Five Go Wild in Kyoto

Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 8:01pm

Two days after arriving in Osaka and I’m writing this on the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo, reflecting on the last two days in Japan. I managed to bag myself a bulkhead seat in the unreserved seating section of the train. The view from the window has not been one I’ve been used to seeing in Japan - a wall of mountain stretches across one side of the horizon, with flat green fields and telegraph poles in the foreground.

This is more like it; enough of that faceless neon nonsense. I retrieve the sandwich I’d just purchased at the station (I wasn’t going to take up the offer of a tray of Sushi - no way, Kemo sabe). The ham, potato and ‘mysterious dressing’ of the crust-less sandwich is yumtasmic, but I expect nothing less from a product as shamelessly tagged as “Delicious Sandwich.” Oh, and there’s more. The sub-text reads the following:“We send you the lovely flavour of the wind in the meadows. A surprising deliciousness which you’ll never forget.” You know what? I don’t think I will.

I look up from my laptop and out of the window to the left. The mountains are now on the other side. Mind you, I’m not surprised; with the lack of sleep, hangover, jetlag, sugar and caffeine crash added to my general feeling of utter bewilderment, we could well be floating through space and I wouldn’t be fazed. I foolishly opted for the ‘no reservation required area’ having mistakenly thought that my previous experience of empty carriages in the other section had nothing to do with the fact that there’s an added premium for the option of knowing where you’re going to sit. There’s a sleepy looking chap to my left with a sleek flat phone he’s flipped up and is watching what looks like a Japanese comedy. The girl on my right has her head stuck to the window, her body language very guarded. I’m listening to Simon and Garfunkel as we arriving into Nagoya, and there’s a parent and her child waiting to disembark. The kid is restlessly leaning out of his mother’s strap seat to stick his tongue out at an elderly woman behind him. A young chap is next to leave, with punk-like dyed sand coloured hair and an obscenely bright pink tracksuit jacket. My legs are aching from a stroll around the grounds of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, a magnificent structure that used to house the imperial palace when Kyoto was the capital of Japan (I may well have an extremely sunburnt face, but I can’t bring myself to look in the mirror since I trimmed my beard to reveal “Die Doppelchinner”).

Inside the castle, near the Shogun’s old quarters, the floor creaks, supposedly designed that way so that would-be assassins could be detected. Signs appeared regularly: NO PHOTOGRAPHY, NO SMOKING (bit of an obvious one for a 17 century world heritage site made mostly from wood), and NO SCRIBBLING - perhaps not the best word to deter vandals, but I got the drift. The Ninomaru garden beyond the castle, near to the palace, is billed as a “Special Scenic Spot” in the leaflet. A heron sits nearby a waterfall cascading water into a large pond with exotic rocks.

Ever since I first visited Tokyo in 2006, I wanted to see something like this, evidence of the majestic heritage of the old Japan. I wish my wife was here to enjoy it with me.

There are five of us; half of our group didn’t make it. We tumbled out of the karaoke bar at 1am this morning and headed out towards the main road in search of a taxi. Then came a tap on my shoulder, and the words I’d been dreading.“Actually Stef, we’re going to stay out a while.” I got a text after I woke up at 6am, basically listing everyone who’d been out, followed by “…are not coming to Kyoto.” And that was it. Said guest is still sleeping it off. At 2pm. We might see him later.

A train guard in a blue suit walks past and bows in the doorway of the carriage, before moving onward. The bullet train, as the name suggests, is quite the rocket. A cross between Concorde and tube of toothpaste, it glides through the countryside like a comet, at least four times faster than the “JR” standard equivalent, and at least four times the price.

We’ll be arriving into Tokyo about 4pm.