Kyoto: movie stars and giant rocks

Kyoto, October 17-20.

I took a mini vacation for three days in Kyoto, where there are few major biophlic subject buildings that are more worthy of study than the oodles of Japanese cultural and religious historic landmarks. Josh joined me for this part of the trip; together we hit up a series of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, Zen rock gardens, a Noh drama (Japan’s oldest theater art), a tea ceremony, small cobblestone shopping streets, and the massive “matrix” of Kyoto Station – the only architectural landmark on our itinerary built in the last few hundred years. We stayed in a ryokan – a traditional Japanese guesthouse complete with tatami mats topped with 2 squishy futon mattresses. The splendors of Kyoto are vast, and the three days we spent there was not enough time to take them all in. (Josh will do better justice by returning there while I stay on in Naoshima.)

With its Zen history, Kyoto was my first city here that made vegetarianism easy. That was great for avoidance of oddities like octopus balls, but endless amounts of bland and sometimes chalky soy products were not ideal. The strangest was yuba, which is made from thin sheets of soy that comes from what you skim off of the top layer of soymilk… which tastes, well, like soymilk, but chewier. (Though odd, the yuba was infinitely better than the heavily processed “fish cakes” that came in rather disturbing shapes and colors.)


The food may not have always hit the spot, but the gardens sure did. I’ve been a fan of Japanese gardens in general and Zen rock gardens in specific for decades, and Kyoto certainly gave me my fill. At Tofuku-ji, one of my favorites, a shogun movie was being filmed on the day of our visit. (This explained the random people wandering through the outer gardens dressed in traditional costume; before we happened on the film crew, we thought that they were just in it for fun or general tradition.) We learned all about the process because one of the stars approached us and asked, in perfect English, if we would practice English with an actress, one of his (stage) wives. It was she who explained what was going on. I asked if she was famous; she replied in a quiet, secretive voice that yes, she was, and that the man who originally asked us to speak with her is even more famous. So Josh took my picture with her, and I snapped one of some of the actors. Our theory was that they want to learn English to try to make it big in Hollywood. So, when we see them on the silver screen, we can say that we knew them when…

The film was actually a sideline, though – the rock gardens were amazingly beautiful, especially the day it rained. Many of the temple buildings were surrounded by veranda-like porches that led you to a separate garden facing each façade. Each side had a distinct style – they ranged from patterned sand with a few carefully placed rock (a larger version of the “coffee table” Zen rock garden of my college years) to a dense, lush landscape of bonsai and shrubs interspersed with waterfalls and koi ponds. Each was a perfect foil to those that came before and after in sequence; chained together they formed a composition greater than the sum of its parts.

Transportation count: about 6 buses per day. Luckily, Kyoto offers a reasonably priced 1 day bus pass, which saved us many yen.