Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

<prior or next>

Japan, day Eight

aka: The hills are alive with the sound of hippies

I am highly and very and annoyingly stressed right now.

So instead of talking about that, hows about the latest summer vacation catch-up entry? This one is about our second day in Kyoto. The normal madness will return soon.

Thursday 07/05/01:

From what I gather, in Japan you traditionally bathe in the evening. Being a hotel that served foreign tourists, the inn's public baths were open both in the morning and the evening. One was on the first floor and the second was on the roof. The genders using the baths were switched each day, so everyone would have an opportunity to use both facilities.

I other words, I went to the first floor bath that morning. No one else was there, so I had the place to myself until John joined me a while latter. The water in the common bath was extremely and overwhelmingly HOT. John sat there enjoying himself relaxing, while I felt like I was being boiled alive. The hot water was not helping my aching back and I gave up after a few minutes.

After our adventures sitting in boiling water, we dressed, then headed out for the day. Our first stop, an ATM to get some cash. The second stop was to find a different bank since our cards didn't work at the first bank. Third stop was to find someone who could direct us to yet another bank. After getting directions, our fourth stop was at another bank that wouldn't take our cards, even though the Tokyo branches would. The fifth stop wasn't an actual stop per say, as much as it just involved our walking around the banking district grumbling at each other. The sixth stop was at the bank that the person from the third stop had initially directed us to.

Turns out that "Cross street, cross street, cross street, turn right." did not mean cross three streets then turn right as much as it meant cross the street, turn right, then look for the small hidden citybank sign. The repetitive "cross the streets" had been thrown in just to stress the importance of crossing the street.

It didn't help our (read MY) mood that it was very hot that day. At 9:00 AM it was already 92' F and it just kept on getting warmer the entire day.

Anyway, once the mullah issue was settled, we took the subway to Nijojo, aka Nijo Castle. The buildings and grounds were beautiful. I think that it was probably my favorite destination the entire trip.

The buildings were incredibly ornate and interestingly, it also had nightingale floors, which were funky and more like something out of a movie than real life. Essentially, the floors were rigged so they would squeak when walked on, thus preventing anyone from sneaking up and assassinating the shogun. The squeaking did sound like birds singing, hence nightingale. Kinda cool.

[When I told the nephews about the nightingale floors, they found the idea interesting and tried to figure out how to bypass them.

"I wouldn't walk on the floors, I would climb on the walls"

"The walls are made out of paper, that would be kind of hard to do."

"OK, then I would..."

The nephews spent a lot time trying to figure out how to bump off the shogun. I'm not sure what this says, other then that they are boys that is.]

After touring the buildings, you are left to walk the grounds and gardens. There was a crane fishing in one of the ponds, standing perfectly still. Standing at the edge of the same pond was an American family arguing over whether it was real or not. The dad was saying that it was a fake plastic prop and the Mom and teen daughter were arguing that it was real, just "not moving 'round a lot." The teenage son didn't care if it real or not and just wanted to leave since it was so so hot.

I wasn't standing anywhere near them and I still overheard every single word they said. I realize that the stereotype is that as a people, we are loud and overweight and obnoxious and so on. I just wish that this particular family had not been all of them.

The question of real or not was answered when the crane quickly moved, catching a fish, then moving on to a different part of the pond. Maybe to get away from all the freaking noise.

After the castle we visited Chion-in and Shoren-in Temples. Chion-in temple was large, ornate, large, huge, big and large. It was also at the top of VERY long flight of stairs. Very, very, very, very long. In a word, the place was tiring.

Shoren-in temple was the reverse. It was small, quiet and not at the top of an exhaustingly long flight of stairs. For some odd reason, I think that I preferred it.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering through the Gion district.

[OK, time to break away from the narrative again for an embarrassing Nico story. When told that we had decided to spend a couple of days in Kyoto, several people said something to effect of: "Oh, you have to read Memoirs of a Geisha! It's all about geishas and the Gion District of the city."

John would tell them he had read the novel and I would then admit that I hadn't. Eventually, I asked him when he read the book. He looked at me funny, then said last year. Considering the look, I should have known better than to remark that I didn't recall us owning the book.

Apparently I bought it for him as a Christmas present.]

We didn't see any real geishas in Gion that day, only some anglo women who had paid money to do a "we will dress you up and parade you around the neighborhood" type tourist package thing. It was too early for geishas to be out anyway. Although we didn't see any later that night either. Thinking about it now, I wonder how many men try to get made up as geishas?

For some unknown reason, there is piped in muzak along the main shopping arcade and several of the streets in Gion. Actually, calling it muzak is insulting to muzak. It was in fact, the sound of chimes ringing. Ringing over and over and over and over and over again ad nauseam. It was cute for about thirty seconds. After that it got annoying as all heck.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that local merchants had been driven insane by the ever-present piped in noise and had gone on murderous rampages. Except that it has never happened. Those merchant folk are definitely made of sterner stuff than I.

At one point, we walked down a food/ produce shopping arcade. Loads of food all displayed out in the open for flies and bugs to walk on, except that there were none. I won't mention that that the fish displays grossed John out. Instead, lets talk fruit. They were not as perfect as the fruit in the department store in Tokyo, instead, they were actually affordable.

One of the stalls had the largest figs I have ever seen in my entire life. They were huge, each one as large as my fist. I was tempted to buy one, but I got grapes instead. These were small, tiny grapes that were supposed to taste good once you slurped them out of their skin. They did.

One of the local English freebie tourist newspapers had a mention of an organic vegetarian restaurant. Guess where we ate that night? Finding the place was a little hard. We walked right by the street it was on and when we realized our mistake, we hesitated a little.

It was the only time that I didn't feel safe the entire trip. The street/neighborhood was worn down and a bit seedy, but compared to back home, it was nothing. I'm not sure what brought on my initial reaction of slight fear/hesitation.

The restaurant and the business surrounding it were nice, if purposely funky and were much better looking than the rest of the neighborhood of bars/nightclubs. I'd hazard a guess that they were part of an effort to change the area for the better.

The restaurant itself was a small friendly place and the only other customers there were a young, twentyish, Japanese couple in worn faded bell bottoms and multicolored tie dye shirts. They had dressed their toddler aged son in all tie dye as well.

The hippie movement is alive and well in Japan.

I imagine that a veggie/macrobiotic restaurant in Berkley, circa 1972 or thereabout would have had the same atmosphere/feel. It was very "Funky." Johnny had a veggie sandwich and I had a very good roasted squash thing. Those hippies eat well. At least they do in Kyoto.

After dinner, we walked through more of the shopping arcades looking 'round and buying souvenirs and gifts. It was here that I saw signs advertising meat filled donuts and signs everywhere advertising Pearl Harbor. It was raining on and off that night and we contemplated going into a movie theater to watch Pearl Harbor, just to say that we did, but in the end, we were too tired for that and headed back to the inn.

More later

nico

<prior or next>

� 2000-2007