Japan on one leg

8 – 13 April Kyoto

A couple of Shinkansen rides and we are whisked from Karuizawa to Kyoto via Tokyo by about 1:00, which gives us time to drop our bags off at our hotel and go for a bit of a wander. Our hotel is in the Higashiyama district, which is an old district with heaps of picturesque shopping strips winding up and down hills and countless temples. I heard somewhere that there are about 1,000 temples in Kyoto, and given that they are virtually on every street corner, it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think I need to see 1,000 temples, but I think Beth is keen to give it a crack. Beth wanders with some purpose and I follow. She probably knows the names of all the streets we swam through a tidal wave of tourists to traverse, all the temples we wandered past, and all the parks and gardens we wandered through. I wouldn’t have a clue. I do know that we started off at a nearby temple, then wandered up past the Women’s University, up (yes UP) past a few more temples, wandered up and down the Higashiyama shopping streets, through the Maruyama parklands, past several more temples, sat and watched the sunset, back down the hill to the Gyon district for a very nice tempura meal, and then home to rest. About 15 Km, so a rest was well deserved.

As often seems to happen with us, a frenzied approach to discovery immediately upon arrival in a city is then followed by some calamity which slows us down and in a perverse sort of way justifies the initial assault. My calamity came the next morning. I would prefer to report that I suffered an injury whilst climbing rocks or going for a run, but the truth is that I slipped when I got out of the shower and my left foot slid forward and my right foot stayed where it was, which meant my whole body weight came crashing down heavily on my buckled right knee, to the extent that my right heel was resting against my right hip. Probably a poor choice of words. Resting suggests some level of comfort, but comfort was not something I was feeling at that moment. Somehow I managed to straighten my leg and after a little while to crawl across the floor and back into bed. In the meantime Beth went off in search of help. To cut a long story short, I managed to hobble down the road to a doctor, who decided I needed to see an orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital, so I was rather painfully bundled into a cab and taken to the hospital where I spent the next 4 hours. No broken bones, and my knee apparently remained intact, but by this stage was twice the size of my left knee, and the muscles above my right knee were just not working. My holiday wasn’t over, but my activity levels were certainly going to be curtailed. My immediate concerns were for an upcoming cycling trip and a hike on the Kumano Kodo walking trail. The knee doctor wasn’t exactly reassuring about my chances of making either of those appointments.

Over the next few days we became well acquainted with the Kyoto public transport system, which replaced footsteps as our principal conveyance and between buses trains and some intermediate hobbling with the aid of a hiking pole, we still managed to get out and about and explore Kyoto. We visited the Silver Temple, the Golden Temple and the wooden temple. I suspect that there is an iron, nickel, zinc, copper and probably pumpkin temple out there as well, but we did not go in search of these. We also walked the philosophers path, so named because of a Kyoto University philosophy professor who walked this beautiful Sakura lined canal path as a daily meditation, and because the cherry blossom is flowering at its absolute peak, we spend a lot of time in gardens. And of course we still managed to roam the wonderful narrow streets of the old town districts.

Ours friends S&C have again graciously decided to share our holiday and join us midway through our stay in Kyoto and they will travel with us for most of our remaining time in Japan. This means a move from our little hotel room with the slippery bathroom floor, to a larger place a little further down the metro train line. Steep stairs in the new place add an element to my rehabilitation. I had planned to regain 90% of my mobility within two days, but disturbingly, that was not happening. People were standing up and offering me seats on buses. My polite refusal may have been seen as stoicism, but the truth of the matter is that sitting down involved bending my leg, which was still quite a painful experience, so standing was a much better option. My slow recovery was starting to make me think that my upcoming bike ride might be in jeopardy.

S&C’s arrival meant that we retraced some of our steps in Kyoto, but that was no hardship at all, we got to spend more time in some stunningly beautiful places, and we could pretend that we were locals showing a couple of tourists around. But we also did some new things. We caught what was dubbed a romantic journey on an old train out to Kameoka, then took a boat through the rapids of the Oigawa river back to Kyoto. It was a lovely little adventure with some wonderful atmosphere and gorgeous scenery and some great entertainment from the boats oarsmen. Not really romantic, and no white knuckles on the boat trip, but a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

While in Kyoto it is evidently important that we engage in some cultural activities as well as chasing 1,000 temples, photographing flowers, taking meditative walks and riding romantic trains. So we decide to go to the theatre, but not just any theatre, a Geisha performance called the Miyako Odori, which is a double whammy cultural experience, because our tickets include pre theatre drinks in the form of a traditional tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was a bit underwhelming (although we did get to take away the little hand made pottery dish our sweet treat was served on), but the Geisha performance was splendid. Magnificent costumes, graceful dancing, sweet singing and skilful shimasen playing made for a memorable evening.

A few more temples and much more aimless hobbling followed by a lovely kaiseki meal in a private room, where we were the only diners in the restaurant (not sure if that is a good thing or not) capped of an eventful, but lovely stay in Kyoto. So another train ride, this time a short journey on the local railway we have come to know so well, to a long 6 night stay in Osaka.

13 – 19 April Osaka

Every reasonable sized Japanese city has a castle, a relic of the feudal system of government which ended in the late 19th century, and Osaka is no exception, and of course if you are visiting a Japanese city with a castle it is mandatory to call in and have a look. The word castle will generally conjure up images for western readers of turrets, walls, moats and drawbridges. Japanese castles contain most of these elements, but they really don’t look much like the traditional European castle. By and large Japanese castles are not really that old, mainly because each one of them has been razed and rebuilt several times over the course of their existence, generally due to fire resulting from attacks or lightning, from earthquakes or from decay or destruction following abolition of the feudal system. Japanese castles are almost always incomplete, with only the most fortified elements of the castle keep, castle gates and moats, and sometimes castle walls and baileys surviving. Which means that to some extent, if you have seen one, you have seen them all. But they all have different and generally beautiful gardens and they are always on top of a hill overlooking the city, so they have different outlooks, which does compel one to visit.

Castles I can live without, but another aspect of Osaka culture which for me is unmissable is the food. A speciality of Osaka is okonomiyaki, a cabbage based pancake type of concoction cooked on a teppan grill. I have tried okonomiyaki in Australia, and I have to say that despite sounding delicious, they have tended to disappoint, so I have been looking forward to tasting the real thing. Our first sampling was in a little restaurant which made only okonomiyaki and had a long queue out the door, which I am led to believe means that it must be good, the Michelin guide sticker on the door further evidenced its credentials, so we joined the queue, placed our order while waiting, and waited 30 minutes to be ushered to our little table upstairs (ouch) with the grill in the middle upon which the okonomiyakist worked his magic. It was very nice, and certainly better than any I had eaten before. All up, I think we had four okonomiyakis during out Osaka stay, and all were quite different to each other but extremely yummy. I could go on eating them forever. Not so Beth, who thinks she is probably over them for the time being.

Osaka was a base for a few day trips by train. First up was Himeji – about an hour away - to see its magnificent castle. All was going well until I decided that to cross the road to catch the castle bus, I would break into a run. Unfortunately my knee decided otherwise, and instead decided to go south when it should have gone north. I swayed and staggered and cursed, but somehow managed to keep my feet and hobble over to the bus stop to sit and take a few deep breaths. Lesson learnt, my rehabilitation has not yet progressed to the running stage. I recovered sufficiently to not be too much of an encumbrance as we explored what Himeji had to offer, which was quite a lot. The castle absolutely dominates the Himeji landscape. It is far and away both the largest, most complete, most authentic, and to my mind, most beautiful castle we have visited. Not surprising then, that it is the most visited castle in all Japan and was one of the first sites in Japan afforded UNESCO world heritage listing back in the sixties. It really was quite magnificent, which worked as a sort of anaesthetic for my leg.

Nara – also about an hour away – was next on our agenda. Whilst Himeji was all about castles, Nara was all about temples, although for some tourists, the main drawcard was the large number of deer roaming freely through the city demanding treats from tourists. The deer have a quaint habit of bowing their heads in response to the bowing of a potential benefactor, which is quite endearing (pardon the pun), but by and large the whole deer thing, to me, was gross mistreatment of wildlife.and a bit of an unpleasant distraction from our main game. Nara had its moment in the sun for about 50 years, way back in the early 8th century when it was the seat of the emperor and capital of all Japan. That moment is well past and there were no obvious grand remnants of its political importance, but the temple complexes and shrines which were both precursors for and outcomes of Nara’s heyday are still there in all their glory. Their scale and the intricacy of their adornment were astounding. The magnificent temples, the giant Buddha and the scale of everything was quite awesome, but the thing which most captured my imagination were the eight 1300 year old sculpted, human scale, Buddhist deities housed in the National Treasure Hall. These figures have survived the centuries because their lacquer construction makes them incredibly light, so when fires broke out or earthquakes threatened, they could be quickly and easily moved to a safer place. It struck me as a beautiful irony that their delicacy and fragility was the reason they endured beyond much sturdier objects.

Our final day trip was to Kobe about 30 minutes away. I can’t tell you a lot about Kobe because I stayed at home to rest my knee in the hope that it would be magically better for our upcoming bike ride. I believe that Kobe was quite nice, but that I picked the right outing to miss out on.

As with Kyoto, we could not leave Osaka without taking in a little bit of culture in the form of a theatrical production. Our choice this time was the Banraku Puppet Theatre. Sounds a bit childish, but it was anything but. The production actually runs for about 8 hours over 3 sessions (we chose to watch only one session)and follows a quite intricate storyline. It was a little bit like the opera, only with puppets. Each puppet requires 3 people to operate, two dressed in black – presumably to make them less visible to the audience – and one dressed in finery and in full vision of the audience as he manipulates the puppet. There was also a little group of musicians beside the stage and a narrator, who sung the story with great emotion as the puppets performed. Very Japanese. We really enjoyed the quirkiness of the whole thing and the general spectacle. Being unable to follow the story line didn’t matter a whole lot.

Despite my little inconvenience, we had a delightful time in Kyoto and Osaka and we are very happy to have S&C with us for a little while to share our travels. Now we head over to Miyajima Island in Hiroshima Bay.