Days 51 - 52: Kyoto - Where it All Makes (More) Sense

Despite having some very mixed feelings about my experience in Tokyo, I would come back to his country in a heart-beat. Most of that can be attributed to the two days I spent in Kyoto.  Somehow, being outside the mega city seemed to put this culture in more context.  Some of the oddities - various shades of curious, surreal, formal or efficient - fell in to a bit of perspective.  

Take for example, the fastidiousness of moving through this country.  A sidewalk will crowd at a crosswalk until the Do Not Walk sign turns to green.  This is true even if there is not a single car on the street.  Everyone waits for the sign to turn.  You wait in line to board the subway cars.  You walk up one set of stairs to come, and another set of stairs to go. In Japan it seems that everything has a right way and a right path.  One that has been carefully considered and now one that is carefully observed.  And from my vantage point, it all seemed unnatural.  

But 24 hours later, I find myself standing in the middle of a garden that was first conceived of in the 14th century, as part of what is now called the Golden Pavilion temple.   Clearly marked, the garden was a measured progression of views framing the pavilion itself, from the ponds, to sculpted pines, to the gnarled plums and profuse cherry trees.  In this garden, there stood a 600 year old Bonsai tree in the shape of a boat, sailing west.  It was twisted, trimmed, and yet 

organic looking at the same time.  Graceful and strong.  Earlier that day, I met a man who kept a private garden.  His father had planted it 60 years ago, and as he shared it with us, he explained that now he maintained it as his father had.  All trimming and pruning, of which there seemed to be much, was all done by hand.  It is more graceful, more feminine this way, he said.  Between these two gardens, I gain a bit of appreciation for a culture that had evidently being thinking about how we move through its country for quite some time.  And the way cultivating a specific approach - pruning by hand, or the placement of a rock within a pond - can affect the sensibilities of the traveller.  This is not to say such lovely gardens wouldn't have been as lovely if they were more ragged or wild, or if I had strayed from the path.  I just felt a keen interest in seeing something as someone 600 or even 60 years ago would have wanted it to be seen.

In Kyoto, we made the decision to stay at a ryokan, or a traditional Japanese inn.  As we entered, we left our shoes in the entrance hall, still wet from its welcome ritual of being cleaned with water every evening. Upon entering the inn, we were shown into our room, overlooking a small garden at the center of the house.  Low ceilings, rice paper screens and tatami mats, low slung table and chairs without legs -- these were the only furnishings in the room.  No TV of course, no Internet.  But you could hear a dripping sound - slow and steady - from the garden below.  

We shared a bath with all the guests of the inn.  Traditionally, guests bathe in the late afternoon and evening, more as a way to relax than to get clean.  In fact, the "business" part of the bathing ritual is done outside the bath itself, sitting on a squat bamboo stool, with a shower head perched just over your shoulder.  Here you wash completely, and when you are finished and clean, you climb into a hot bath that was drawn sometime earlier in the day.  The tub is big, rectangular and wooden.  Hotter than a hot tub.  And as you sit down, you feel the none-to-familiar pleasure of being stretched out and immersed, up to your neck almost, in a steaming, stupor-inducing bath.

This is typically before or after a Kaiseki style dinner, prepared by the inn.  Kyoto, as the capital of Japan for almost 1000 years, is famous for this style of dinner, which is said to have originated in the Imperial courts.  Course after course are paraded out: delicate soups topped with radishes sliced so thin they are transparent, cut out in the shape of hearts and blossoms; bamboo shoots, now just in season, steamed so they are crisp to the bite; jellies of cherry blossoms, with steamed rice and red snapper.  And an equal bounty, it seams, of sake.  This is all presided over by our inn keeper, whose family has owned this ryokan for over 200 years.  He is the seventh head chef in that time.

When we return to our adjoining room, the screens are just ajar so you could feel the faintest spring chill.  Our beds were set up on the floor.  This included a thin mattress, a coverlet and a heavy, plump buckwheat grain pillow.  I crawled in.  As I put my head on the pillow, it gave a little sigh. I could smell the warm aroma of malt the buckwheat gave up, and it occurred to me that for a long time, this is what sleepiness smelled like here.   With its ritual welcome, its orchestration of slippers and kimonos, very warm bath and thoughtful cuisine - this experience was an artful, careful expression of the Evening.  How an evening should be considered, and if your lucky, how observed.  

Just now, I knew 250 kilometers away, throngs of goth twenty-somethings heaved on the sidewalks in Shibuya, patiently observing another more modern ritual. Do not walk until it's green.