motivational words

Sunday (our last day in Kyoto) was a pretty lazy day. We were worn out from too much walking, sightseeing, sweating, panting, trying to communicate/navigate in a language we don't know, itching (from our ever mounting mosquito bites), and barely being able to sleep (on the comfortable-as-concrete Ryokan matresses). We spent the better part of the day at Yu Kuhan, the 24-hour internet cafe/"neo synthetic culture space" that I keep raving about. All the shrines and shit were nice, but that really is my favorite place in Kyoto.

Another of my other favorites places? The hotel along the way from Ryokan Yuhara to Yu Kuhan, inspirationally/absurdly named ExcelHuman. Here it is at day and at night.

Every time we pass it, I look up at the sign and say, "I'll try, hotel, I'll try."

gold, vodka, and japanese schoolkids

Saturday we took an uptown subway, a crosstown bus, then hiked uphill through savage heat and humidity (the weather the whole time we were in Kyoto was truly miserable - ranging between blistering sunshine and dreary drizzling, with the oppressive stickiness of the air never letting up under either condition) to visit Kinkaku-ji, or the "Golden Pavilion." The two top stories of the structure are covered in actual gold leaf!

Needless to say, the thing was fucking stunning, even in the light trickle of rain that started as soon as we got there, and which failed to break the heat or humidity one bit. We asked a random Japanese schoolgirl to take a photo of us in front of the pavilion, and the next thing we knew, we were posing along with five of her classmates for six photos (each kid wanted one)! When Japanese young people pose for photos, they unfailingly flash the two-fingered peace sign - we don't know why, but we figured we should play along - while the person snapping the shot, in this case their teacher (we think), counts to 3 in English and then exclaims, "Cheese-zu!" The result?


Absolutely sweat-soaked and heat-exhausted from all the walking (and posing), I demanded that we stop for a flavored ice at the stand outside the pavilion grounds. What I got was a true culinary atrocity - a massive softball-sized mound of shaved ice drenched in the most digustingly artificial-tasting red food-coloring, then dribbled with some mysterious white cream, and topped off with three tapioca balls. Here I am licking one of said pale, slimy balls.


Near the ice stand, we spotted this awesome Cup of Noodle vending machine, complete with boiling water tap on the left side. We didn't see a single Japanese person partaking, however, despite their love of ramen. Maybe it was just too fucking hot. Or maybe it was because these cups of noodles, judging from the bottom of the machine, were of extraterrestrial origin...


That night we got dinner at what turned out to be an overpriced-considering-it's-not-so-good-food restaurant along the bank of the Kamo River, which bisects Kyoto from north to south. The evening didn't prove to be a total bust, however, since on the way back to our Ryokan, we stumbled on this seemingly very-out-of-place vodka bar which had its name displayed in large Russian letters and the Russian stacking dolls (Matryoshki) in the window. There was a write-up by the door from a Russian newspaper about the bar and how the owner speaks Russian, having learned it while working for a Russian restaurant in Kyoto called "Kiev." For those of you who don't know, Maya hails from the Ukraine, from Kiev, in fact, (she immigrated to the States when she was 11), so obviously we had to go inside.

As soon as we entered, Maya greeted the owner in Russian and asked if he spoke Russian, to which his reply was a shy gesture indicating "just a little." The walls were covered in an unbelievable array of vodka from all over the world, including one called Red Army in a bottle shaped like a missile (I wanted to sample that, but unfortunately it wasn't for sale). We took some time choosing and finally settled on a Russian lemon-flavored vodka called Limonovka. Then Maya noticed a platter containing "piroshki", little pastry puffs filled with meat that she had been eating since she was kid, and ordered two. When we bit into them, they tasted, according to Maya, very authentic, but when we examined them closer, we found all kinds of very Japanese ingredients like glass noodles and tofu inside. Still, she told the owner they were delicious and asked him, in Russian, where he got them and who made them, to which he replied, "Ya zdelal" ("I did"). Here's Maya enjoying a taste of home (her first home, that is).

When we were about to leave, Maya asked the owner (who was a rather solemn dude with awesome gray hair tied back in a ponytail) if she could take a picture with him, and he obliged, very seriously. Sorry for the blurry pic, it was dark, and the vodka was taking effect.

Maya bid him farewell ("do svedanya"), and he said, "Prihoditye eshcho" ("Come again"). And if we ever do make it back to Kyoto, we definitely will.

loss and gain

Thursday something momentous happened: I accidentally deleted a whole day's worth of photos. That night we had just discovered Yu Kuhan, the rad 24-hour internet cafe (located in the Wao Cube building, a self-described "Neo Synthetic Culture Space," and my new favorite place in Japan), and I had been trying to upload pictures to flickr.com. First of all, I should tell you that all the computers we have been using so far in Japan are in Japanese, which makes all the programs just a little harder to use. Plus, the computers have all been PCs, and Maya and I are both Mac people. So, apparently in Windows OS, or at least Japanese Windows, or at the least the Japanese Windows I was using that night, there's a button in the software where you view pics on your digital camera that deletes all the photos on the camera. And it does so without the little "Are you sure you really want to do this?" warning box that usually pops up when you're about doing something major, like, oh, say, delete all the fucking photos on your camera. Nope, one click, and everything's - poof! - gone. So, yeah, I accidentally clicked this button, and watched as the thumbnails of the whole day's photos instantly vanished.

"I think I just deleted all our photos," I said, half to Maya, half in shock to myself, and then explained to her/myself what had just happened. And amazingly, bless her soul, Maya, instead of instantly ripping my head off (which is pretty much what I felt like doing to myself, if not commiting Harikiri then and there with my swiss-army knife's corkscrew), stared at the screen for a second, stared at me (and perhaps seeing the utter horror and remorse on my face), said calmly, "That's alright, babe. They're just photos. Just because we don't have the pictures doesn't mean we didn't have the experiences, which is the most important thing." She explained that one of the books we had gotten about taking around-the-world trips had even suggested that you try to take less pictures and go out sometimes to explore without your camera, since the camera can become such a barrier between you and the native population and authentic experiences. She also pointed out that we hadn't even been allowed to shoot most of the truly awesome things we had done that day anway.

It was true. That day we had gone to the Sanjusangen-do Temple which contains 1,000 golden lifesize statues of the so-called Thousand Armed Kannon. It was a jaw-dropping sight - literally an army of figures, which had been handmade over a 100 year period, lined up down an endless hallway, each statue subtly different from the last. And photography inside the shrine was strictly forbidden. Here, however, is an official photo that gives you a sense of how insane the sight was:



Then we had made the long climb up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, a sprawling complex of many different shrines and pagodas. But perhaps the highlight of that visit had also been uncapturable by photography. Under one of the main shrines, we walked down these stairs into a winding basement path of complete darkness - you couldn't see your own hand in front of you - guided only by a handrail of large prayer beads along the lefthand wall. This led you eventually around a bend to a dimly and magically lit spherical stone that seemed to be floating in mid-air; you were supposed to touch this, make a wish, and then spin the stone slowly clockwise. Then, as legend has it, your prayers will come true, and you could follow the beads back out into the sunlight. In the words of Maya, it was "fucking awesome."

While there, we also visited the nearby Jishu-jinja Shrine, the "love shrine." There we saw the "love stones," two sacred rocks placed 18 meters apart - you're supposed to walk from one stone to the other with your eyes closed, and then your romantic wishes will be granted. This might sound like a daunting task already, but what amazed us was that the courtyard between the stones was full of other tourists, which made the challenge all the greater. Still, after observing a number of giggling Japanese high-school girls completing the blind walk, Maya stepped up to the plate, and with a little guidance from me ("Left! Left! Right!"), completed the trek. Among the many other rituals that you could partake in at Jishu shrine, Maya also took part in one involving pieces of rice paper cut into basic Gingerbread Man-like shapes - you write your troubles on one of the paper pieces and then drop it into a sacred vat of water - once the paper dissolves, your troubles are supposed to go away.

But what has made my trouble, my guilt, my sadness over deleting all our pictures from Sanjusangen-do,Kiyomizu-dera, and Jishu slowly dissolve (though I'm still occasionally haunted by the flashing mental image of a photo that was lost) are Maya's rather disarming words of wisdom. Deep into Thursday night we talked about why we are taking this trip and it's not about collecting pictures, or being the typical tourist and hiding behind a camera; it's about the life-changing, priority-shifting experiences we hope to have, and the lessons we hope to learn - and maybe this accident is meant to be one of those lessons. I had been getting too wrapped up in trying to take pictures of everything, trying to capture for posterity the ultimately uncapturable instead of focusing on the here and the now, and, in particular, soaking up the Buddhist go-with-the-flow spirit that Maya apparently had absorbed far more than I, considering her superior ability to let go of those photos. I thought about the main character in Fight Club and how in the beginning of the book/movie, his apartment and just about everything he owns are blown up, it turns out, by his own alterego, Tyler Durden, in order to free him/himself from his own possessions. It makes me think that maybe my Tyler Durden deleted all those photographs.

kicking it in kyoto

So we've been in Kyoto for the last four days, and it's been, I think Maya and I can both agree, pretty amazing (in some good and not so good ways). People often describe Japan as a country of contradictions and contrasts, where the very old and the ultra modern sit side by side in sometime harmony, sometime conflict. This seems to be particularly true in Kyoto.

Much of the city isn't so different from the bustling megalopolis of Tokyo - garish, neon-lit Pachinko/video-game arcades, wstern-style fast food joints, big flashy hotels and nightclubs all abound - but then sandwiched right between such establishments, like strange powerful living dinosaurs, sit some of the most stunning ancient Japanese shrines you can imagine. And then there is Gion or "Old Town": blocks upon blocks of what looks like a samurai-movie set full of traditional wood-and-rice-paper buildings with sliding doors and laterns out front, except that the buildings are all in full use, and cars and mopeds rumble by them, through the claustrophobically narrow streets and alleys. On our first night in Kyoto, walking through Gion, entranced and amazed, we saw 5 Geishas - two separate pairs in full makeup and head-dresses, gorgeously intricate kimonos, and teetering platform shoes being escorted into cabs by solemn older women that we could only assume were their "trainers," heading off to who knows where to do who knows what; another Geisha was simply strolling down the street. We were too in awe - and unsure of the etiquette - to ask if we could take a picture of her.

We're staying at this crazy Ryokan, which is a traditional-style Japanese inn, called Ryokan Yuhara - think of it as a Bed & Breakfast, just in our case, with no breakfast and no beds. The place is super cool-looking, as you can see below...

But as excited as we were when we first arrived at the Ryokan and saw how quaint and cute it looked, we soon discovered that every apparent Pro comes with a hidden Con:

Pro: Beautiful, authentic traditional accomodations with screen doors, scrolls on the walls, traditional seating right on the tatami floor, as well as traditional sleeping arrangements - futon matresses right on the floor.
Con: Maya and I have hardly been able to sleep a wink on these hard so-called matresses, the even harder bean-bag "pillows" (we've had to swap them with the much softer pillows from the traditional floor chairs), and the ridiculously small comforters (which literally are only big enough to cover half of my body).

Pro: Friendly, familial attention from the Ryokan staff, in this case just the owner, Mrs. Yuhara, and her grown son.
Con: Friendly, familial attention from the son, who is one of the freakiest dudes Maya and I have ever met. Maya says he reminds her of a scene in Pulp Fiction, when the young Butch is watching some strange old cartoon on TV and there's this creepy little Eskimo dude with a bizarre accent - that's the son. See what we mean below:

Pro: A traditional Japanese bath.
Con: A traditional Japanese bath is basically a small tub of scalding hot water that doesn't get changed all day, meaning that every guest in the Ryokan gets to enjoy whoever came before them's sloppy seconds. (You're supposed to soap up and rinse off before getting in the bath, so I guess theoretically it's sanitary, but, well, let's just say that Maya and I have yet to try the thing.)

Pro: Tranquil location along a small creek, with crickets chirping.
Con: Damn crickets get so loud at night Maya has had to sleep with earplugs, and the creek seems to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes because the two of us have awoken every morning covered in excruciatingly itching bites. I have no less than 8 bites on my left foot (the right foot has been myteriously spared), 3 bites forming a perfect straight line on my right forearm, and a bite on my right ear; Maya has 2 bites on her right foot, 2 on her right ankle, tons on both legs, and a huge swollen one on her left temple!

My left foot (heh).



Maya's temple.



This, needlessly to say, does not bode well for when we get to Southeast Asia where a lone mosquito bite can mean contracting any number of horrible, debilitating diseases. As I think I've said before, say a prayer for us, you heathens.