, confectionary and ornamental hairpins. All very interesting in an anoraky sort of way but not what we wanted, especially as the ceramics were of the highly decorated variety and not really to our taste but we could appreciate the fine craftsman ship. This was shaping up to be a bit of a disappointing day and of course it was now much earlier in the day than we had planned. Our next stop was the Kyoto Pottery Hall which, allegedly, had an exhibition of the works of local potters and a shop selling their work. However as this was some distance further on and there were a couple of gardens in between we thought we would meander on in. The first was Shoren-in or Awata Palace as it is sometimes called; outside its main gate are two absolutely huge camphor trees. The house started life in ninth century as lodgings for Tendai-sect priests and later served as residence for members of the imperial family (this is, of course a euphemism for Royal-Hangers-On, we have a lot of them in England and they live in minor palaces like Kensington, Clarence House etc.)

The house is quite spartan with rooms containing little more than tatami mats and exquisitely painted screens from the 16th and 17th centuries. Inevitably there is a shrine attached which has so much ‘stuff’ in it, it resembles a junk shop. Outside there is a beautiful stroll garden designed to include the hillside with the usual, rocks, moss, water, stone lanterns etc. There were also the usual waterfalls but this garden had one right outside the tea house which sounded like a horse having a pee – enough to put you off your cuppa.
We then made our way on to Chion-in, a big busy complex where everything is built on a monumental scale – it houses the biggest bell in Japan, a monster weighing 67-tonnes which, at New Year, takes seventeen priests (of the jodo Pure Land sect of Buddhism) to ring. As we arrived so did about fourteen coach loads of school youths (all of them about 17 or 18, all smartly dressed, all amazingly well behaved) who made their way up the hundreds of steps to the large main hall, which we, of course avoided and visited the gardens. These are on two levels – the lower gardens being mainly ponds with bridges and islands with the upper gardens being on a series of levels and containing, once again, the usual ingredients but this time with sub-shrines and tea houses, one of which contains a screen with ‘the cat that looks in every direction’ – quit uncanny in that wherever one stands the eyes seem to be looking at you. We were reminded of that review of the Rolf Harris painting of the Queen – “wherever you go in the room her teeth are following you.” The cat was supposed to be some sort of sermon; the moral of which is while cats may look in any direction, humans must keep their eyes fixed upon eternity, please pass the bucket.

The upper garden just kept going up and up until we had a view over the whole of Kyoto, then we passed through a gate and found ourselves in the cemetery – or perhaps more correctly the cinerary – the dead get all the beat views in this town. Several photographs later we made our way back down on, through the park full of picnickers and cherry blossom (does no one work in this town?) and on to the Pottery Hall which (and we’re sure you knew this was coming) was closed. Ah well the whole area is where all the kilns of Kyoto have traditionally been based so we thought we would just wander around the numerous ceramics shops there. This we did and saw mostly highly decorated vessels of the sort we rather uncharitably say have been made by “hobby potters”. In fairness we did see a few very fine pieces but these were well outside our price range being a few hundred thousand yen. This was turning into quite a disappointing day – there was only one place left to visit and that was Kawai Kanjiro’s House.

Kawai Kanjiro was an innovative potter who lived from 1890 to 1966 and helped revive the mingei (folk crafts) tradition in the 1930s which so influenced Bernard Leach. This made our day – the house was as he left it (but unlike National Trust properties you could sit on the furniture and touch the wooden sculptures but understandably not the pottery). The house contains ceramics and sculptures from his long career and out in the garden the kilns where many of his pieces were made.


A technical note follows: one kiln is a small wood-fired biscuit kiln but the monster he used for his main firings is a fascinating wood-fired nobori-gamma – a seven chambered stepped kiln. To see all of this entailed taking off our shoes and putting on slippers to walk around the house (G found a pair that almost fitted), taking off the slippers to walk on the tatami mats, changing the slippers to outside slippers to go and see the stepped kiln and changing them again to toilet slippers to go for a pee (toilet slippers were pink for ladies and blue for gents). Never mind all that, just seeing all these beautiful things made what might have been a disappointing day into one that, like so many we have experienced, was special and unforgettable.
Just down the road was a shop selling ceramics new and old – much of it sublime, most of it, again outside of our price bracket and/or so heavy (many of the pieces being in sets of five) that we would exceed our luggage allowance. However we did discover in the ‘antique’ section two Japanese tea cups that we loved and we could afford (they no longer had their original wooden boxes) and (you know what’s coming) we purchased. These like the teapots we bought in Hong Kong are carefully wrapped for travelling but when we return home will be unwrapped and photographed. These pictures will then appear on the blog just in case anyone is interested.

We walked back through the Gion District which was the largest pleasure district in ancient times. Now, despite the looming modern buildings and congested traffic it still has an historic beauty as well as some modern ones in the form of Geisha who, given a couple of roof tiles, would have been walking museums of traditional craft – they pass wearing kimono, obo, flower hairpins, wooden shoes and traditional make up.
For dinner we made some rules – no noodles, no tofu, no wasabi, no Japanese pickled vegetables, no taking off shoes to enter, no kneeling on the floor to eat and no we didn’t end up at McDonalds we went to the Kerala Indian Restaurant and very good it was too; although we did find it strange to see Japanese people eating their curries with chopsticks and that the Kingfisher beer was made under license in the UK by Shepherd Neame. We began to appreciate why all those Japanese were queuing up outside Crispy Creme Doughnuts the other day!

There is more to making a moss garden...

...than not raking the lawn

Gardens Of Arcane Delight*

5 April 2010
Today, we walked miles – we do of course mean kilometres but that somehow doesn’t sound as good. We started the morning at Konchi-in which has one of Kyoto’s most beautiful dry Crane and Tortoise gardens. It was incredibly peaceful with the sound of tricking water and birdsong.

We then walked alongside a gushing stream to Nanzen-ji, the headquarters of the Rinzani sect of Zen Buddhism. However as today was more about gardens we gave the huge temple only a passing glance and went to its Leaping Tiger garden.
A walk through a hanging bower of cherry blossoms bought us to the ‘Philosophers Path’ a canal side walk, again lined with cherry blossom. The 2km walk is so called because a respected philosopher Nishida Kitaro took his daily constitutional along the path which lies at the foot of the hills. A fairly long detour off the walk and up several flights of stone steps bought us to Honen-In, which according to our guidebook is “one of Kyoto’s hidden pleasures”. It is a lovely, secluded temple with carefully raked rock gardens and some beautiful painted screens within.

Back on the Philosophers Path, which by now was getting busy with the cherry blossom viewers – many of them ladies in kimonos we made our way towards Ginkaku-Ji which is a huge tourist attraction and so we joined the throng climbing the steep hill to the temple. The street was lined with food shops offering free tasters of their wares as well as numerous restaurants. Ignoring these we climbed on until we reached the entrance – a path between 6metre high camellia hedges which seemed to lead nowhere until suddenly at the end a sharp turn bought us into an impressive garden. This is another ‘stroll garden’ designed to give the stroller a new vista at each turn. One very strange feature of the dry garden is a meticulously raked cone of white sand known as ‘kogetsudai’ designed to reflect the moonlight as enhance the beauty of the garden at night. Indeed the whole place was originally designed to be a temple of the night with its main building covered in silver but the benefactor ran out of money before it was finished. The gardens are beautiful with paths climbing up into the wooded hills and back down past waterfalls and lanterns, always simple, in places quite austere but we saw no fewer than seven gardeners on their hands and knees keeping it plain and simple.
Back down the hillside and a bus ride to Kinkaku-Ji, second only to Mount Fuji as Japan’s most famous sight – a temple set beside a reflecting lake with its main hall covered in dazzling gold leaf. It is a stunning vision where Japanese tourists seem to go to have their photograph taken rather than to look at the place and its stunning setting. This belongs to the Shokokuji sect of Buddhism (Catholic, Anglican, Methodist etc suddenly becomes easy to understand).

The temple’s three storey pavilion is crowned with a golden phoenix – sort of apt considering that in 1950 a young monk consummated his obsession with the temple by burning it to the ground! In 1955 a full reconstruction was completed exactly following the original design. Like all of the temples the grounds are beautifully tended and maintained with the inevitable cherry blossom and moss gardens and like all temples the grounds are full of shops selling a variety of religious tat – usually gee-gaws and trinkets designed to bring “good luck” or “good health” etc. – if they can’t get money from the punters at these shops then strategically placed around the garden are small bowls at which people throw coins – land it directly in the (small) bowl and you will have good luck” or “good health” etc. –it’s a bit like throwing ping-pong balls into goldfish bowls at the fairground but at least if you get it in the bowl their you usually win a goldfish not an empty promise.
As the shadows lengthened we made our way to our final destination – Ryoan-Ji. You’ve probably seen the picture of the rock garden here – it’s one of the symbols of Kyoto and one of Japan’s better known sites. There is no doubt that it’s a mesmerising and attractive sight but the water gardens around the temple are also incredibly beautiful and frequently ignored it seems. The rock garden is an oblong of carefully raked sand with an austere collection of 15 carefully placed rocks enclosed by an earthen wall. It is stunning in its simplicity and harmony and, evidently, contains one of the great enigmas of Zen koans (like ‘the sound of one hand clapping’). At no point is it possible to see all 15 stones, there is always one or more hidden from view. A perfect end to our day of gardens.

Just before we came away on this journey we would get moments of stomach churning doubt about if we were doing the right thing. This morning we both had another of those stomach churning moments when we realised that a week today we shall be on our way home. All the more reason not to falter now – tomorrow is ‘art’ day.

Waterfalls*

4 April 2010
When we were planning this little jaunt of ours and read about Kyoto we saw that are two distinct areas to the town and thought it would be easier if we spent three nights in the west and three nights in the east. Now we are here we realise that cross-town transport is quite good (if somewhat slow because of the amount of traffic) but it’s too late as we had already booked another three nights at a different hotel in the east of town – and got a very good rate into the bargain. So here we are back at a Westin Hotel - if you have been paying attention you will know that they’re the ones with the heavenly beds, heavenly pillows, heavenly baths etc. – this one has the added advantage of heavenly heated toilet seat, heavenly sound effects of waterfalls when seated on aforementioned seat, heavenly bottom washer etc. etc. Before moving on though G had gone to buy himself a new camera – the one he had his eye on is £1669 in the UK and because it is manufactured in Japan it just HAD to be cheaper. Wrong! It is £600 more expensive. It was not purchased.
Over in the east of Kyoto is where there are even more temples and shrines but it also contains areas of attractive lanes and traditional houses set against the wooded slopes behind. In fact our room looks out onto the hills and the hotel has access (from the seventh floor) to a tranquil mountain path that ascends through the trees to the mountaintop. Evidently it is possible to see over 50 species of wild birds on the walk and complimentary binoculars are available – that’s one up on shower caps and sewing kits! We don’t think we’d recognise most of the bird life though although we did recognise the vultures, herons, egrets and cranes we saw today as well as some beautiful coal-tits (we think!).
Yesterday we said we thought it may be some sort of holiday because of the vast numbers of people around – today we have found out that it is a sort of holiday as it is (and this may not be a totally accurate translation) “the first weekend after the official announcement from the Japanese Meteorological Office that the cheery blossom is out” – really catchy name that. Today there were even more people out and about and there was an almost carnival atmosphere around town – we say almost because apart from a few young people and a lot of salary men after lots of beers, people are quite restrained – nonetheless it was evident from the oohs, aahs and big smiles there was real happiness at seeing the cherry blossom again. We love it.

A brief visit to the Heian-jingu shrine with its vast vermillion torii that crosses the main road revealed much more of the same but with two significant differences – in front of the temple is a huge gravel courtyard with ancient trees (in blossom) and two towers evidently housing the protective “Blue Dragon” and “White Tiger”, fortunately neither of them were at home so we wandered on to the next thing that made this complex different – the garden.

The garden is designed in the Heian style and is divided into four sections with a moss garden, another bloomimg cherry tree garden, a rock garden and a water garden – with stepping stones and G didn’t fall in once! It was quite charming. Halfway around we came upon the traditional tea-house which was offering (we thought) a drink of green tea and a traditional sweet that is eaten with the tea. Well we did get that plus a lot more we hadn’t bargained for! As we approached the tea house we were invited to remove our shoes, step inside, kneel upon the tatami matted floor, contemplate the ikebana flower arrangement and the calligraphy scroll, and partake in a full-blown tea ceremony with ladies in traditional kimono preparing the tea in the very rigorously laid down traditional manner. This was a hugely interesting experience and the etiquette and manners were superb; the utensils used also contributed to the mood of refined ritual.

The teabowls were of the Japanese “happy accident” style, the water container, the water heater (above a charcoal fire set in a hole in the floor), the lacquered tea caddy, bamboo ladle and whisk all had a simplicity that somehow added to the overall refinement. The matcha (powdered green tea) was whisked into a thick, frothy brew and presented to us in turn – in presenting the bowl our hostess turned each one clockwise and we drank it down in three slow sips. The tradition is then to admire the teabowl whilst eating the dainty sweetmeat called wagashi and made from bean paste which counteracts the tea’s bitter taste. By this time we were both beginning to wonder if we would be able to stand up let alone ever walk again – do Japanese people never suffer from arthritis? There was a great deal of bowing and we were invited to leave the teahouse, as tradition demands, by a different door so that we could get a new view of the garden. It was here that we came upon people doing what we thought we were going to do – sitting on chairs with a bowl of tea and a sweet! Why we had been chosen to participate, we do not know but we were so grateful that we had – perhaps that “Good Luck” charm that Gregg was foolish enough to buy at one of the temples does work – now where did we put those lottery numbers?
After more wanderings we realised that it was approaching 3o’clock and we hadn’t had lunch but we did know of this lovely little Zen Buddhist restaurant just around the corner (and past the heavenly waterfall, over the rickety-rackety bridge, through the dingly-dell and wibbley-wobbley steps). We arrived to see a wonderful sign outside (in English) which read: “ We have only tofu course serving with: Sesame Tofu; Grated Yam Soup; Tofu baked and coated with misun; Boiled Tofu; Vegetable Tempura; Rice and pickles – so we went in. We were invited to remove our shoes and place them into small lockers – G couldn’t even get one of his in a locker so they sat on the floor – just the same as we were going to have to do!

After the tea ceremony G’s knees would just not take kneeling for a whole meal so C asked if there was any way he would be able to have a small seat, without further ado the kimono-wearing waitress slid back a screen and bought out with a flourish and a bow what G called an “old-man chair”. No matter what he called it, it meant that he was able to partake of all six courses (plus more tea) in moderate comfort. C’s knees couldn’t take anymore either but at least her feet were small enough to be able to slide her legs and feet under the table.
A further perambulation bought us to Ten juan garden – a Zen garden created in the 17th century but based on 14th century landscaping. Like many others it is a stroll-garden that requires people to walk around it in a certain direction so that new vistas keep coming into view as do new sounds – that of the babbling stream was replaced by a the sound of a small waterfall which was replaced by that of a large waterfall until one walks away from the water into silence and birdsong, then back again, crossing bridges and stepping stones and being greeted by the watery jewels that are the koi carp. There are rock gardens with carefully raked gravel, moss gardens, bamboo groves and carefully manicured trees. A great small garden and the perfect end to the afternoon just as the shadows began lengthening and G’s legs began working again. As we walked back to the hotel, people were still milling about beneath the cherry blossom, many bringing their evening picnics – one road we walked along had no trees but that was not a problem, the local council had thoughtfully placed branches of artificial cherry blossom on the lampposts. And talking of thoughtfulness, the cherry blossoms have Braille notices for visually-impaired people who come to visit the cherry blossoms.

We went for a night time walk and at about 8 o’clock people were still picnicking by the side of the river, we walked through an incredibly atmospheric area of narrow lanes containing a mixture of old wooden houses and brightly lit clubs and restaurants. Very few restaurants in Japan have English menus and those that do frequently contain strange translations; one last night was offering “Beef Rectum” and “Five kinds of assorted grilled skewers hormone”! We decided to give it a miss and, after all that lunch, decided on some vegetable tempura. Upon entering the restaurant our knees quivered to see low tables and cushions and people kneeling in front of them but they kindly cleared a space at the bar for us and we ate sitting on real chairs. The place is run by six elderly ladies whose combined age must be twice that of the Rolling Stones who bustle around the customers like loving great-aunts. Great Aunt Calculator had got our bill wrong – in our favour as she had missed 800yen when adding it up – when we pointed this out Great Aunt Cashier just kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Thank You, Thank You, I’m Sorry”. As we departed all of our Great Aunts lined up and bowed to us. Just another unforgettable moment among so many.

Buddha Of Suburbia*

3 April 2010
Today we caught the train to Nara (and before anyone asks – no, it wasn’t a nara gauge railway). We think we’re getting quite good at using public transport in Japan despite the language difficulties and the exceptionally complicated maps there are of the railway system. On the way to Nara we saw several huge bamboo groves and understood how the bamboo shoots we saw in the market yesterday could be so big. The area is famous throughout Japan for its high quality tea and we saw a few plantations of carefully trimmed bushes growing under shading. There were also several fields of tiny rice plants up to their armpits in water and we also noticed that several of the smaller towns and villages have huge communal allotment sites where residents were cultivating their crops – perhaps we should start an allotment-twinning association?
Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784, lending its name to the Nara period. The original city, Heijō-kyō, was modelled after the capital of Tang Dynasty China, Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). According to the ancient Japanese book Nihon Shoki, the name "Nara" derived from the Japanese word narashita meaning "made flat". In 2010 Nara is celebrating its 1300th anniversary as the previous capital of Japan and seems to have adopted the figure of a young boy with antlers to market this event – quite a strange image, there are even soft toys made to look like him.

On the edge of the town there is a sprawling park, Nara-koen which merges with the mountains and forests that surround the town. The park is home to about 1000 deer, which in olden times were considered to be messengers of the gods and today enjoy the status of national treasures. The park is just jammed pack full of temples and shrines as well as thousands of Japanese tourists and pilgrims (and we thought they were all in London) – obviously it’s not Easter Bank Holiday in Japan it seems to be some sort of holiday (Cherry Blossom Festival?) and today’s sunshine bought people out in their hundreds. A charming man in the tourist office had kindly given us a walking route that took us through a forest of trees with gnarled roots, bamboo groves and gushing streams so we avoided most of the crowds on our way. We looked at so many temples and shrines we cannot begin to bore you with details of them all but the one that everyone comes to see is Todai-ji. The gate to the temple is vast and contains two huge 13th century wooden sculptures, which are truly magnificent but are behind wire-mesh so their impact is diminished. Todai-ji’s Hall of the Great Buddha is the largest wooden building in the world and the great Buddha within is one of the largest bronze figures in the world and was originally cast in 746 CE, it stands 16m high and consists of 437 tonnes of bronze and 130kg of gold. The entrance is covered in clouds of incense and towards the back of the Buddha statue in one of the huge wooden pillars supporting the roof there is a hole at the base. Popular belief maintains that those who can squeeze through the hole, which is exactly the same size as one of the great Buddha’s nostrils, are ensured of enlightenment. The queue to try and squeeze through wound around the temple which only left us wondering why quite so many people wanted to be a Buddha bogey. Another of the temples has thousands of lanterns (stone, bronze and gold) which on two days each year are lit – it probably takes them six months to get all the tea-lights from IKEA.


G, who takes a much greater interest in these things, is quite confused by the huge number of different Buddhist sects that exist in Japan – all of them hold the basic tenet of enlightenment but all of them seem to have made the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas into gods to which prayers and wishes are addressed and the whole belief system is confused by folk religion which includes good luck spells and fortune telling – all so far removed from the original teachings of Buddha. In Japan the hotels don’t have Gideon’s Bible like every other hotel in the world instead they have a copy of ‘The Teaching Of Buddha’. An example of different extremes of two of the Buddhist sects here in Japan: the Tendi sect believes that the route to enlightenment lies through chanting, esoteric ritual and extreme physical endurance. The most rigorous of these practices is the “thousand day ascetic pilgrimage” in which ‘marathon monks’ as they are known, are required to walk 40,000km through the mountains and streets of Kyoto in a thousand days. The thousand days are split into hundred-day periods over seven years (so that’s about equivalent to 142 marathons a year for 7 years!) During each period the monk has to go out every day in all weathers regardless of his physical condition. He must adhere to a strict vegetarian diet and, at one point during the seven years, go on a week-long fast with no food, water, or sleep. Not many make it – in the good old days they were expected to commit ritual suicide if they had to give up, nowadays they become football coaches. The other extreme is the Jodo Shinshu sect which asserts that merely chanting the nemutsu “Praise to Amida Buddha” can lead to salvation. Not surprisingly this sect is very popular – as Eddie said in AbFab “Darling, I am chanting as we speak”.
By late afternoon we were templed-out so we revived ourselves with green-tea ice cream (G) and cherry-blossom ice cream (C), cups of green tea and made our way to a couple of traditional gardens, which, after all those places up the hill, many with the hustle bustle of hundreds of people, were pure tranquillity. They are beautifully laid out with abundant greenery, water running throughout the garden into ponds with large ornamental carp, cherry trees in bloom as were the magnolia, camellia and plum, each had a traditional tea house or two as well as boulders placed in contemplative patterns in the midst of moss gardens.

In one of the moss gardens we were amused to see a gardener of advanced years on his hands and knees carefully picking out grass that was growing there – exactly the opposite of what happens on British lawns. All we wanted to know was how, at his age, he was still able to kneel down and garden. Next to one of the gardens was a small museum with a lovely display of ceramics, some from China and Korea.

Kyoto Song*

2 April 2010
We decided to have a day off visiting temples and museums (couldn’t visit the Kyoto National Museum anyway as it’s closed for refurbishment) and have a day just wandering around just looking at places and shops. We even got ourselves on board several of the Kyoto buses which, in keeping with the Kyoto Agreement, have engines which stop when the buses stop at traffic lights or are caught up in traffic in order to reduce fuel consumption and pollution. We soon discovered that not only is Kyoto the older more attractive sister she is far more serene and alluring. We also rapidly discovered that it’s not possible to walk very far without stumbling on a shrine or a temple – they are everywhere, in the middle of a shopping street we came across a torii (the gate to a Shinto shrine), on the corner of a road where we went to catch a bus we there was a Buddhist temple with beautiful cherry blossom and when looking at some machiya (‘eel houses’) we stumbled upon a small shrine in front of a cemetery (as you know by now one of G’s favourite places to visit.


The machiya developed because during the Edo perid, merchants in Kyoto built up significant wealth but were discouraged from flaunting it. They were taxed on the width of the frontage of their houses so they responded by developing houses with a tiny facade fronting a long narrow interior extending far back from the street. Like many large houses of ancient periods these have now been converted into apartments, hotels, and restaurants.
We visited a number of shops selling ceramics (why is that no surprise?), as well as traditional Japanese paper and woodblock print shops. We also wandered through the huge food market selling numerous unidentifiable comestibles. Kyoto is famous throughout Japan for its pickled vegetables and there were numerous stalls selling a vast variety of these, in our opinion, quite bland and uninteresting things in a vast array of colours – we seem to be given them at every meal whether we ask for them or not. Some of the stalls had the vegetables in the process of being pickled and they seemed to be half buried in a mixture of brown salt – quite unappetising. There were also several stalls selling a wide variety of tofu, tofu ‘skin’ sold in large sheets is a speciality of Kyoto – it is lifted from steaming vats like pieces of paper. And of course the inevitable array of fish including one stall that seemed to specialise in small octopus on sticks – a bit like fish lollies.

French food is very popular and it is difficult not to find a boulangerie – usually selling very good bread, in fact we went to one for lunch which has a small café attached and had some much-needed hot soup (the rain has gone but it is now very cold again), there are also several patisseries and charcuteries. Indeed anything French seems to be very popular – we even came across a French florist selling huge branches of cherry blossom and the most delightful petite bouquets but to top it all Tokyo has built its own Eiffel Tower!














One shop that we sought out was Ippo-Do a wonderful tea shop with a reputation for selling the best tea in Japan. The shop has a small tea house attached where it is possible to have a bowl of tea accompanied by a sweet (just one small but beautifully crafted sweet). By no stretch of the imagination did we partake in a tea ceremony but the ritual involved in making a cup of tea was amazing.

First, pour boiling water into small tea bowl, wait one minute; secondly, pour half of water from first teabowl into second teabowl, wait one minute; thirdly pour water from teabowl one into teabowl three and water from teabowl two into teabowl four, wait one minute; fourthly pour the water from teabowls three and four into the teapot, wait one minute fifteen seconds; finally pour tea; slowly savour perfume of tea and drink tea if, by this time, you are still alive and haven’t died of thirst. Subsequent brews do not take quite as long as the last one minute fifteen seconds is not needed – they are only required the first time in order to swell the leaves. Drinking tea in Japan is about far more than quenching a thirst it is about quiet contemplation, resting from the hustle and bustle outside and enjoying a ritual that has nothing to do with religion or superstition, only to get the water to the correct temperature so as not to scald the delicate leaves, and being rewarded with the warm aroma of green tea that has not been oxidised and a few sips of some of the weirdest tasting liquid in the world! Inevitably we bought a few grams of the precious leaves to take home.
Everywhere one walks in Kyoto the pedestrian crossings make sounds like bird-song when it is safe to cross – actually it is a very electronic sound but better than the panicky beep-beep-beep we have in the UK. However there is one incessant noise that drives us crazy and that is when one is in, or even anywhere near, Kyoto station, there is a constant Bing-Bong noise – the sort that is made at airports prior to an announcement being made but here no announcement follows just another Bing-Bong, followed by another and another. As usual the streets are spotlessly clean, the only litter we saw was McDonald’s wrappers - probably dropped a tourist or an apprentice Sumo wrestler (yes we’ve seen some as well as some trainee Geisha).
Disaster continues to follow us, yesterday there were winds of 118kmh in Tokyo which meant that many aeroplanes were unable to land and the bullet trains had to stop running (something that normally only happens following an earthquake) other trains were cancelled causing inconvenience to 1.08million people – told you the trains were packed.

Big In Japan*

1 April 2010
We are, of course referring to Gregg who when travelling on the crowded metro in Tokyo stands head and shoulders above most of the Japanese people but there are other times when it becomes either painful and/or embarrassing. Like the day we were walking out of one metro station and everyone easily walked beneath a beam – except for G; even on the Shinkansen bullet trains he has to duck to get through the doors; in hotels guests are provided with slippers – he can’t even get them on to his feet, guests are also provided with beautiful soft cotton coats to wear in their rooms – the sleeves on the ones G wears end just above his elbows and as for the bottom hem – nothing is left to the imagination and no photographs will be appearing on the blog. The latest ignominy came today when we visited a temple in Kyoto (where we now are – more of this later) and visitors, as usual, are asked to remove their shoes, so as not to damage the beautiful tatami mats and lacquered floors, and are given a plastic bag in which to place their shoes, G needed two bags one for each of his – good thing he was wearing sandals and not his walking boots!
Another thing that is big in Japan is jazz; it is played almost everywhere, restaurants, bars, hotel foyers and lifts – the other day in a department store we went up to the ninth floor accompanied by Django Reinhardt and came down with Keith Jarrett and this evening in the lift we think it was Tomasz Stańko. Of course we only get tantalising snippets which can be quite frustrating, especially when G then hums the same four or five bars over and over again trying (usually without success) to identify the piece.










We travelled to Kyoto today aboard the Shinkansen bullet train, it is still exciting to be travelling so fast and so quietly but because the tracks are frequently in cuttings or tunnels the view is not as good as we had expected. However today we did get some glimpses of dramatic coastline and mountains but these were soon swallowed up my mist and rain so we saw not even a vague outline of Mount Fuji.
Kyoto and Tokyo are like two sisters, similar and yet different. Tokyo is the younger, louder and flashier of the two and she’s the one people tend to notice first but soon become enchanted by her quiet, reserved and graceful older sister, Kyoto. Tokyo is a tall glitzy metropolis while Kyoto is a lowrise deceptively modest looking city just large enough to fill the valley floor. Kyoto is the old capital city and when the Imperial court moved to Japan much of the stately buildings, merchants’ homes, innumerable temples and shrines became frozen in time. The city has tried to fit modern architecture into its orbit – not always successfully – the Kyoto Tower may have looked groovy when it first went up in 1964 but the 131metre structure, much like the word ‘groovy’, has not aged well. On the other hand Kyoto Railway Station is a very successful piece of building. At 15 storeys with somewhere approaching 20 different exits it is the largest railway station in Japan (and believe us they are BIG), it is tall but not tall enough to intrude on Kyoto’s natural cityscape. It is cavernous and yet somehow manages to house a theatre, an enormous 11-storey department store, a huge number of restaurants and cafés and the Hotel Granvia Kyoto which is where we are staying. It was in one of the cafés where we had lunch – feeling we just couldn’t face another piece of tofu, another bowlful of noodles or another grain of rice we went to a sandwich shop and had an avocado salad roll but just in case we lost the taste for Japanese food we had a ‘pudding’ of sweet red bean paste wrapped in mugwort flour dough.
The afternoon was wet and grey but we managed a shortish walk to two Buddhist temples – different sects just a few roads apart from each other and they have been having doctrinal squabbles for the last few hundred years which, evidently, still continue, The surrounding streets have more religious tat shops than even Rome and Padua put together but because it is very alien to our western eyes it seems interesting but it is all the usual superstitious stuff and nonsense of good luck charms and warding off evil – even so the incense smells heavenly (perhaps we could sell some to the Westin in Sydney).










For dinner we were back on the noodle, tofu and vegetable diet (plus sake, of course) but it still goes against our upbringing to eat noodles in the way Japanese people do – slurp, chomp, slurp, slurp chomp; we both hear a distant voice of our mothers telling us to eat our food quietly and not make a mess!