Final Romps in Kyoto

Well my last few days in Kyoto were coming to an end, so I wanted to be sure to get to the must-see destinations. On the top of the list were Katsura Rikyu, an old Imperial villa in Southwest Kyoto, and the Daitoku-ji temple complex.

Katsura Rikyu is famous for its display of "purely" Japanese architectural form, along with its beautiful garden. The Japanese brochures typically hail the Villa as exhibiting Japanese design techniques with no outside influence. This is almost definitely untrue, at least as far as history is concerned, but whatever. The Japanese tend to cast a somewhat blind or perhaps myopic eye on the true history of their culture (examples being religion and aesthetics). So says the American. Anyway, so beautiful architecture and gardens.



Another day I took the time to visit the Daitoku-Ji temple complex, which houses a decent number of gardens and temples. Each with their own separate 5 bone entry fee! As such, I visited only one temple, but a solid one, the Daisen-In, a karesansui style, or dry rock landscape garden. Photos were not allowed. At first I was disappointed by this, but soon appreciated the fact that I could focus much better on the scenery around me instead of the composition in the lens. The signs in the garden told that the rock landscape has divulged infinite wisdoms for centuries. I considered this. I did find one wisdom. Some introduction to the wisdom.

In Buddhism the concept of time is brought up continuously. From many books I've read, my understanding is that Buddhists do not believe that time exists in the normal understanding of the word. They believe that only the moment, this moment, exists. It is constantly changing. There is no past, and there is no future- these are only constructions of the mind, psychological tools used to calibrate ourselves in an everpresent state of change. I think I get this, and it seems sensible enough to me (I'm no rocket scientist. Any kudos, future physicist friends?).

Well In Zen Buddhism, the goal of meditation is to empty the mind of thought so that you may experience this ever-changing moment for what it really is, whatever that may be, devoid of human time. To become an empty vessel, a "pregnant void" as Zen's Taoist ancestral roots would put it. Zen dry landscape gardens are one vehicle with which to focus/release the mind (which is it?) to this empty state. Typically these gardens depict water of some sort- that's what all those raked pebbles are, flowing water. This "water" then interacts with various other rocks. Examples would be waterfalls or ripples around giant, partially buried boulders. Anyway, so the wisdom I got was that this rock garden is supposed to be representing a frozen moment, one instant in the "river of constant change" that is existence, reality, THE IT, whatever you call all of this. All of the pebbles representing water drops stopped in time. Taking this further, you realize that the paused moment the garden represents is itself the ever-changing moment, THE IT. At the very least the rocks' atoms are a shakin' and a dancin'. Pretty neat, I think!

There were a few other realizations that I will reserve for personal discussion, for sake of laziness. I will end with a quote that I read on my way out of Daisen-In (there was no punctuation).

"Each day is training Training for myself through failure is possible Living each moment equal to anything Ready for everything I am alive- I am this moment My future is here and now, for if I cannot endure today when and where will I?"

-Souen Ozeki

Catching up!

At the moment I am sitting in a log cabin in a forest in the mountains, nestled just next to a large stream. I can hear the water as I fall asleep and I listen to its pleasant sound with my coffee in the morning. Basically, it's like, bogus! But more on that later. I've been very busy the last few days, and my last hostel didn't have internet, so I want to catch up on my last days in Kyoto before moving on to the fun stuff.

After staying in Waraku-an for a few nights, I switched hostels again, this time to Orange Inn. I was pleased to find that I had a 10 person room entirely to myself. There were only 3-4 people staying in the hostel which could accommodate at least 50. Bonus! (lack of internet- Negabonus). The hostel has an interesting, if eclectic, array of media for patrons' use: A bunch of books in Japanese (on who knows what, not I), a dozen or so English language, college-level textbooks on the topic of City Planning, TWENTY-FOUR VHS tapes of the hit American sitcom, "Friends", and a collection of various BBC sitcoms. Needless to say, I only took advantage of the BBC sitcoms. After tiring of Japanese language stuff after nearly three weeks, I found a great deal of comfort in, "Only Fools and Horses", a superb BBC comedy sitcom- apparently rated by the British as the best sitcom of all time! Who knew?

Starting at Left: Silly Uncle Albert, Nice-Guy Rodney, Slick Salesman Dell Boy, and Boring-Character Grandpa

This show really helped relieve my as-of-late case of the Mondays. I was getting a little overdone on Japanese stuff- my only reading materials were a Japanese language dictionary, a book on Japanese grammar and a book of poetry by Matsuo Basho (Traveling writer who invented the Haiku). I was a bit Japan-ed out. But then I bought a great book, "Freedom Evolves", by Daniel Dennett. What a good book (boring end, though). I will definitely read more of his stuff. "Only Fools and Horses" helped as well. Currently, I'm armed with "Freakonomics" and "Man's Search for Meaning", both of which sound promising.

After a short break from touring and a filler up on English media, I was ready to attack more sights. New post for them.

Where to WWOOF? You be the judge!

I'm trying to decide on a place to do farmstay (the program I'm with is called WWOOF Japan- Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms). I have a place already set up from June 10-July 1, but I need to figure out what I'm doing after that. I'm considering going back to the Mt. Fuji area- maybe climb to the top? There are two hosts in that region currently accepting WWOOFers that I'm looking at:

1. Eco-Village type thing, focusing on environmental sustainability. Excellent view of Mount Fuji from the porch.

2. Vineyard owned by some older dude. I would learn about grapes and growing them, but the farm is only partly organic and sort of factory-style.

Which will it be? You can vote by posting a comment. For god's sake comment more.

Waraku-An

I had sat at Kyoto's Cheapest Inn long enough, so I took a break from the place and decided to stay a few nights in a slightly more expensive, more traditional Japanese inn called Waraku-An. Well worth the price! To get there, you had to walk down this short path to the entrance:



The inside of the place was great- hardwood floors everywhere, beautiful Japanese paper lamps, and a Japanese-style garden in the middle of it all! The whole time I was there I was hoping it would rain, because it would have been incredibly relaxing and enjoyable to sit right next to the garden through a storm, but alas- not a drop. If I ever build a house, I'm definitely installing one of these babies.





Even the toilet room got the special treatment. You can see why I don't call it the bathroom. I guess w.c. would be applicable, here. Maybe t.c.? Do periods go at the end of sentences that end like the previous one or is a question mark substituted? I'd sure like to know.



The rooms were in the traditional style:



In all, staying at Waraku-An was an excellent decision. It was only 2500 yen/night, which is extremely reasonable especially when considering the peaceful, traditional atmosphere. A Japanese girl staying at the place asked me if I thought the inn seemed "Japanese", to which I responded, "Well, I guess so. I mean, it seems like it is". She informed me that it was very Japanese style, except that it was a little bit western. This meant that it was "too nice", as she put it. The place wasn't always so nice, however. The owners, apparently a new-ageish French dude and his Japanese wife, remodeled the inn after purchasing it in somewhat rundown condition. They had a small album which recorded the remodeling process- very inspiring, what they did. It really makes me want to build a house. The French guy was an interesting character, and his new-agedness definitely rubbed off on the place. My first encounter with him was at the reception desk. He had long black hair pulled tightly in a ponytail, and was garbed in a traditional Japanese shirt with big, billowing pants. In his left hand he wielded his baby daughter, and in his right a fully loaded breast pump with bottle. It was a bit like sleeping at Pier-one. I even overheard Dido and Enya a number of times, which was strangely acceptable considering the atmosphere.

Anybody see that episode of South Park with the Chinese singer Wing that covers (with reliably awful and hilarious creative interpretation) such musical acts as AC/DC and Elvis? Well, I overheard Wing playing at Waraku-An a couple of times. I've also heard her in a number of stores around Kyoto. Weird!

Super Touristy Crap

Touristy, yet beautiful. The Golden Pavilion was probably the most tourist-loaded sight I've seen in Japan yet. But I went on Saturday, so I was expecting such a turnout. There wasn't much to do aside from photographing the pavilion. Some of the fruit of my lens's loins:




I like the second one better. I think the clouds' reflection in the water helps give the photo a more heavenly atmosphere. Probably closer to what the Pavilion's designers had in mind. It also keeps you from noticing the somewhat unattractive natural poop brown color of the water.

After the Golden Pavilion, I sought out the Silver Pavilion, which is not so properly titled. The structure is not silver and is considerably smaller in stature than the Golden Pavilion. While the building itself was neither silver nor as grandly decorated as its golden counterpart, it was nonetheless a worthwhile sight. It also had a very attractive moutainside garden which was much more impressive and savory than the Golden Pavilion's. Not much in the way of photographs worth posting, sorry.

Relaxing in Kyoto

Well, last Thursday I took the train from Osaka to Kyoto to begin my stay there (here, for now). I've done a lot the past week with little chance to use the internet, so I have a lot to catch up on. I checked in at my first hostel in Kyoto on Thursday- Kyoto's Cheapest Inn, aptly named. I'm not so sure that it is actually the least expensive place to stay in Kyoto, but it seemed to be cheap in the other sense of the word. I shared a room with about 20-30 other people, which got a little warm at night due to the amount of body heat generated. We probably could have produced the electricity for the place to run on. For all those people there was one shitty old iMac computer- the "newer" sort of Macs we used in gradeschool, for you Annunciation kids.

I did most of my Kyoto sightseeing while there. On Friday, I had a very exciting trip to the Saihoji Temple, also called Kakodera. It is famous in Japan for its exquisite variety (over 120 types) of mosses that grow there naturally. It was a nice break from the more typical tourist-infested temple, but at a price. In order to gain permission to enter the temple and garden, you have to mail them (postal, not electronic) the date you wish to go, alternative dates etc. and then show up with your proof of acceptance. Once arriving, you have to pay a minimum 3000 yen (roughly 26 bones, USD) "donation".
Upon entering the temple grounds, we were ushered into a prayer hall where we got to sit through a buddhist ceremony of sorts. In all there were around 40 people on the tour, and there were only three westerners including myself. Before the ceremony started we all kneeled down at our little tables and wrote a buddhist prayer(Okay, traced a buddhist prayer) to fully prepare ourselves to enter the garden. This was cool because we used the traditional brushes, ink and stone to write it. Afterwards, the monks all chanted the prayer, which was SWEET (very unusual and musical) and we finally went into the garden.

The only reason I knew about this garden was because I saw a photograph of it in a Japanese gardening book of mine, and thought, "Hey, that place looks pretty sweet". The whole deal about writing to them, in addition to the huge cost further tempted me. It was worth it- a very beautiful place.

New- anonymous comments

Just letting you know that I changed a setting, so the blog now allows anonymous comments. This means you can comment on a post without signing up for anything. If you do post anonymously, please leave your name so I at least know who you are. And just for your information, blogger is under the umbrella of Google, so if you have a google or gmail account, setting up a blogger account is a zip.