So how’d my first night in a ryokan go? Pretty well, all things considered, though if I had to describe it in a short-handed way it’s a lot like being at camp. (This was probably due to the low-budget nature of the place.) Without any furniture to clutter up a room you have much more space to spread out, and bare rooms are so much more idealy suited for tatami than, say, western-style furniture. The air conditioner was damn near nuclear powered, which was very nice, given the humidity problems I mentioned yesterday. There’s probably a trick to laying out the futon that I haven’t figured out yet, given that I think there was a crease in a particularly unpleasant spot last night. Pillows are hard, bead-filled things. Also, if you’re over six feet tall, you might want to give second thoughts to staying in a ryokan — the futon is not six feet long, and though it wasn’t a problem for me, most of the night, you might not like sleeping with your knees drawn up.

I managed to wake up stiff and cramped, with a bad kink in my neck. Nothing a shower won’t fix, right? Wrong. Bathing at ryokan is a night affair, and I didn’t partake last night because of an unavailability of towels. (Sponge-style baths in the sink aren’t the same thing.) Talking to some people here, it turns out that bathing in the morning is considered a little.. well, odd. Anyway, thanks to my versatile hairstyle, you couldn’t tell. Hooray for intentionally messy hair! (See, nay-sayers? It has a purpose.)

Toyo picked me up. Together we found my new hotel and dropped my bags off. She was unimpressed. “It’s really out of the way,” she said. Not significantly worse than Shinjuku, but not appreciably better, either, especially with the bus situation taken into consideration. “It doesn’t seem very nice.” She could tell I was decidedly non-plussed about the whole thing, too, so it took about ten minutes for me to decide that I was going to look for a new place to stay. As it turns out, my first choice in Kyoto — a hotel that is much nicer and much more convenient and comes with multiple positive recommendations — has room, starting tomorrow night, so I booked myself in. Hotels are tight everywhere right now; it’s Health and Sports Day today. Ostensibly it’s a statutory holiday, which is why I couldn’t do the Imperial Palace today, but that and the post office are about the only things that are closed; everything else is open, and with good reason — the Japanese seem to love traveling on their stat days. Nao made some kind of sarcastic comment last night about it being a “nonsensical” holiday and she’s probably got a point except that who am I to judge? Today’s Thanksgiving back in Canada — the second Monday of the month is a holiday at home, too — and I can sort of see how pointless a holiday that would seem to someone who wasn’t Canadian, too.

(Still, you have to admire my timing. Earthquake, typhoon, statutory holiday.. I found out there’s a huge matsuri in Himeji while I’m there, which is both good news and bad. Good news, in the sense that there’ll be something interesting to go look at that night; bad, in the sense that there will be a lot of people in town.)

As I said last night, Toyo is almost as bad as my grandmother. “You need to eat when you travel,” she told me after finding out that I hadn’t had breakfast. “You should know better.” She’s right; I do know better, but I also know that I rarely if ever eat breakfast at home and don’t see why this should be any different. Nao fed me leftover pancakes; Toyo brought fruit. “Itadakimasu.” Oh, all right, fine.. Heyyy! Mandarin oranges two months ahead of schedule! Score. (PS: They’re way better over here. The stuff we get back home.. there’s no contest.)

Kiyomizu-dera is one of the most famous temples in all of Japan, and one of the places I really really wanted to see during my time in Kyoto. It was founded in 798 and rebuilt in 1633 by Tokugawa Iemitsu and sits on a stunningly beautiful spot on Mount Otowa. Nominally devoted to the goddess of mercy and compassion (good guidance for those of us in the healing arts) Kiyomizu attracts legions of tourists more because of its stunning views than because of its religious significance. Me, I wanted to see it because it’s famously photogenic.

Toyo and I drove up about halfway. It was unbelievably crowded, probably too crowded to really enjoy it properly, thanks to the combination of the aforementioned stat holiday and the general popularity of the site: I’m coming to the conclusion that although I got very nice pictures of Kyoto below, and of some of the buildings, if I really want to photograph the temple properly, and if I want to experience the place the right way, I’m going to have to go back first thing in the morning one day this week. (The temple opens at 6:00 which makes it a perfect trip for anyone who flies into KIX, spends their first night in Kyoto, and is up that early with jet lag.) My guidebook notes, with barely concealed sorrow, that “some people” may be put off by the overly commercial feel of the place. I can’t really disagree — the temple’s surroundings have a very kitchy feel to them, with lots of souvenir shops and vendors hawking their wares. It’s a neat place, though, and I certainly do want to go back — maybe Thursday morning, before I leave for Himeji.

It was while leaving Kiyomizu that the day’s most sickening event occurred. We were about to get into the car and I needed a free hand — my EOS was in my right hand, with the strap wrapped around my wrist a couple of times; my digital camera was in my left hand. I went to extract my hand from the EOS strap and.. clunk. The digital camera somehow had gone from “in left hand” to “hanging unsupported in mid-air.” I didn’t worry about the pictures; like most of you, I read that article about the durability of digital memory. But I worried about the optics and the CMOS sensor. Of course, I’d be remiss if I failed to point out the optics on most cheap digital cameras are actually made out of plastic, but whatever, it was a concern. I picked the camera up, shoved the batteries back in, and flipped it on.

No damage.

(I later discovered that one of the retaining clips that holds the battery compartment closed had broken off, so the little door is only held on one side. There’s a reason I brought a couple pieces of duct tape with me..)

Nao, Peter, and Toyo were going to Osaka in the afternoon so I bummed a ride with them downtown. Toyo pointed me in the direction of Takashimaya’s food floor, and we said our goodbyes. As I said yesterday, I’m going to be forever grateful for her hospitality and help on my first day and a bit here in Kyoto. (I also suspect I made promises I’m later going to resent having to keep, relating to things like Web site development and hosting, but what the hell, it keeps me sharp.) They boarded the Hankyu train to Osaka, and I went the other way, into Takashimaya.

Western department stores have nothing on their Japanese counterparts. I mean, seriously. Only a culture that was consumed with shopping in all of its myriad forms would have developed something as remarkable and as mind-blowing as the department stores here. The food floor, in the basement, is by far and away the best example of the mind-blowingness. I think the best way to describe it is to offer an analogy: Think of Eau Claire in Calgary, or Granville Island in Vancouver, or Fanieul Hall in Boston, or Pike Place in Seattle. Now compress it down into the size of a city block. Now double the amount and variety of food for sale. It’s a ridiculously cool place to hang out and wander around; you’ll see all kinds of strange things. It’s like.. Uwajimaya in Seattle, only better. Dozens of fish, out in the open, held up for the amusement of small children. Raw beef sliced so thin you can see through it (and priced so high you can’t afford it). Square citrus fruit. Fruit gift sets that cost in excess of $70. A hundred different kinds of boxed meals. A huge pile of fish roe with no sneeze guard. Back home, the sanitation requirements alone
would preclude this kind of market but this was easily the most interesting consumeristic experience I’ve had in years, anywhere.

Emeril’s been talking about “food of love” for years. I think he’s got it wrong — food is the language of love. Well, OK, a language of love. It’s universal. Maybe it’s because I’m a foodie that I reacted this way; I dunno. But it’s a blast. You must go.

Takashimaya’s food floor deserves special recognition because of the phenomenal French bakery shoehorned in a corner. Notwithstanding the novelty of being able to read signs and labels again (even if they were frequently spelled wrong — I didn’t know there was such a thing as pain au mie) the smell will drive you berzerk. There are plenty of carbohydrates available in Japanese cuisine but it’s mainly rice and noodles; bread doesn’t factor into the diet here the way it does in North America. And standing in front of a beautiful brioche, I realized exactly how much I had missed it. Complex carbohydrates! Starch! Bread! (I promise, M., that I will never make fun of your bread-eating habits ever again, even if it means I have to surrender my diabetes jokes.) I bought a half-dozen small cheese buns (Y180); they lasted about five minutes. OH-so-good. You have no idea. Best. Bread. Ever.

The rest of Takashimaya is mind-blowing, too, though perhaps not to the same degree. A stroll through the store revealed a half-dozen potential gifts for people back home. I found a giant DVD selection and thought about looking for certain people.. then realized it was a pointless exercise since, with notably few exceptions, these disks won’t play in North American players. Damn you, MPAA! (This evening, over dinner, I also realized that was likely a false problem, since the people for whom I would be buying DVDs are the same people who also happen to have de-region-encoded DVD players. But then there’s the issue of language..)

Two facets of my consumeristic side were sated today: Fashion-Whore Mike realized his wardrobe, while fashionable by North American standards, has absolutely nothing on Japanese fashion, especially in the formal-wear department. Wow. Next to this stuff, my suits look old and dated (practically ready for inclusion on That 90’s Show). I talked to a shirt-maker; in Brokenglish he explained that Japanese men prefer custom-made clothes. I have no idea whether he was right or not, but I know what I want.

Also, Pen-Whore Mike had a field day, though he limited himself to five new pens for himself, which were less than $5 all told, and far, far nicer than anything he’s seen back in Canada. He was going to buy a ceramic ball-point, but then realized how pointless that would be. (Ha ha! Ball-point pen technology joke.)