Tuesday morning and we were ready to hit the road early on a sunny warm April day. The goal was Nara, the early capitol of Japan in 700. Daddy and Walter had visited here for a day with friends enjoying the scenery and its important monuments, and we did exactly the same thing.
Our first stop was the Todai-Ji Buddhist Temple complex where we were greeted by the very aggressive, hungry deer that are famous in this area. They are able to detect if you have food anywhere on you, and to ensure that they are not disappointed, there are vendors selling packages of wafers which one feeds to the animals. The trick seemed to be that if you raised the wafer above your head, the deer would politely nod its head twice at which point you were to give them the goodies. If you held out however we were warned that they will butt or bite you. How they learned this, and who has passed these habits along through deer generations is not clear - and they weren't talking. As seemed appropriate, pictures were taken, and deer were appreciated before we continued on to the Buddhist temple itself. We climbed up to the main sanctuary which has on each side of the entry two huge gods carved from wood. This temple is the largest wooden structure in the world (even though it is smaller than its original which burned down), and inside is the Big Buddha, or Daibutsu, made of bronze. This poor buddha, sitting lotus-positioned with one hand up and one hand with palm up, has lost his head three different times due to fire, war or earthquake. He's wearing his fourth head which is a lot shinier and nicer than the rest of his body, which is getting old So we honored him by walking around him and examining all sides.
But on a glorious sunny day, it was more delightful to walk around the grounds where spring buds were on the trees, and everyone...school groups, Asian tourists and locals, were happily meandering through the paths around the temple. There is a reverence for nature in all forms, which is obvious whether it is in statuary or in the delight people take in staring at a flower blossom or photographing a pond of carp. I particularly enjoyed the ability to leisurely take in these days of early spring. From here we continued on to Nara park where we could see all of Nara stretched out before us in the haze, and commune with more, less aggressive deer. (These guys hadn't learned the trick of nodding and begging, and instead seemed to want to avoid us). The boys in 1928 had taken a car ride through dense woods which reminded them of Germany, and we imitated them by doing exactly the same thing - taking the twisty road up Wakakusa Mountain and down. Matsui-san remembered the boys talking about the pot holes, and we were feeling a bit smug about how the paved road had improved things.... until we found ourselves descending on what was now a gravel one-way road... which perhaps lacked pot holes, but certainly threw dust and gravel at the immaculate black "saloon" town car. Nothing changes in 80 years, I guess. It was a peaceful ride with tall trees on both sides, and we enjoyed the curves and switchbacks which reminded us a bit of the Oakville Crossing between Sonoma and Napa.
At this point we were getting a bit peckish, and since the boys had dined at the Nara Hotel, so did we. As we approached the entrance, we realized that it looked exactly the same as it did in 1928. It is still considered a gracious hotel for important guests, and many of their photographs were on the wall. (Somehow they forgot to mention Herbert and Walter, but did remember Lindbergh, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin and the last emperor of China - Puyi). The main lobby with its dark wood and art deco furniture, its wide majestic stairs leading up to galleries over-looking the lobby, and its subtle lighting looked not that different than in its past ....only the computer screens at the concierge desk told us we were in the 21st century. Bob and I went to a very sunny dining room downstairs to enjoy a delicious Japanese Tempura lunch, which came with all manner of wonderful side dishes (tofu flavored with cherry blossoms, pickled vegetables, miso soup, sashimi tuna and trout). Fully sated and armed with brochures from the hotel, we headed back to Kyoto chatting all the way about what we'd seen and learned.
It was nice to have an outing and to get a sense of the countryside of Japan not from a train or bus, but in a private car.
Wednesday was to be another day traveling outside of Kyoto and continuing the replication of the boys adventures starting with a ride down the rapids on the Hozugawa river boat ride - a 16 kilometer ride in an ancient wooden boat guided by three men using bamboo poles. This adventure opportunity has been around since 1895 and I think the boats were designed that year. In groups of twelves we boarded our vessel and as they say - that's all she wrote. The entire two hour ride was narrated by one of the three men who rotated in position from the stern (guiding), to the bow (avoiding rocks by pushing away from them with bamboo), to the center (single oar used to move us thru still water). The rest of our fellow-passengers were oohing and aahing as our guide was obviously pointing out something of significance, and a lovely girl in front of us did her best to translate....but we got the drift: "there's a rock that looks like Snoopy", there's a rock that looks like a lion", 'the bridge was built in....", the train tracks go back to....". It didn't matter. To be on the water, to go down rapids at the bottom of a steep ravine, to see nature up close and be totally out of our element made for a fabulous experience. As we neared the end, a boat pulled up next to us - also made in the 1800's. It was the snack food concession consisting of freshly grilled squid, dough balls, drinks and soda. And once everyone had made some purchases, we unhooked from each other and as they awaited the next boat we continued on to the end point - a lovely small lake in Kyoto called Arishiyama. Here we disembarked, waved good bye to our translator and rejoined Matsui-san who had driven from our embarkation point to our disembarkation pier.
Out of nature and back to history, we continued into Kyoto to the Nijo Castle, aka the Shogun's Palace. This is the first site we've been to at which we have seen a lot of Caucasians. Perhaps its because all the signage is in Englilsh and Japanese, or maybe its just a fluke. In any case we learned that this is where the shogun ran the world (while the emperor, as benign puppet, sat in his Imperial Palace near by being watched by the shogun). The castle has an inner corridor which passes all the various rooms where the feudal lords would meet with the shogun, or where the shogun met with foreign dignitaries. The floors of the corridor were made in such a way that when one walked on them, they creaked and would alert guards if you were trying to sneak around. They call it the nightingale floor. Again, while the inside is interesting, it's the grounds that delighted us. Lovely ponds, trees perfectly positioned to hide and reveal scenes, flowers and shrubs and of course, the ubiquitous cherry blossoms. It was a world of splendid isolation where until one went out for battle, life could be very serene within the walls with family, lackeys, guards and vassals. There were many school groups with boys dressed like little soldiers, and girls dressed like little naval officers. School children are the same the world over - bored to tears with the history being learned, and enthusiastic at every shop selling food, trinkets or other 'must haves'. One young man tried to engage us in a brief conversation to practice his English, as we walked back to the car, but his English was pretty pathetic.
I am beginning to feel like daddy - you've seen one temple, you've seen them all. It's like churches in Italy, how many can one truly appreciate? It's the grounds surrounding these various castle and temple buildings that truly have captured me and of which I have probably entirely too many photographs.
In the early afternoon we returned to the hotel and spruced up for our early evening event: an opportunity to attend the Miyako Odori performance in honor of the Cherry Blossoms. This is an event that has been celebrated and performed for over 140 years and which is one of the highlights to be visited during the month of April only. To honor the beginning of spring and renewal, Geiko and Maiko (geisha and geisha-in-training) put on a performance that is a visual/auditory extravaganza. We didn't understand a word of what was being sung by the 'chorus' of older geisha strumming their samisen or the young maiko tucked into alcoves on opposing sides of the theater but we certainly could appreciate the beauty of the young women who slid past them moving towards the stage in front. These were the real thing - dressed in their blue kimono with elaborate obi, lacquered hair elaborately decorated, white-faced make-up and bright red lips, they were pictures of grace and femininity. With the 'chorus' singing the 'libretto' these lovely women performed a mute series of vignettes that told of the changing seasons starting and ending with spring. The stage scenery, quite basic, would change for each vignette and Bob was as entranced with the fairly old-fashioned stagecraft (sand-bag weights, men dressed entirely in black who slipped in to remove or place critical stage props, simple lighting) as he was with the performers themselves. I was entranced with how these women used their fans, their hand gestures, their small dip of the head, the exaggerated gestures. The faces showed absolutely no emotion, it was simply their body and their gestures which illustrated the story being sung by the chorus.
Since, like the cherry blossoms, this is a fleeting event, the theater was sold out. We had seats in the very front row, which might have disturbed the aficionado, but for those of us who wanted to watch every gesture and bit of stagecraft, we couldn't have had better seats. Prior to the theater performance we had paid extra to go to the tea ceremony associated with the event. This was a bust. You are hustled in to a large room, sit down, and for five minutes can see a geisha going through an elaborate series of steps to make a cup of tea. At the same time you are being given a cup of pre-made green thick tea and a small cookie which you gulp down before you are asked to leave taking your ceramic plate as a souvenir. I did manage to get the tea-making geisha on video, briefly, before we were shooed out, and that was nice since one is not allowed to take pictures of the performers in the theater. So at least i have one authentic geisha picture along with quite a few of the theater structure itself once the performance had ended.
We left the theater delighted with our experience, and raced back to the hotel where I spent the next hours reading all about how the women train for these performances, how geisha truly live in the 21st century, and how to recognize the real from the fake. Conclusion: indentured servitude in the name of beauty. These women train for their roles as musicians, artists and non-sexual companions for years (minimum six years), living together under the care and tutelage of a 'mother' and watched over carefully. There are fewer than 2000 women now in Kyoto and Tokyo who have chosen this very traditional 'profession' which compares to nothing I can think of in any other country and when they are past their 30's, unless they are very special, they are pretty much done.
But beautiful they were, and magical was the performance.
