Here be dragons

The next day we got up early and tried to head to Kiyomizu-Dera, which I'd heard was beautiful. This was Sunday, and everyone in Japan had decided to come to Kyoto and walk slowly in front of us. We took the 206 bus in the wrong direction and went to Nishi Hongan-Ji instead. This was an ace temple, half of it was peaceful and soothing and half of it was bustling with people attending services.
After that we tried again to get to Kiyomizu-Dera. This time we had more luck with the buses and made it out there. We stopped for lunch at a cafe on the hill (best pastrami sandwich in Japan) then slowly meandered up the hill. I had been frothing at the mouth at our leisurely pace and getting lost, I don't have a lot of holidays here and I want to see things when I've gone to the bother of leaving Nagoya to see things. All this vanished when I got to the entrance of the temple in perfect time to watch a bizarre ceremony involving dragons. I have no idea what it means (or even what Chinese dragons have to do with Buddhism) but it was spooky, exciting and reminded me that watching dramatic ceremonies like this (eerily dressed priests, green and gold dragons, conch horns wailing) would have creeped the bejeezus out of ordinary people in the past.

Kyoto pictures

Bridge at Kamigamo-jinja.




Raked gravel at Kamigamo-jinja. Someone has too much free time on his hands.



Kawaii pose at Kinkaku-ji.

Kyoto

After Hiroshima we headed down to Kyoto. I was hoping to get there early and see some of the sights, but it wasn't to be. We loafed around too much, lingered over lunch in the Kyoto towers high above the station, and then got lost looking for our ryokan so it was 4 pm before we were ready to do anything. All the sights in Japan shut up at 5, so it felt like a bit of a wasted day. The Kyoto museum didn't shut until 7, so we went there and made up our own captions for the non-English labelled exhibits.
The next day we got up early(ish) and went to Kinkaku-ji, the golden pavillion. I like Kyoto as a city, but I hate the way it's so spread out. It takes forever to get to the places where you want to go, and travelling by bus is stressful. I always seem to miss my stop or get lost in this city. Kinkaku-ji was pretty, and I liked the way the scenery and gardens reflected Ginkaku-ji, the silver pavillion I visited when I came here in November. After that we went to Daitoku-ji (not much to see, unfortunately) and then headed to the botanical gardens (Mum choosing what to do, for a change) which bored the pants off me.
We stopped for a quick pint downtown then wandered around Gion, the old geisha district.

Miyajima Photos

This is a statue at Daisho-in, a temple up the hill on Miyajima.


More pictures of Daisho-in.
Outside restaurants and shops, you often see statues of big-bellied animals wearing big hats and holding sake bottles. They're supposed to be lucky but mostly look demented. I asked Takako what sort of animals they were supposed to be, and she said raccoon dogs. I'd never heard of raccoon dogs and assumed this was a mistranslation, but these are the real thing.

Miyajima photos

Caution, hungry deer

After a night tossing and turning on the thinnest futon in Japan, we got up and went to Miyajima, an island just south of Hiroshima. Itsukushima-Jinja (shrine) is famous for its 'floating' tori (gate). You can see why in the photos. The maps of the area proudly announce it is one of the three most beautiful views in Japan, which makes me wonder what the rest of the top three is (or the top ten, even) and who gets to decide. I like the idea of a group of Japanese scientists with clipboards standing on the end of the pier giving the view marks out of ten.
Just outside the station roam gangs of ravenous deer who pose photogenically for two minutes before trying to eat anything to hand. Cloth and paper also counts as edible. Green shirts, as my mum found out, are extremely tasty, and so are maps. One followed us halfway along the seafront, determined to get some of our icecream.
The island is gorgeous, peaceful, beautiful. I could have spent days there. Japan specialises in ugly cities, but the countryside is amazing.

Hiroshima pictures

This is the cenotaph. Looking through the arch, there is a casket containing all the names of the people known to have died in the bomb; the atomic flame (which will only be extinguished when the last atomic weapon on Earth is dismantled); and in the distance, the atomic bomb dome.



This is the atomic bomb dome, formerly a council building. It (mostly) survived the blast by being underneath the hypocentre. Everything else was reduced to rubble.

No more Hiroshima

My mum is out visiting　me just now, and it has been great to see her. Her flight was luckily delayed an hour so this gave me time to race from work and meet her at the airport. She was driving me crazy approximately twenty minutes later on the train asking every two minutes, "are we nearly there yet?"

On Wednesday we got the shinkansen to Hiroshima (a surprisingly nice city) and looked around the peace museum. This was horrifying, depressing, and made us wonder why on earth we go to museums such as these. Bizzarely I find myself becoming numb to places like this having been to the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City, and the River Kwai memorial museum in Kanchanaburi. It`s strange that we feel the need to bear witness to war horrors while on vacation.
I felt sad and sickened by the fragments of clothes, skin and fingernails that families had clung to as mementoes of loved ones who died in the blast or the firestorms that destroyed Hiroshima. The copies of letters between members of the American war cabinet chosing which cities should be targets bewildered me. The process of war, the logistical details of exterminating as much human life as possible in the most economical way possible, always bewilders me.
Seeing the peace museum in Hiroshima and comparing the experience to other war museums I`ve seen in other countries is an odd feeling. There is no right side or wrong side, everyone is as brutal as everyone else, and ordinary people suffer the same everywhere.

Like an idiot child

I met up with Takako and her friend Azusa today for some high speed chat (Takako) and Japanese practice (Azusa). Japanese people tend to be kind and encouraging when it comes to foreigners' attempts at mangling/learning their language, but sometimes you have to put your progress (or lack thereof) into perspective. Japanese schoolchildren learn 10 kanji a day from their first day of elementary school. I know about 50 kanji. This puts me at the same reading level as a 6 year old after one week of elementary school.
I suspected I wasn't studying enough.

For what I promised myself was going to be a quiet week, I managed to get around quite a lot. My friends Kate and Toni abandoned Nova and so had to move out of their Nova flat pretty quick, they left the back end of nowhere and came to live just around the corner from me. They unpacked their futons and set about trashing the place and pissing off the neighbours with the best party I've been to in Nagoya. In fact, they pissed off the neighbours so much the police turned up. I met heaps of people there and wandered home at half past two in the pouring rain after a late-night icecream run. Sweet potato icecream is pretty tasty.
Not wanting to be outdone, Shannon moved out of his flat down the road from me and joined the hoardes in the gaijin ghetto, Freebell, and set about trashing the place and pissing off the neighbours with another great party. I wasn't in the mood for that one so much - it felt like there were too many people and I couldn't be bothered with them all. A lot of the same people were at both parties, including Sian, who invited me to hers for drinks on Sunday. That night was a nice change, just a small group of people I knew well and it was easier to chat and have a laugh together.
Finally, I have just survived Mitchell's party last night. Mitchell is one of the guys who works at my new school, Jusco Atsuta. Mitchell seems to know every skater in Nagoya. Lots of Japanese people at that party optimistically asked if I could skate, or speak Japanese, but I had to confess I could do neither. Some Japanese girls asked me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said no they started trying to set me up. With Iain. It was pretty funny.
Now I have a night in the flat by myself, and it is goooood.