Japan 2006 - Kyoto and Nara

Second and final entry in my trip report from Japan (at least, I haven't been able to find any later emails in my archives).

Well, I've been staying with Lisa in Osaka for five days now and have had an action-packed time. Turns out Kyoto has enough fascinating stuff to fill a six-week visit, let alone a one-week one. Anyway, I may have been raving enthusiastically about Tokyo in my last email but that was nothing compared to how much I'm loving Kyoto. Seriously, after coming home on the first day I went there I was so excited I couldn't nap properly.

Kyoto is a gorgeous city. At least, the shrines and temples, and there are a lot of them, are gorgeous... the modern part of the city is pretty much like the modern part of Tokyo or Osaka but on a smaller scale. Also beautiful is the historic part of town, where the streets are lined with tea-houses and inns, these two-storey wooden buildings that have little red paper lanterns outside to indicate their presence. Everything in that neighbourhood is very discreet... you can't see into the places at all,you're stuck admiring their quiet, elegant facades. Also there are a few streets with canals running along them, and now that the cherry blossoms are exploding everywhere it's an absolutely magical kind of place, especially at night. I've spent one full day in Kyoto, doing some intensive temple-hopping, and two evenings, eating and walking around.

Yesterday I went to Nara, the first capital of Japan, which has a multitude of shrines and temples as well, all set in an expansive park overrun with deer. The deer are cute but they harass people for food, and they eat all the greenery, and they're national treasures so they won't be leaving anytime soon. I think I read that there are about twelve hundred of them. Nara was nice, too, but not as nicely landscaped as the shrines in Kyoto. Although there is one shrine there with the largest indoor statue of a buddha. That building is enormous, and the buddha, equally so. Really impressive. Although the grounds of that temple (for your reference, temples are Buddhist, shrines are Shinto) are a little overrun with tourists. Kyoto's sights are equally touristy, but for some reason the gaijin seemed more prevalent in Nara than in Kyoto, and they make it seem more annoying. Possibly because the Japanese tourists tend to actually be visiting the shrine, with at least an inking of religious motivation, while the white tourists are just slightly bewildered or else loud and obnoxious.

On Sunday Lisa and I went to a town west of Kyoto called Arashiyama, a quaint little tourist town on a river, in the mountains, that is big stuff on the Cherry Blossom circuit. This country is obsessed with cherry blossom season, it turns out -- there is seasonally inspired everything. The kimono fabric on display features cherry blossoms, there are cherry-blossom-flavoured limited edition beverages for sale, cherry-blossom-flavoured chips, cherry-blossom-flavoured street food... it's bizarre. People go so far as to put up posters in the Kyoto subway every day, rating the dozen or so most popular spots for Hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) on a scale from zero to five blossoms. Anyway, luckily for us, Arashiyama was not on the list of must-see sites for Sunday, although unluckily for us this is because the blossoms there were mostly not out yet. But because it wasn't busy we were able to get on a river cruise that would have otherwise been sold out for days. A nice, scenic jaunt through the mountains... of course, with the thousands of trees planted along the route I could see how it might have been more spectacular in a week or two. At the end of Sunday, we met up with a couple that is friends with Lisa, and went for a nice dinner in Kyoto, and then to an onsen (naturally-heated hot spring, although in this case it was naturally heated hot tubs on the sixteenth floor of a hotel near Lisa's house). Today I'm going to attempt to get to a more rustic onsen, in the mountains north of Kyoto, where you sit ouside and look down a mountain valley. We shall see. For those of you who have seen Memoirs of a Geisha, I'm also headed to the shrine that has the path lined with the hundreds and hundreds of bright red gates (torii) that the girl runs along to pray with the coin the Chairman gives her.

Anyway, I'd better get a move on.

Take care, all, I'll see you in a week (sigh).

Japan 2006 - Tokyo

I'm feeling nostalgic today, and so have decided to reach all the way back to 2006 to pull in my notes from my trip to Japan. Here's the first of two entries, originally sent as emails to friends and family.

Hey everyone... I made it to Osaka, and am now staying at Lisa's place. She and her roommate have a huge, nice apartment almost right next to the park in which Osaka's castle is situated. After a few very busy days in Tokyo (my hostel was not in a location that was convenient for mid-day rest stops, so I pretty much went from dawn til dusk on my feet -- the absence of any public seating of any kind anywhere in the city didn't help, either) I'm taking a day off today. Slept in til 1*30, actually, so evidently I needed the break. Apologies for any bizarre punctuation, by the way... things aren't always where you expect them to be on a Japanese keyboard.

Anyway Tokyo was pretty fantastic, if totally overwhelming. The subway system there is ridiculous. It's very convenient once you figure out where you're going, but with a dozen or so different lines, the stations are enormous and finding your way to the right platform can involve a five-minute walk. That's not to mention the fact that there are also rail lines run by different companies. In Shinjuku, for instance, there are actually five stations named "Shinjuku station", each on a different line, and all connected by a maze of underground walkways. And then, of course, there are the people; the biggest station in Shinjuku handles two million riders a day, apparently. Luckily I was never squished into a rush-hour train myself, but navigating the flow of pedestrian traffic is still pretty much a nightmare. I haven't even mentioned the pedestrian overpasses, above-ground walkways, or the fact that many of the downtown train stations are several stories above ground level. It really is insane.

So, a bit about the city itself: it is incredibly enormous. It's twice as big, three times as bright, four times as confusing, and six times as incessant as I thought. The crowds were about the only thing i adequately envisioned. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Tokyo is the city that never even sits down. Seriously, the park benches aren't the only symptom; many of the eateries are standing-room only, and stands selling bento boxes for commuters seem to be the preferred lunch option. The shopping districts incorporate dozens of different monolithic department stores, each eight storeys tall and a full city block big... sandwiched in between these are these thin, tall buildings, with a different store on each floor, each with a sign down the side of the building advertising its existence. How anyone ever discovers (or chooses between) anything above the ground floor is a mystery to me. There's a Fifth-avenue style shopping district called Ginza next to what seems to be the modern financial area; there's a beyond-trendy area called Harajuku where all the high-fashion designers (Prada, Louis Vuitton, etc) have their flagship stores, each more architecturally adventurous than the last; there's Shibuya, with insane neon and video screens and all the stores you'd find in a high-end mall aimed at teenagers; and then Shinjuku, with a bizarre mix of department stores, discount clothing stores, and a red light district. I spent some time wandering around all of these areas, and also managed to get to the giant wholesale fish market bright and early on Monday morning. That place is just as enormous as you might expect (given that it's billed as the largest of its kind in the world), and not entirely pleasant all the time, what with the aisles and aisles of dead, dying, frozen or soon-to-be-eaten fish, shellfish, eels, and other critters. Also spent some time in a more "traditional" part of Tokyo called Asakusa, which is more like a normal, livable North American urban neighbourhood, with a nice shrine in it.

All in all, an utterly exhausting city, but one I'd love to go back to.

Dad, by the way, Chicago may be high on your list of Architectural Cities to Visit from a historical point of view, but I'd add Tokyo from a contemporary point of view. Some of the things being built here are awesome (particularly the fashion buildings in Harajuku... if you look through your Architectural Records at home you might find one with the Prada building on the front of it).

Anyway, I'm off for a bit of a stroll (can't spent the WHOLE day doing nothing, although it's already 4:30). Tomorrow I make my first of hopefully three or four visits to Kyoto (Lisa has to work, after all), and on the weekend there's talk of heading to Hiroshima for a night.

Easter Island Photos

As promised...

Ahu Vai Uri, Tahai. Ahu means platform; Vai Uri is the name of this platform. Tahai is the name of the former village that occupied this site.

Anakena beach.

The crater lagoon of Rano Kau, the volcano at the southwestern tip of the island.

Structures at Orongo, the former ceremonial village on the rim of Rano Kau.

Predawn at Ahu Tongariki.

Sunrise at Tongariki.

Sunrise at Tongariki.

Early-morning light at Tongariki.

Abandoned moai at Rano Raraku, the quarry where all the moai were carved.

Mother and child reunion, Rano Raraku.

20-ton faceplant, Rano Raraku.

Tongariki at midday.

Tongariki.

Last stop, Giant Head Statue Land!

Easter Island. Or, more accurately, Rapa Nui, in the language of the indigenous Rapanui. As one book I read put it, you go there for the statues, but you leave enchanted by the rest of the island. This is the best way I can think of putting it. The island is stunningly beautiful, with an addictively leisurely pace, and plenty of charm. All the advice I read said you could do the island in two or three days, but this approach imparts a sense of urgency to what should really be a very relaxed, almost organic process of discovery. I was there four full days and could easily have used five more, having left without seeing nearly half the island's sights.

I should be clear: as the very last stop on my trip (barring two days of lounging around Santiago waiting for my flight home), I wanted to take it very easy. My goal was to see what I could see without exerting myself beyond the kind of ambling pace that Jimmy Buffett would appreciate. I resigned myself to the possibility of missing a few highlights even before I arrived. I knew of at least one palm-lined, emerald-watered, white sand beach, and intended to take as much time there as I could. And so when I disembarked from my plane and was greeted by a representative from my hostel (Camping Mihinoa) with a garland of fragrant flowers, the four hours' delay in my flight simply melted away. I was smiling helplessly all the while we waited for our full complement of guests, and all through waiting for our van to arrive, and on the very short ride to our accommodation (turns out you could walk between the two in about twenty minutes). And when I arrived at the campsite, well, damn. It was just amazing.

Camping Mihinoa.

I had a dorm in a room at the back of the property. From the porch of that building the camping area stretched towards the fence, and beyond the fence, the shore: a red dirt road tracing the contours of a short cliff of angular black volcanic rock. The base of the cliff tumbled further out here and there in chaotic sharp piles, against which the surf exploded every five seconds; the white spray contrasted spectacularly against the ruddy black of the rock. And beyond all this, the ocean, and nothing for three thousand miles except the sunset every night. Needless to say, it was tempting not to leave the hostel at all; I could have sat contentedly on the edge of the cliff, watching the surf all day for five days straight.

My favourite spot on the island.

But, of course, I did leave. A brief overview, with photos to follow in subsequent posts:

Day one, I simply walked on my own to Hanga Roa, the island's only town. I poked around the little marina there and looking into scuba diving, which in the end I didn't do because I'm not certified and didn't feel like learning in Spanish, plus to get my Open Water would have been two full days and I didn't have them to spare. I then walked on past town a bit and had my first encounter with the moai ("MO-eye"; the statues). They were cool, what can I say. Obviousness abounds. Big, and silent, and awesome. On my way back I ran into an Aussie dude who had arrived at the camping that morning, and we and a French girl he was walking with whom he'd met at the tourist information shop repaired to an oceanside patio for a drink and dinner. We all got along very well and decided to see a few sites together in the days that followed. 

Day two, I woke up at 5:15 to get a ride out to a site called Tongariki, where I watched the sun rise behind a line of 15 moai, the longest set on the island. Needless to say, this was spectacular. The giant statues emerging from the darkness gave the same impression of being entities, rather than merely objects, as the Perito Moreno glacier had. Returning to the camping I met up with the others, who had elected not to see the sunrise that morning, and we set off on foot to see the nearby (extinct) volcano of Ranu Kau and the ruins of Orongo, a ceremonial village on its rim. I'll spare you the history lesson and just mention that this place took my by complete surprise. It too was spectacular, and fascinating, and absolutely gorgeous, and it had nothing to do with giant statues. Who knew?

Day three, the three of us took a full-day tour to see the north and east coasts of the island. The first site was the aforementioned beach, Anakena, which had, in addition to the sand and the palms and the water, an impressive platform of moai, that made the place just that much more unbelievable. Thence to some petroglyphs (carvings), and Tongariki (this time with full daylight and explanations). After that was the real highlight: the quarry at Rano Raraku. This place was just unbelievable. Finished and half-finished and just-started moai littered the site, some still half-submerged in the cliff out of which they were carved, many others buried up to their shoulders in sediment that had slid down from the side of the volcano. Think of a children's playground filled with toys, abandoned abruptly, so that everything is there except the people, and everything is perfectly still. (Ignore the images you may be conjuring from Terminator 2 -- nobody here is shattering into flaming bits and pieces in a nuclear holocaust.) This place had a similar feel: unnaturally empty. The statues seemed to have given up waiting for their owners to return. It was a fascinating and somewhat haunting open-air museum, testament to a vanished and now unknowable culture.

Day four I wasn't feeling so good -- I think the cold I thought I'd conquered in Mendoza was mounting a new attack. In keeping with my stated philosophy of sacrificing sights for pace, I gave up thoughts of seeing a few caves and just slept through most of the day. But at 4pm I reckoned lying on a beach wouldn't be too much of a stretch, so I cabbed it to Anakena and spent a few enjoyable hours amid the busy Sunday crowd, soaking in the sea and soaking up the sun behind the backs of that row of five-hundred-year-old stone enigmas. At last, saying goodbye to the beach for good, I had no trouble hitching a ride back to town, and watched the scenery roll by in reverse from the bed of a pickup truck as it drove down the spine of the tiny island back to Hanga Roa.

And with that my time there effectively came to an end. My flight the next day was at noon, leaving me too little time for any adventures in the morning. Instead I sat on the porch, read some, wrote some, took a quick walk to town, and then it was time to go. Having checked in and handed over my baggage, I spent my last minutes on the island sitting on a chair in a little grassy area in the waiting area, enjoying one last time the warmth of the Pacific sun on my toes, watching the loading, cleaning and refueling of the only plane on the only runway. Our plane. From this point on, every mile I traveled would take me closer to home. Holding onto this thought, I left the island as happily as I arrived there.

Beyond the walls

Needless to say, Valparaiso was more than just a collection of decorated walls, and it would be a disservice to the city not to provide a bit more info on my time there.

Saturday: I arrive at the hostel completely exhausted from three straight late nights in Santiago, and though it is four in the afternoon I crawl into bed with the intention of staying there until the next morning. My nap is derailed, however, by the arrival/return of two Brits who were traveling separately and had never met but are from the same small town, and one of whose brothers was good friends with the sister of the other. The coincidences are compounded by the arrival of three more English folks, whose last night in England had been spent at the first kid's local in London. Amazing! Such a small world leads inevitably to instant bonding, and much animated conversation, and after the talk of who knows whom and who supports what side run dry the conversation expands to include me and a very nice Australian couple. We all have dinner in the hostel, a tasty ceviche and pisco sour deal that our amazingly enthusiastic host prepares for us himself, and despite my intention to call it a night after dinner I find myself a few minutes later at a table in a lively bar with live music in the back, with orders put in for terremotos all around, except just a beer for me please on account of I don't see the need to go down that road again after La Piojera in Santiago. This place, it turns out, serves terremotos in jug form, a la sangria, and so rather than manageable glasses the table is soon crowded with too many heavy glass jugs of the stuff. Eventually of course, the jugs are drained, and as the rest of the crowd is  headed for the clubs, I call it a night and make it to bed at last, at a respectable 2am.

Sunday: The Aussies and one British couple leave us. I spend the morning wandering on my own, marveling at the profusion of murals. I'm nervous at first on account of the stories of danger I've heard but the neighbourhoods I venture into are actually quite safe and soon I'm much more confident about taking my camera out. In the afternoon those of us who are left head to the beach at Vina del Mar. More or less your typical resort, with a beach and highrise hotels, but the water is too cold for anyone except ecstatic kids, a few reluctant parents, and small knots of invincible teenagers trying to impress each other. For dinner we go to this tiny hole in the wall way down an alley, that specializes in chorillana, a kind of Chilean poutine equivalent: a mountain of fries, plus hard-boiled egg, sauteed onions and meat. The only question you get when you sit down is how big a plate you wanted; we take two two-person plates for the four of us and are very satisfied by the end. If they added gravy the thing might well take the crown of greatest fries concoction in the world, but while it was delicious it lacked a little lubrication. Thereafter we buy a couple of bottles of cheap wine and repair to the hostel for a quiet and mercifully early nightcap.

Monday: My plan to visit Neruda's house at San Sebastiana hits a fatal snag when I'm reminded that it's closed on account of it's Monday. I spend the morning wandering again through marginally less safe-feeling hoods without incident, plus I find an excellent streets-are-for-people-type intervention at the main square. After a yummy seafood lunch, a funicular ride to a lookout, and then a brief, moderately interesting boat tour, I bus it back to Santiago to prepare for the final leg of my journey: Easter Island.

Typical scene, from atop one hill, across a canyon
to the next.

This may, perhaps, be the reason some people
describe the city as filthy.

Typical street. Steeper than it looks.

One of countless stairway/alleys.
This looks about as steep as it is, i.e. very.

The Pasaje (Galvez) where my hostel was.
Hostal Casa Valparaiso, btw, highly recommended.
Muy buena onda, plus twin-sized mattresses on the bunks!

Colourful + dilapidated = super-typical scene.

The Chorillana restaurant, J. Cruz.

There were a few brushfires just over the ridge while we were
there. Relatively normal occurrence in summer, we heard.

See? It's a big place! View from the lookout at the top of one of the
few operational funiculars, no doubt open because it's a popular one
with tourists.

One of the (non-operational) funiculars.