Tokyo, Kyoto and the Bullet that Brought Them Together

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Preamble-ulations

Sometimes I just wake up at 3am and I know I won’t get back to sleep. I don’t fight it anymore or get concerned about the day. I like to think that relaxing in bed in the dark counts for something. This morning was like that. Unable to shut myself down once awoken, I passed a couple hours until sunrise, and decided to force myself out the door. My Fukushima Spartan was coming soon and I needed to get primed. Time for interval training! Yay!

If there’s even the remotest chance I will get up early and run, I lay my jogging get-up and shoes next to the bed. No thinking required! So, at 5am I rolled out of bed and into the park surrounding our towering hotel.

Cobblestone pathways curving around gardens, temples and playgrounds awaited me. A light rain provided the perfect weather – cooling to the skin in the open and a soft sounding pitter-pat when under leaf cover.

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I found a few auspicious looking items, like a grave site of an ancient important person (perhaps the prince to which this park and our hotel were named after?) – and a giant gate that led into a park area, which contained among other things, a wish tree.

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I continued on – trying to get a workout here! Then a rather imposing Buddhist temple interrupted my mindless plod and drew me into its grounds. Stately and strong, it was a different side of the Buddha than we’d seen in Thailand.

There was a large gated entryway with fierce looking guardians on each side. Buddha had gotten some badass friends since he wandered up north.

I was alone, meandering about the hallowed grounds in the rain, popping pictures and examining the artifacts until I noticed the worshippers coming in. Bowing and praying before the statues, making their way up the grand stairs (with more reverend bowing in stages along the way) and disappearing into the candle lit interior of the temple.

Did I continue obnoxiously snapping photos, reducing their morning ritual into a postcard tourist curiosity? No, I quietly tip-toed away. In the sacred fold of their morning worship, I felt a trespasser. Buddhism appeals to me but don’t count myself amongst the devoted flock.

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Rail-y Fast

Navigating Tokyo Station (the gigantic main central depot) wasn’t as daunting as the comparatively tiny Meguro station from the day before. In fact, we took shortcuts, passed locals and made a beeline right to our platform.

Were we suddenly Japanese-fluent streetwise city mavens? Nope, Stasia had hired a driver to take us not only to the station but to also deliver us through the labyrinth directly to our train car. Brilliant! Saved all kinds of stress and argument.

There was this fantastic sort of last-chance convenience store on the platform. Was it loaded with crappy sugar bombs, sodas and chips? No, this is Tokyo! We found fresh nori-wrapped rice snacks, pork cutlet sandwiches, dried squid sheet, juices and beer.

At 170 mph, the bullet train was as smooth as 12 year old scotch, which they served on board via roller carts. That monster quietly tore through the various prefectures, suburbs, forests and towns that fill Japan’s green interior.

Relaxing in giant recliners, we munched snacks, wagged chins and fiddled phones until our chariot stopped and we had about 30 seconds to get the hell off that thing before it started back up. We were ready though, and we stepped out into the Kyoto morning.

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Livable, Lovable Kyoto

We have fallen in love with a few of the cities in which we’ve travelled. There is this sweet spot you sometimes find, when all opposing attributes find a harmonious balance and you get a familiar welcoming vibe, as if you were destined to be here. Kyoto is such a place, and it took us just a night to feel it. Somewhere between old world and new, between intimate small town and crowded marketplace, between suburban normality and San Francisco weird, Kyoto gently lives.

Sleepy neighborhoods line little streets where assorted hole-in-the-wall ramen shops, calligraphy supplies, public baths and hand-made boutiques randomly appear.

Walk a little further and the path opens onto main avenues lit by store fronts and paper lanterns. Lots of cars and people out but it’s not smelly, dirty, or too loud. The air feels full of excitement and good energy.

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Mixed in the middle of this metro are marketplaces where vendors of every make and model ply their wares under soft lit canopy. We strolled through as they were closing shop.

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Ryokan Roll

Our stay here is in a ryokan – a traditional one-room Japanese style accommodation, complete with rice paper sliding doors, bamboo mats and legless chairs.

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Despite being in a quiet little street, it’s a stones-throw from the Imperial Palace and a couple of the more bustling marketplaces. The owner, a disarmingly gentle older woman – cool as a cucumber but with a quiet power – is at one a lovable grandma figure and a sharp instrument you never want to find yourself on the business end of. She runs this 4 floor hotel as tight as a kimono’s obi and we never deviated from the rule sheet she gives to all renters.

We arrived at 1pm but it was still to early to check in so we set out to find the 4-star ramen joint a half-mile from the inn.

Trying to find a place in Japan using only kanji script and a dodgy internet connection is not as easy as it sounds.

Awesome ramen diner, loved it! Simple working-mans fare with plenty-o-hot-spice to doctor it up.

We walked back to our ready room and passed out on the floor-mat beds for a much deserved afternoon siesta.

Stasia and I both woke a few hours later and made a plan to pamper those slaves who carry out our every wish – our feet! Google found us some foot massage options and a few wrong turns later we found one, but there was a 40 minute wait….

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That’s When we Found our Place

Everyone who enjoys a libation now and again has their place – the public place where they feel most relaxed tossing one back. We stumbled on to ours during our wait. In between a coffee shop and a restaurant, an unassumingly narrow descending staircase appeared – we’d have missed it if we blinked. What could be down there? Must investigate…

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This little shoebox, located in the underworld, had all the right ingredients – smoky and dimly lit, jazz LPs on the turntable, nobody else but us and that certain funky cool retro quality, like it was a holdout during prohibition or accessible by invite only. They served just beer and whiskey. The bathroom was through a tiny door, up a steep staircase and it was just one open room – which you had to pass by the urinals to get to the stalls… sorry ladies.

We each shared our Kirin/Sapporo/whiskey order and got properly relaxed for – what would soon be – our upcoming exquisitely joyful torture.

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Rolling a Pair of Aches

Those girls at the foot massage place applied such magnificent pressure and strength, I had to deep-breathe and redirect the ouch through my exhale lest I cry out. There was pondering later on how those little Herculean hands pushed, rubbed and ground out all the aches so masterfully. We floated back to our mats and were soon born off to dreamland.

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And here’s a random thing I saw in Kyoto