Evidence

I really did go to Kyoto. Here's the proof.

Kyoto Station. Bloody massive.

Shinkansen. Not ours of course, ours was much better

A temple. I think this was the entrance to the Inari shrine.

This was the real meat of Inari, the thousands of tori gates. Marvo

More later.

Trip

Kyoto then. I’d been once before but was so tired after the completely pointless Kobe recontracting conference that I’d just attended that I didn’t really get to see much of it. This time however Hannah and me had 4 days to explore. As Hannah had also been before and had in fact managed to make it out of her hostel without keeling over we had a pretty good idea of where to go and what to do.

Obviously there was a lot of temple hopping, Kyoto having something of a temple surplus. There was the famous Golden Pavilion (a wee bit tacky if you ask me) and the less well-known and inaccurately named Silver Pavilion (much nicer and probably my favourite). There was the precariously balanced Kiyomizu shrine replete with the rudest people in all of Japan. Inari shrine also resides with the city, along with its thousands and thousands of corporate sponsored Tori gates.

Just outside the city proper is Nara, which was apparently the first capital of Japan. Most of Nara seemed to consist of a park full of deer and tourists that also contained the world’s largest wooden building which itself houses the world’s largest upright Buddha. That’s a lot of the world’s largest stuff. The building was big, the Buddha was fucking huge. For a Buddha.

Then there was the city itself. Kyoto is a long, long (looooooooooooooooong) way from Kumamoto and I’m not just talking about miles and kilometres. If Kumamoto is to be considered the Slough or Wigan of Japan then Kyoto is surely its Manchester or Leeds. I’d say York but that quiet, historic town has nothing on Kyoto’s vibrant people and outstanding nightlife. It’s an amazing place. For what was possibly the first time in almost a year, I felt like I was somewhere that was fun, somewhere that mattered. It felt familiar. I was constantly reminded of my time in Leeds, up to now possibly the most content I’ve ever been (well, the first two years anyway). We weren’t being stared at or commented on (well, actually we were but nowhere near as much as in Kumamoto). I didn’t feel like an alien. People didn’t feel the need to comment on my clothes as I walked down the street, nor stop and giggle at the sight of someone who wasn’t from Japan. It was like having a weight lifted from my shoulders.

I realised that all my opinions of Japan, of its people, its rules, the way things are run, are not in fact indicative of Japan as a whole. In fact, my views and opinions are probably completely erroneous. Kyoto proved to me that Japan is more than the farmers and convenience store workers of Kagami, more than the salarymen of Kumamoto city, more than the teenagers on the tram taking sly pictures of the gaijin with their phones. Although we still got a few comments and the odd glance, the whole experience made Kumamoto look like a racist Nazi state in my mind. Needless to say I dreaded going home.

But home I am, if you can call it that. My recent exploratory venture into interior design has made my apartment feel a bit more homely, especially thanks to Hannah’s birthday present, but the town of Kagami itself is, I think, about as far away from being a homely place as anywhere I’ve ever been. I’ve taken to calling it a ‘place’ rather than a ‘town’ because, well…that’s what it is. It’s a place for farmers to live when they come home from the fields. The only reason there are two high schools here is because it’s situated exactly between Yatsushiro and Kumamoto and even then no one wants their kids to go to school here.

Still, I had a great time in Kyoto. It was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. Next stop, Tokyo.