Day 1: New York
Day 2: Japan Airlines first class
Day 3: Kyoto
Day 4: Kyoto
Day 5: Kyoto & Osaka
Day 6: Nara Day 7: Nara Day 8: Nara & Tokyo Day 9: Tokyo Day 10: Tokyo
Day 11: Flight back to New York
Day 5: Kyoto & Osaka
After the last entry’s cliffhanger, you must be wondering what we did on this morning that I was so looking forward to!
It’s the Fushimi Inari shrine!
If you zoom in close enough, you can read the banners they had lining the path to the shrine telling you that, according to TripAdvisor, Fushimi Inari was the most popular tourist attraction in Japan for two years running. So I guess we were just two of the many gaijin heading here.
Fushimi Inari is the head shrine of possibly 40,000 Shinto shrines in Japan. The shrine itself is spectacular and orange, but the real draw lies beyond the main buildings.
The torii gates are what Fushimi Inari is known for. There are 10,000 of these gates lining paths that traverse a mountain. They start out very large, as above, but soon decrease to human size. At the start of the trail, the torii are so tightly packed, you get the feeling that you are in an orange hallway.
You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to get photos devoid of people like that. By 8:00 AM, while we were on our way out, people were trying to get clear shots down the paths, and they couldn’t because of all the other people in the way.
The backside of the gates are painted with the names of Japanese businesses and people who have bought the gates. Purchasing a gate is thought to bring prosperity.
The trails that cover the mountain cover several miles. It’s steep, but not exhausting, to get to the top. Obviously, being hikers and completists, we had to do the entire hike. We made a good decision to get here early. It was peaceful, I’d say maybe the most tranquil place I’ve ever been in my life. All the way up the mountain, you encounter other small shrines off the path, and lots of fox sculptures, which is the kami for Fushimi Inari.
There are also refreshment shops on the way up the mountain. We were there early enough that they weren’t open yet, but the old folks who run them were getting them ready for the day. These shops would be super handy if you really wanted to make a day of visiting.
And at some point, we started finding lots of stray cats hanging out around the shrines and on the path. There was a woman putting food out for them at one of the shrines.
I found the whole experience of walking through the gates strangely moving. Just the fact that there are so many of them, and the old ones get replaced… it’s kind of an overwhelming piece of communal work. I’d compare it to Opus 40, the enormous “environmental sculpture” built in Saugerties, NY, by one guy over the course of his life.
Oh, and if those gates look familiar to you, and you know you haven’t been to Japan, maybe you went to New York City in February of 2005…
That’s when Christo & Jean-Claude erected The Gates in Central Park. Marge and I went to see it, and I thought it was great. It has to be my favorite public art project. The orange gates with fabric draped on them lined all of the paths in the park. It really transformed the place in the dead of winter. Once I learned that The Gates was inspired by Fushimi Inari, I knew I had to visit the original eventually.
After Fushimi Inari, we had to get back to our inn, check out, and get on our next train to Osaka. Osaka is only 30 minutes away from Kyoto by train, and our hotel, the Intercontinental Osaka, is connected to the train station by a confusing series of walkways. We got there too early to check in, so we left our hefty backpacks at the desk for a bit and went exploring.
I knew Osaka was a business powerhouse in Japan and it was pretty commercialized, at least from where we stood. When you picture Japan looking like Times Square, Osaka is one of those places. Although I admit, we were right in the heart of it. We spent an hour or two exploring this bizarre mall (or malls) attached to the train station and office buildings. There was plenty of weirdly translated English signs. For the curious, Freak’s Store sold mostly outerwear. Nothing that interesting.
The malls are built vertically, not horizontally like in America, and they love their escalators. We finally got some cheap lunch in a food market in the basement.
When we returned to the hotel, this little check-in clerk said she would go get our bags. We assumed she was going to wheel them out on one of those luggage carts. But she returned smiling with one backpack hanging off of each forearm! Marge and I rushed to take the bags away, because how was this tiny Japanese girl carrying these bags like that! It looked like they could break her arms!
Our hotel was nice. I think this was my favorite hotel we stayed in on this trip. The room was huge, the bed was perfect, there was a desk with a faux rock holding up one side, complimentary candy in a glass case, and a ridiculous bathroom.
The one place I wanted to visit in Osaka was Dotonbori, the entertainment district. We made the mistake of waiting until 5:00 to leave, because at that point, the subway system was a madhouse. And to get to it, we walked through this insanely brightly-lit tech store, full of people buying and hawking things like cell phone plans and phone covers. It was noisy and bright and closed-in and basically my version of hell.
Dotonbori is basically one street filled with restaurants, kareoke bars and people. I wasn’t sure if I was going to love Dotonbori or hate it, but we both ended up liking it. It has the packed, chaotic feeling of Times Square, but with the ordered friendliness of Disneyworld. Everyone was happy to be there.
The main thing you do on Dotonbori is eat. There is a lot of street food to try, and we had saved our appetites. The street is most famous for its takoyaki, or fried octopus balls.
We actually had that one serving, plus another from a second cart! Then came the katsukura (fried meat on a stick) and beer, and chicken skewers. Aside from all the food you can eat, there is no shortage of advertisements to admire.
Everyone’s favorite is the Glico man. Glico is some kind of candy company, and people love this advertisement so much, they pose in front of him, doing the Glico man pose.
Personally, I was more excited to see my patron saint of Japanese pop culture, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, advertising something called An, which at some point must’ve tied into her song, “Kyary Anan.”
Then there is the famous drumming clown. Does anyone know where the clown came from? Does anybody care? The clown slowly moves his head to and fro, flicks his eyebrows up and down, and very slowly and deliberately bangs that drum. WATCH MY VIDEO AND EXPERIENCE THE HORROR.
Day 6: Nara
A little backstory: We had planned on staying in the mountain town of Takayama for 2 nights for their famous autumn festival. But our AirB&B host backed out just before we were to leave for Japan. I had to reserve this place eight months in advance because Takayama’s hotels book up so far in advance of the autumn festival, and this was one of the last places available. Apparently, the AirB&B host got in trouble with her landlord for hosting people. Such is the world of AirB&B!
So before we left America, we scrambled to find another place to visit since Takayama, and everywhere around it, was completely booked. We settled on Nara, the ancient capital of Japan. We booked a standard Japanese apartment with sliding doors, low door frames and cushions for seats. It was owned by a woman named Hana, and in classic AirB&B fashion, if any neighbors asked who we were, we were supposed to say, “I am friend of Hana!”
When we reserved the apartment, we had to laugh at some of the instructions. It contained mysterious directions like “When you open the window, please use the net, otherwise cat is coming.” I pictured myself using a big butterfly net to catch a cat trying to break into the apartment. Actually, what she meant by “net” was the screen door.
When we got to the apartment, there were further instructions about the cat…
CAT IS COMING
Despite all these ominous warnings that “cat is coming,” Marge and I never saw a cat. Maybe the cat doesn’t even exist.
Like Kyoto, Nara has many temples. But unlike Kyoto, Nara has kept a huge swath of land undeveloped so you can see these temples in their original habitat. We didn’t have time to go deep into Nara Park on Thursday, but we did have time to meet these guys…
The other interesting thing about Nara Park is the deer. The deer in Nara have been protected because they are “messengers of the gods.” So they are basically allowed to run rampant and beg food off people. So if you’ve ever wanted to pet a deer, you need to go to Nara. Just watch them, though. They’ll try to eat your map.
By the time we got to Nara on Friday, it was almost dusk. Still, we spent an hour or so cavorting with these deer. Petting them was much like petting our greyhound Maeby. They’re about the same height and size.
For supper, we headed down one of those covered alley shopping streets and stopped in at least one restaurant that was actually closed. We ended up at a ramen place called Aoniyoshi.
This was my first time having real ramen after so many bad American packaged ramen experiences. What a cheap, delicious food. Super umami.
That’s basically it for today. Tune in next time when we explore Nara and… meet more deer!