Day 9, Osaka to Kyoto
Kyoto tour
We had booked a late morning tour of Kyoto so needed to leave Osaka early. Many cities around the world have “free” tours, which of course aren’t free at all. They simply don’t have a set price and you pay the guide what you want at the end. These tours are usually very good and generally are kept to small numbers, twelve people maximum. We were a little peeved when we arrived at the agreed meeting place (a McDonalds, of all places!) to find 15 other participants in today’s tour. Even if we were to disregard our antisocial tendencies that I wrote about in an earlier blog post, you want to be able to hear everything the guide has to say and ask questions freely. When the guide has to worry about keeping tabs on everyone and there are 19 people with 19 disparate tastes and interests, it takes away from the intimacy of the tour. And having said that, I must admit that our guide did a very good job in keeping everyone interested and for the most part, together.
We started with a walk through the Gion district, which is where the geishas mostly hang out. Obligatory photos at a quaint junction over a canal. From there up to the Chion-In temple, which is one of Kyoto’s 2000 plus, temples and shrines. The nearby Maruyama Park has ponds, beautiful gardens and water birds, with that Japanese emphasis on curated harmony and then some more harmony along the peaceful street of Ninenzake. The harmony abruptly ended when we arrived to Sannenzaka, which is a great example of what can happen when a street that is quaint, beautiful and atmospheric is overrun by rampant tourism. The pretty, historic buildings are overtaken by souvenir shops, the shoulder to shoulder jostling made the street look like a mosh pit at a punk concert with a noise level to match. Japan is scrupulously clean. The ONLY place where I saw rubbish on the ground during our entire 11 days in Japan was along this street. There are a series of stairs along the path and the local legend warns that if you fall whilst climbing one of the stairs, you will die within three years. I had no such fear. The throngs were too tightly packed to allow any falls. To be honest, from a strange, reverse perspective, it was sort of interesting in its own unattractive way, experiencing what true over-tourism looks like. Don’t misunderstand me. Once is enough and I wouldn’t be going back there again. Eventually we passed a five tier Buddhist temple and finished the tour at Kiyomizu-dera, yet another temple. I deliberately haven’t bored you with the significance of every temple, garden and street, but there were lots of obvious and interesting reasons why our guide chose this route. My advice is go to Kyoto, do a tour and find out for yourselves.
Nishiki Market
It was lunch time and Nishiki market beckoned. It is justifiably a world famous market, which once again meant lots and lots of tourists, but it was less obnoxious than Sannenzaka. Don’t think for a moment that I am oblivious to the fact that we too are tourists and are part of the problem, but this explains why we like doing things off the beaten track, in order to get a feel of what a country is really like. In any case, after an assortment of weird stuffed seaweed, pickled fish, tempura vegetables, sake shots and Japanese chicken wings, it was time for some more democracy, shopping and downtime before our night time activities. Nijo palace, which was on the itinerary, will have to wait till the next trip.
Pontocho Alley
Tonight we were going bar hopping in the Pontocho Alley area. This is an alley with a few adjacent streets and lanes, full of bars and izakaya. We quickly discovered that many of these places, especially along the main alleys, have a cover charge just to enter. On top of that, you order pretty average food and expensive drinks. After one such place, we saw this was not for us. We briefly split up, looking for a place that a) had no cover charge and b) looked interesting. Garry came up trumps when he dragged us down a dark laneway to the somewhat misnamed Cafe Siesta 8 Bit Cocktail Bar. Remember the film Back to the Future? Well this place was time warped straight out of the early 80s. Not 2024 look-alike early 80’s, but lock, stock and Super Mario out of the 80’s, with prices to match and no cover charge. Nintendo video games, space invaders, twirling coloured disco lights and
smoking cigarettes at the bar. The menu had sake, beer and other standards, but the retro, sweet, fluorescent coloured cocktails were our drinks of choice. And lots of them. Black sesame ice cream cocktail (much better than it sounds), Sweet Bullet, Fire Trap, Sweet Fairy, Jelly Monster. The more we drank, the better they tasted. And then we found the “specials” drinks, where for each different drink you order you receive a corresponding little monster badge. We wanted to see if we could get all the badges, but we just couldn’t get through 15 more cocktails. On a trip where we had lots of laughing, tonight we were in hysterics. Eventually we rolled out of this pub and found our third and final spot for the night, a much more staid, regular bar with great food and drinks.
Whilst on our third, or was it the fourth round of drinks, we started to make our lists of Top 5…Top 5 meals, Top 5 hotels, Top 5 futons. Top 5 hardest inclines and much more. There was no doubt what the number one was on our top 5 evenings.
