10th April 1984 - Wandering Kyoto

Tuesday 10^th April Had breakfast at 8.30 – cornflakes, pancakes and orange juice, ¥1050.

  Then I walked with Paul and Heather to Ginkakuji Shrine, which is on the side of a hill with the edge of a forest behind it. There’s a lot of moss on the slopes; piles of sand represent famous lakes in China and are designed to reflect moonlight onto the buildings. There is the usual pond. The street leading up to the high-hedged entrance is lined with souvenir shops and the area has a peculiar European Alpine village air to it.

We walked another few kilometers in the direction of Heian Shrine, stopping to buy a bag of mandarins, which were nice and seedless.

 Many of the streets in Kyoto are narrow and there are fewer tall buildings than you’d expect, but more bicycles and motorcycles. The little shops in the streets are that – not much room to move about in and the doorways force one to stoop.

 We finally made it to the Heian Shrine to take pictures of the torii from the other side and then went to the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Traditional Industry, which was very interesting, with an exhibition of a traditional house and demonstrations of traditional industries, though I don’t think tie weaving is all that traditional in Japan.

 Then we caught a bus to the station – enter at the rear, pay ¥140 as you go off.

 From the Tower we decided to walk to Nijo Castle but stop to have lunch on the way. To be specific, at Kirowashi [probably Kurowashi, really], another coffee place. I had Dried Pilaf (fried rice, egg, cocktail frankfurter and vegetables) and a Soda Float (lime), all for ¥950.

 Then we made our way once again to Nijo Castle, going over overhead pedestrian walkways, going into a roofed, or indeed, as some say, roved, street market (an ordinary street covered with a skylight roof – lots of people and bicycles and a few cars); then up one of the many narrow low-housed streets of Kyoto to come finally to the Castle moat. Outside the entrance were a whole lot of buses for a whole lot of school kids. Some like to stick their heads out the window and say ‘hello, hello’, but only if the window is open.

 We paid the entrance fee (¥500, I think) and went inside. The Castle is surrounded by a moat and a wall made of massive granite blocks. Inside the outer walls are two palaces. One is surrounded by a normal Japanese wall and the other, the Honmaru Palace, is surrounded by another moat and huge-blocked wall. In one corner is the site of the castle tower which I imagine was much taller that it is now, but it still has an impressive view of what you can see from the site of the castle tower.

Nijo Castle, with Honmaru in the centre, and Ninomaru at the bottom.

 Within both palaces’ walls are landscaped gardens. The castle is a place where you should spend quite a while, especially inside the Eastern palace which, as far as I can see, is nameless (on my map of it) [Ninomaru Palace]. It is open to visitors but you have to take your shoes off to get the full effect of the Nightingale bolts (oh, yes, remind them of the cuckoo pedestrian light). When you are walking along the passageways towards the Shogun’s room, the floor boards squeak like the singing of nightingales, so that the Shogun and his bodyguards would know if anyone was approaching because of the nightingale-like singing of the boards.

 The rooms of the palace, like in other Japanese houses, are on raised platforms above the passageways (some which ‘sing’ like nightingales. See above.) In fact, they are quite large, with big paintings and sliding screens. A lot of gold paint/leaf. Some of the paintings are attributed to Tanyu Kano (1602-1674) and his school. The floors of the room are bematted [tatami] and there is hardley (an interesting spelling of the word) any furniture except maybe a few cushions. There are mannequins of a shogun, his generals, ladies in waiting and a pageboy. There was a sign saying that the were bodyguards behind a betassled sliding screen but I don’t know if there were mannequins for them or not.

 Being in a slight hurry, we caught a bus from Marutamachi-dori St to the Kitano Shrine, which place we had heard there were lots of early sakura bloom. There wasn’t really but inside the entrance were a lot of red and white striped side-stall type tents that weren’t very busy. [Set up for cherry-blossom viewing parties, presumably.] Inside the temple itself there were signs of a tea ceremony taking place, and a lady playing a sweet tune on of those stringed instruments [koto]. This place was a bit disappointing and smaller than we had expected.

We then went to Kinkaku-ji Temple, on which Ginkaku-ji was copied.

 It is right luvly, but unfortunately because of the time of day and all the trees, the light wasn’t very good for taking photographs. I bought a booklet and some postcards there.

 Decided it was high time we got back to the hotel. We caught a bus. Kathryn and Ian were already on it. Back at the hotel I wrote more of this blasted contraption, then went downstairs for dinner. I stopped to chat with the Milehams, then along came Arthur (there were also some New Zealanders at one time but I can’t remember who). But I was getting hungrier and hungrier so I went down to Roly, the pancake shop. Elly, Jane and Dee were there after having gone to Hiroshima for the day, and were just finishing their meal. It must have been interesting. Hiroshima, I mean. Well, they said it was. I had a Stroubrry pancake which cost ¥500, I think.

 Upstairs to pack for the morrow – the suitcase had to be in the lobby to be taken to Tokyo. Watched some of the Grammy awards on TV.

  Ah, yes, the Pedestrian lights at some major intersections don’t go ‘beep, beep, beep… wheeee … bip-bip-bip-bip’ like what they do in Northbourne Avenue. They either sound like a cuckoo or some other bird happily chirruping away. It was hard to figure out what the noise came from at first – I was looking around for a digital clock saying it was 10 o’clock.

  Paid the Bill, the Frank and also the Cyril. ¥14, 830

9th April 1984 Kyoto

Monday 9^th  April.  I got up fairly late, did some washing, and caught the ten o’clock shuttle bus from the hotel. Paul, Heather, Dee, Elly, Jane and I got off at the Kyoto Hotel stop. We walked over to the Old Imperial Palace. The buildings of this complex were built in 1855 after the fashion of the original ones (built in 794) had burnt down.

The grounds were huge, with wide gravel walks, trees and two main complexes of buildings – one of which was open (free admittance today). There is a set route you have to follow, otherwise you’re jumping over ropes, mucking up the raked gravel and getting arrested.

 The buildings were of the typical Japanese style, but also on show were some paintings and flower/tree arrangements. I was picked up by two girls who wished to practise their English. They asked me if I was a ‘courageous student.’ No, I’m not a college student any more. They told me which was a ume tree (plum), and a sakura (cherry). It was quite fun talking with them.

  After the Old Imperial Palace, we went down a couple of blocks to Nijo Castle, which is closed on Mondays. Before getting to the site, we stopped off at a preschool to take pictures of some kid playing. They seem to have much more character than the Chinese children, much more appealing.

 Seeing that the castle was closed, we walked a few kilometers to the Heian Shrine, stopping off to have a businessman’s lunch at a coffee shop – Japanese food for the first time, ¥680.The menu was written in Japanese but someone had added the English translation – ‘cofue ôre’ for Spanish coffee (café au lait), ‘coca cora’, ‘stroubrry’ and ‘cora froht’ (cola fruit?) [cola float].

  The Heian Shrine is considered the most fabulous and beautiful shrine in Kyoto, even though it was built in 1895 to commemorate the 1100^th anniversary of the transfer of the capital to Kyoto. There is a huge red torii (gate) a block away from the entrance which is actually part of the shrine. There is a large quadrangle inside the entrance and a typical Japanese garden at the back and sides with its pathways and lakes with a covered bridge. Very serene and peaceful, large fish in the water (where else?). (We sneaked into the garden without paying, tee hee.)

  The exhibition buildings near the shrine were also shut so we went back to the bottom of the Imperial Palace and caught the subway to Marutamachi- Dori St. The subway is very clean, the train very quiet and the seats are finely upholstered (so too are the public buses, but the trains have more standing room). We got out at Kyoto Station, went to the Tourist Bureau and then up Kyoto Tower (¥530 with a discount). The view is impressive and lots of photographs were taken. I had an orange drink up there. Paul and Heather left to get back to the hotel, and the remaining three, Jane, Elly and Dee, had a look at mechanical robots [Cybot Hall, or something like that] in the amusement corner and went back down to the ground.

  Kyoto is the third highest tower in Japan after Tokyo’s and Nagoya TV Tower. It is 131 metres high from ground level, but there are nine floors underneath (ground floor being the first). It has two observation platforms, and usually costs ¥700 to go up.

  We went then to Kyoto Station because we wanted to get to the other side of it. But we had a while to wait for the next shuttle bus so we had a look around the shops above the station concourse. Then it was time to catch the shuttle – to the pedestrian subway, under the tracks and out again. The shuttle was very crowded but nevertheless we got back to the hotel and had dinner dare I say at the McDonald’s at the hotel. Nothing like the compartmented box (bento) we had our businessman’s lunch in – the Japanese chopsticks are smaller and easier to use than their Chinese counterparts.

I then went upstairs to write some of this blasted thing, which brings us to… [10th April]

8th April 1984: Taiwan, Japan and Falling in Love

Sunday 8^th  April  Had breakfast of hotcakes and ham with guava juice. Then met Jane to go shopping for boots, which we both wanted. But the shop we were directed to wasn’t open, wasn’t going to open and wasn’t suitable, so we wandered off to the park of the Museum of Taiwan.

There were many people there and it wasn’t raining. A lot of the people were small children – aged five or six – with drawing board, paper and writing implements. They were sitting all over the place. Most of them were doing drawings of the museum building and these were absolutely brilliant – incredible accuracy for children so young, and they hardly looked up. I’m sure kids of the same age in Western countries could not draw so well. It might have something to do with having to write Chinese characters. Some had started colouring in with water colour or texta.

 Also in the park were fête-type stalls – a sloped tube from which a water-filled balloon rolled out and was smashed by a stick was at one. Chinese men doing their slow exercises. An outdoor amphitheatre – but the event hadn’t started so I don’t know what went on.

  I bought a bag of small tomatoes for $25 – good to get rid of the coins.

Should have added this yesterday: cover of the ticket to Hualien. Cute, isn't it?

  We went up the street, Jane and I, towards the railway line. [Looking at the good ol’ Google Earth, there are no above ground railways in that part of Taipei – they’ve all gone underground, it seems.] The first shoe shop we went in, in a row of shops on the side of the line, bore some boots that fitted Jane fine. She bought them. We went back to the hotel, picked up Dee and went back to the railway line. Into a department store – Dee bought some things. Next door was the start of a series of six or seven shoe shops – all in a row – which yielded nothing for me.

  We crossed the street by way of an overpass that crossed the railway line.  On t’other side are lots of shops. We looked in one, and then another and another. Every few shops there are speakers which play songs (loudly). It’s like twiddling the dial on the radio as you walk along the path – all different songs, you see.

  The footpaths are crowded because that’s where they park their motorbikes/cycles. We went into many shoe shops and eventually I bought a pair of boots for $800, though the quoted price was $880. I think they need a lot of wearing in. (Jane’s were only $450.)

  We made a wanderbout return trip to the hotel. I bought a passionfruit drink on the way.

China Hotel receipt, including transgers gee

 The bus from the hotel left for the airport at 1.00. We duly arrived, checked in. Customs weren’t so bad except that I had to have my films x-rayed. We waited awhile for the plane then flew to Osaka. A bumpy landing there – not one of Captain Charn’s best.

  Customs at Osaka Airport took a while. We dragged our stuff to the bus stop but one bus would not fit us all in, so I stayed with six or seven others to wait for the next. The ticket machines accept notes and gave the change accordingly, ¥650 to Kyoto.

  On the way to Kyoto, I talked with a Japanese business man who had just been south to sell leather golf clubs (it took a while to work that one out). He taught me ‘conichiwa’ hello [konnichiwa], ‘adigatô’ thank you [arigatô], ‘kagi o kudasai’ give me my key. Everyone knows ‘sayonara’

  We finally arrived at Kyoto Station to meet the Holiday Inn Bus. All our baggage and two porters – no, one porter. We lost the other one. He remembered, after we had arrived at the first traffic lights, that he had left his clipboard at the pick-up place. He got out, raced back to retrieve it. Meanwhile, the lights changed, the driver did a U-y and we saw the porter, in a streak of yellow, race back towards the bus, which wasn’t there anymore because it was going back to pick him up. The driver did another U-y and we never saw the poor porter again (well, he got back to the hotel some other way).

 Kyoto was fine but chilly that night, but Room 706 was warm. The bathroom is like stepping into a caravan [a unit bathroom]. It’s a nice hotel, with its own shopping centre, McDonalds, ice skating rink, tennis courts, pool, etc etc. [This hotel doesn't exist anymore, it seems.]

 Having been here only a matter of hours, I like Japan.