Heading to the Silk Road 2: A Couple of Hours in Kyoto
Last December I posted about my trip down from Akita to Kyoto on the Nihonkai Sleeper train, promising to write more about my trip from Japan to China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang when time permitted. Obviously it didn’t, but given Chooch’s recent efforts I thought I would continue the story.
Which brings us back to Kyoto. I first visited Kyoto after taking part in the JET renewers conference in Kobe in 2000, that time I also came down on the Nihonkai. My second visit was also in 2000 to take level 3 of the Japanese Proficiency Test also on the Nihonkai. Then late in 2001, after finishing the JET programme we decided to leave Akita and head for the big smoke, somewhere we could get an espresso, buy English books and see the odd movie without the 2 hour drive from northern Akita to Hirosaki in Aomori. So it was back to Kyoto to find a job with visa sponsorship.
We spent about 4 weeks in Kyoto looking for work and a place to live, but without a job couldn’t rent a place. The Kyoto locals are pretty xenophobic – and not just to foreigners. So we settled on a job in Kokubu out on the border of Osaka and Nara and an apartment there. There is a great little okonomiyaki restaurant just out of Kokubu station to the left called Yaki-Yaki-ten if you are in the area.
Kyoto is nice, small enough to be easily navigable by bicycle and with that Christchurch on a nice day feel to it. Cafés and art galleries to explore and some nice fat tunes to get down to. The expat community is friendly and more hippy than Tokyo – none of those cocaine head banker types running around. When we were there there were good dance parties at the Kyoto University dormitory and poi sessions down on the river on Sunday evenings. There are also lots of temples and traditional Japanese scenes like you might read about in Mishima’s The Golden Pavilion but we never seemed to be up early enough to make it to any.
Flaming Nora and Chase Long delightfully got up way too early and met me at Kyoto Station. I hadn’t seen Flaming Nora for about a year as she had been back in Kiwiland studying down in Dunedin, fitting in time for both a TESOL certificate and to complete a small business course. Chase was in fine spirits as usual. He had stayed with us in Akita a few weeks before for a friends wedding, so it wasn’t so much a catch up as another mash up.
He took us to a “Lawson Café” - a weird postmodern combo of a convenience store and I am not sure what. Definitely a perversion of a café. We had a couple of coffees there to take the edge off the morning before settling into beer around half past seven. Just like old times. We had fun toasting passing taxi drivers although they didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture awfully much. Watched a few ambulances roll by as the café was near a hospital, as well as a good number of foreign tourists. I hadn’t seen so many foreigners since we left Tokyo in July – actually I don’t think I saw any foreigners I didn’t know during our month in Akita.
We talked about our plans, and a little about teaching (what else to TESOL teachers talk about!) while we downed our asahis. I was planning to catch the 9:01 Kaisoku (Rapid) train from Kyoto to Sanomiya in Kobe but a mad dash to the bathrooms at a plush hotel in Kyoto Station put paid to that. The hotel, upstairs in the station building has a wonderful selection of paintings on display and is well worth checking out if you can track it down and have time – which we didn’t.
Said our goodbyes and caught the 9:14. Japan is great in that even if you miss one train the next one is never too far away. Not like New Zealand where you may have to wait until the next day. It is amazing how a couple of hours on the road can stick in ones mind more than a couple of weeks of doing what we always do.
A legendary morning.
Next: Onto the ferry from Kobe to TianJin.
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