This weekend was a tour to the Kansai region. I originally had plans to travel to Osaka with some friends, but one of those friends had financial issues with the bank back in the States (issues I understand completely, as I will document below >.<), so I decided to sign up for the tour instead. Yamasa tours are a lot of fun, and you get to see a lot of stuff, but they're very draining and very hectic. Sacrificing freedom and your own schedule does get you a steep discount on travel costs and meals, and they will take you places that would be very difficult (and expensive) to reach on your own via taxi or obscure train route. This particular one started off on the wrong foot, as I had to commute from my host family's house to the pickup point in the pouring rain. I also had not received my confirmation voucher at this time, so I was actually rather freaked out wondering whether or not they'll even come by to pick me up. Colin did eventually show up with the van courtesy of Declan, and we were off.
Fortunately, unlike the last tour, everyone coming along this time was a native English speaker which made communication both easy and relaxing as for once I didn't have to worry about the "JP Onry" rule that pretty much runs my life at this point between school rules and the fact that Japanese really is the only shared language among many of the students here. I don't know Chinese (more than 60% of the students here seem to speak it as a native language), so there's no other way to communicate. I certainly write more English than I speak on a daily basis - which is conductive to the learning environment I suppose, but can be extremely demoralizing at times. It tends to make one feel more isolated than one would normally feel in a country where you are already a minority (and in some cases a freak show). It's something you get used to but can shellshock you on occasion if you're not ready for it. I know enough Japanese to be able to communicate what I need to in a wide variety of situations, so it's not really a problem, but it still can be intimidating at times.
Our first stop was the rain-soaked Sekigahara region, marking the location of the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The battlefield itself wasn't much to see, but a lot happened here. This battle was a huge turning point in what would be one of the longest running and most famous shogunates of Japan - the Tokugawa Shogunate. As I learned from one of the guides, Tokugawa Ieyasu, winner of Sekigahara and first shogun of the Tokugawa line, really does not have a good reputation amongst many Japanese. He was viewed as a "schemer", someone who hung back until the opportunity arose for him to take power. In reality, he actually kept promises to those who served him, and there were many men willing to fight to the death for him because of it.
The rain kept us from enjoying the misty mountain views atop the battlefield site for long, but we did get to hear the entire story of the battle in English in the museum down the road. One thing about Japanese museums - even if there are no signs anywhere that say it, don't pull out your camera. Apparently there is an unspoken rule that picture taking in museums is forbidden. I found this out the hard way when a little Japanese lady working for the museum came running up to me with her arms crossed in the "batsu" symbol, glaring at my camera and apologizing but still insisting that the camera gets put away. I put it away but was still irked enough to not buy any souvenirs at the place. Everyone else was smart and used their phones, which were a little less obvious than my digital camera.
We then stopped at a few more temples and had lunch along the banks of a river in Kyoto. One of the guides mentioned that Nintendo headquarters was right down the street and I suddenly realized what Shigeru Miyamoto (the man who created Mario) meant when he said in an interview that he could bike to work every day. The place is just gorgeous. Mountain scenery, non-crowded roads lined with shops and restaurants, and lots of riverboats - some restaurants themselves. It didn't really seem like a rich area, but a peaceful one. An area reeking of tradition and begging to be explored fully. Seeing the scenery around here made it really obvious to me how someone growing up in an area like this could get inspired creatively.
But we weren't here for Miyamoto. We were here for Murasaki (Shikibu), author of The Tale of Genji. Apparently ten chapters of the novel, the English translation of which I read back in college, took place at one of the temples around the gorgeous river-street. I don't remember much about The Tale of Genji but I do remember it was really messed up. Actually, most of the historical and contemporary stories I read for my Japanese Literature class were really messed up, but I could write a whole blog entry just on that topic. The temple was certainly interesting to see, but a lot of the temples are starting to blend together at this point and it's getting hard to remember exactly what happened where.
Our last stop before heading into town was Ishiyama temple, where The Tale of Genji was (allegedly) written. They even have a little animatronic Murasaki Shikibu writing away in a little corner of the temple where the book was supposedly written. Personally, while I recognize the literal significance of that novel, I found it a little odd and off-putting to have a robot at a Buddhist temple. It just seemed too "touristy" for me.
One other thing I learned here, which is something relatively fascinating, is that the koi in a lot of the temple ponds have an average lifespan of 180 years. The biggest problem for them is skin cancer, which is why they try to keep the ponds shaded in a lot of areas. I had no idea a fish could live that long - particularly if it's fed as well as the temple koi are. You learn something new every day.
In Kyoto we had delicious yakitori at a small place down an alley in the Gion district (a.k.a. World Geisha Headquarters) and explored the surroundings. I had a very interesting conversation with one of the guys who does a lot of the staffing for Yamasa about organizational problems that can occur when developing software, and realized I'm more knowledgeable than I feel most days at my job, and yes, that is a good thing. We had drinks at a couple more places and saw a shrine to Susano-oh (my favorite character of Japanese mythology) lit up at night before returning to the hotel - which was fully Japanese style, a separate futon on the floor for each person, and VERY comfortable. The guys were all in one room and all the girls in another, so unfortunately I had to deal with snores coming from both sides, but at that point I was so exhausted that I really stopped caring.
The next day was Ninna-ji garden, a used kimono shop, and a nice (if unusual) Western-style breakfast where they managed to ruin the bacon by smothering it in ketchup, along with the breakfast sausage. Okay, fine, if you're going to ruin something, ruin the sausage, but leave the bacon well enough alone. It doesn't need your help, thank you.
Osaka was far away, and by the time we got there we didn't have a lot of time to eat. One of the guides picked out a tempura place and then proceeded to order tons and tons of raw seafood, which was very hit or miss. Some of it was delicious, some was edible but barely, and some of it was just bizarre - like slimy, whole mini squid or some kind of drink made of kombu. The other guide and I were both relatively irked that we went to a tempura bar and almost no tempura was ordered by the time we left. I was mad enough that I decided to buy some takoyaki at the nearest takoyaki stand on our way back to the car. Osaka is famous for takoyaki which is - for the uninformed - little balls of savory dough seared golden brown with generous pieces of cooked octopus on the inside. I know how weird it sounds to other Americans, but octopus is actually not that bad and is one of the few seafoods that doesn't taste fishy at all.
Ordering street food creates a problem, and it's one that we take for granted in the States. Despite how clean Japan is, they really don't have many garbage cans around that aren't for businesses only. And so, when you order a messy food like takoyaki and then have a piece of takeout garbage oozing with onions and sauce, there's no place to throw it out. With drinks it's not really a problem as you can just put the bottle away until you find a place to put it, but drippy, messy food containers are a huge pain in the neck. I couldn't throw out the takoyaki wrapper until arriving at a rest stop about 40 minutes after getting on the road back to Okazaki, stinking up the car in the process.
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