Gion Matsuri

This is the second time Joules and I have been in Kyoto for this festival, which is probably the city’s most famous.

It is held in July each year and dates back to Heian times, about a 1000 years ago. The main part of the festival involves the building, displaying and parade of 32 floats. The big hoko floats are enormous wooden constructions which can weigh up to 10 tons .

They are made without and nails, instead relying on sturdy rope. It’s amazing that they don’t fall apart as 50 men to pull them around on parade day. There is a special kind of music, called Gion-bayashi, is perfomed by men sitting on top of these floats. It can also be heard around town in shops and malls in run up to the parade. Kon kon chiki kon kon, yep it can get quite annoying after a while.

On the three nights preceding parade day the floats are decorated with lanterns and the whole city comes out to see them. This is a Japanese festival so of course most people are more interested in the food and drink stalls, or winning a fish, rather than the ancient floats. Many of the teenagers get dressed up in yukata - a type of summer kimono, which adds to the festive atmosphere.

This year Joules’ host at the university was walking with the praying mantis yama float, which was first in the parade behind the head hoko float. The parade order is drawn by ballot and getting first place is a prestigious spot.

My favourite part of the festival is Hanagasa, which takes place a week after the big float parade. Hana means flower and gasa (kasa) means umbrella. It is centred on the Yasaka shrine in Gion. A parade of umbrellas is taken around the surrounding streets then there are different musical and dance performances back at the shrine, including some by the Gion geisha. Maybe that’s why I like it?

Osaka Aquarium

Is a fantastic place. I’ve been 3 times now, once each visit to Japan. It has the largest aquarium tank in the world, which contains a massive whale shark, as well as some big graceful rays, smaller sharks and other fish, but quite frankly who’s looking at them when you can look at a whale shark.

The main tank is in the centre of a huge modern building and starting at the top you wind your way round and down to the exit at ground level. As well as seeing the main tank at different heights it allows you to see the exhibits that surround the outer edge of the circuit at different levels too. So you can see emperor penguins standing under the snow shower above ground, you can see dolphins jumping in the air, seals taking a nap on a rock, as well as watching what they all get up to underwater in their different tanks.


And they leave 2 of the best exhibits for last – the massive, scary looking Japanese spider crabs and the glorious jellyfish.

Koyasan

Joules and I took a break from the heat and humidity of Kyoto to spend a few cooler July days in the picturesque town of Koyasan, south of Kyoto and Osaka. It’s a small town full of temples built on a plateau high up in the forested hills.

Being a temple town most of the accommodation is in temples. We stayed the first night at Rengejoin described in our guidebook as elegant, which it certainly was and the second night at the nice youth hostel. We arrived just in time for dinner, which had been prepared and laid out in one of the front rooms, overlooking the dry, white raked gravel garden. Temple food is called shojin ryori, a special cuisine prepared by monks. As well as an absence of meat and fish there is no use of garlic or onion. Visually it is stunning, though even for a vegetarian some of the tastes took a bit of getting used to.

Our accommodation for the night was in a tatami room overlooking a second garden, full of trees and shrubs and a few koi carp swimming in the pond. At 6am a loud gong was sounded and which was the cue to attend the morning temple service. I managed to arrive before the head priest, which I was quite proud of, considering my dislike of early starts. The head priest and 4 other monks chanted for about 45mins and it was relaxing sitting listening to them in the incense filled morning air.

In the days we wandered round the sites of the town, including the interesting head temple of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism, which had some gorgeous painted screens and a massive rock garden. Another area called the Garan had a huge stupa, Daito, a very impressive building. We also visited the cemetery Okunoin, a massive place. It wais a strange experience to walk along the paths towards the Lantern Hall, as the rays of sunlight filtered through the trees and the stone and wooden grave markers and statutes became almost ghost like in the haze.



The oddest place we found in the town was a small temple by the side of the road. Behind the altar was a mini museum of Buddhist artefacts from around the world, the best of all being the Buddhas backlit by multicoloured flashing LED screens. Fab!

Lucky Yebisu

This is the story of the lucky Yebisu beer bottles.
Yebisu or Ebisu is one of the 7 gods of fortune, who is normally depicted with a fishing rod and a red fish he’s. It is also a make of very tasty beer, and the picture on the label is of this god.
Yamamoto told us about the lucky Yebisu bottles, apparently one in every 100,000, that has a picture of Yebisu with a second red fish. In 2003 we ended up with 2 of these lucky bottles, both ordered at 844. The owner couldn’t believe how lucky that was, nor could our Japanese friends that had never seen even one. Just to point out, we didn’t have to drink 200,000 beers to get them!

Kyoto Eateries – Part 1

Being a vegetarian in Kyoto is easy-ish. Luckily, there are quite a few completely veggie/vegan places and a few more that have a large part of their menu dedicated to us lot. The mix of places is good too, in terms of cuisine, style and price. This is a good site for mainly veggie Kyoto restaurants and cafes.

Here are the first few of my favourite places:

Café Peace, near the university. Mainly vegan it has a good set lunch of Japanese dishes for under ¥1000/£5 and in the evening has tasty gyoza, mabo dofu and Thai green curry among its Asian inspired dishes. It has a small library of travel books, and a great loyalty card that allows you to receive a free drink and a free Café Peace bag and a free lunch or t-shirt, all for 40 points. We’re on our second card now and I use the big sturdy bag to carry about my woodblock printing materials.

Obanzai, just northwest of Oike/Karasuma. A buffet delight of Kansai dishes. The week day lunch time deal is great, eat as much as you like/can for just over ¥800. There are tofu dishes, gluten nuggets, potato croquettes, lots of vegetable dishes, salad, miso soup and rice. There is normally one fish dish to be avoided. The décor reminds me of a sauna, the walls are made from light wood logs and the seating and tables are made of the same wood. It is nicely air-conditioned though, so not like a sauna in that respect! The staff in the kitchen all thank you for eating there in a cheerful chorus when you leave.

Mikoan on Kawabata, south of Reisen dori. Run by a lady priest who loves cats, this is a small counter seating vegan place. The evening set menu for ¥950 is fantastic. On a tray you receive a bowl of rice, miso soup, 3 different vegetable dishes, normally including a mushroom dish and a green veg dish. There is also a fried dish, made from gluten or soy. Currently a kitten that was rescued by the owner shares the countertop and a beautiful huge tabby cat is normally found curled up in its cardboard box on a shelf by the window. The walls are covered with pictures of cats, and there are little figures of cats on any free space of the counter or bar. It is quite easy to miss the small shrine nestled in between the bottles of sake and spirits, a reminder of the owner’s background.


And though no longer with us a special mention is deserved for The 844 Store Café. Run by an artist - Yamamoto Shinya, it was a crazy kind of place that served great gyoza and veggie gratins. The owner’s art decorated the walls and he encouraged his customers to write on the walls and tabletops. Joules and I would often sit by the doodle done Agent Smith from The Matrix. A big blue giraffe also added to the offbeat feel of the place. The owner remembered us from our 2003 visits, maybe because we were the people that ended up with not one, but two lucky bottles of Yebisu beer, and it was great to be able to return a couple of times before it closed at the end of May this year.

Kurama

Joules and I like visiting Kurama, up in the hills to the north of Kyoto. It's a bit cooler than in town and there is a good walk across the hills from Kibune to Kurama, which we did in 2003, ending up at a fab onsen, which has outdoor baths. Japan is a country of festivals and they come in all shapes and sizes. We went to 2 festivals slightly unusual ones in May and June this year at Kurama temple.


Each year on the night of the May full moon they hold the Uesaku festival. It is a Himalayan style festival, the only one like it in Japan and Joules, Yoko and I went along. It's a nighttime festival so the path up to the temple was lit with lanterns and at the top most people held small candles.

There were just a few clouds in the sky and the full moon was shining brightly down on the fir tree covered hills and valleys. The first part of the evening involved walking through the underground caverns at the back of the temple, which contained a small Buddha.


Along the way we were blessed by chanting priests. The second part was a 90 minute meditation session. Unfortunately sitting down on the gravely ground in complete silence in the now chilly night were not the ideal conditions to attempt meditation for the first time! After 30 minutes we made as quiet an exit as possible to catch the last train home. There was a third part that apparently ran into the small hours – I guess you’d need to go yourself to find out about that.


In late June Joules and I went to a rather more accessible daytime festival – the Takekirie bamboo cutting ritual. This is apparently performed to prevent disaster and to honour the sacred waters flowing around the mountains of Kurama, however we mainly went along to watch men in funny costumes hacking up big bamboo with shiny swords. There are two sections of bamboo cutting: in the first section one team at a time cut the bamboo, counting how many strikes are needed and in the second half all the teams complete against each other in a race. A lady dressed in a scary orange costume performed a dance in the interval. At the end of the rituals there was a mad scramble by the audience to collect shards of bamboo to take home for good luck. This looked fun so I joined in the clean up operation.

Kamogawa Odori

I’ve got a few books about geisha and I’ve become a bit of a fan, but not of the hand held kind. One of these books Geisha by Liza Dalby mentions the Kamogawa Odori, the spring public dances by the geisha of Pontocho, and I was really excited to get the chance to go.

There are several groups of geisha in Kyoto, including those from Gion and Pontocho and I’ve sometimes managed to catch a glimpse of them in the early evening in the streets of these areas of town. In the spring and autumn special performances are held which allow the general public a chance to see the geisha perform in music and dance.

From the 1st to the 24th May the geisha of Pontocho held their 168th annual spring dance in the Pontocho Kaburenjo Theatre. They hold 3 performances a day, as well as carrying on with their regular evening work, so they must be pretty exhausted by the end of it. Kamogawa is the river that runs through the city, right outside the theatre and Odori means dance.


The first part of the performance was a comic play – Monogusa Soshi – The Story of Lazy Taro about a lazy village poet who is sent to work at a lord’s house in Kyoto. He is discovered to be the grandson of the late emperor and marries the lord’s daughter. The geisha performed all the roles and it seemed to be received well, there was lots of laughter and clapping.



The second part was a series of 5 dances – Passing of Spring in Kyoto. To the left of the stage were the geisha musicians, whilst on stage, geisha, and sometimes maiko, performed the dances themed around flowers, forest animals and rain. The end dance involved everyone and it was breathtaking to see that many geisha and maiko, all in their beautiful kimono and make-up.