Kansai

Kansai or Kinki is the collective name for the area which consists of the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe and their wide surrounds. As opposed to the rest of the Japanese, the Kansaimen and -women take a more relaxed (better: less stressful) approach to life and tend to relax a little more. This should not be too hard, for they live in a beautiful part of Japan.

Okay, this ain't the best example of that beauty. In line with many other large Japanese cities, Kyoto seemed to need its own observatory tower. A plain ugly example of early-seventies bad taste, if you ask me. The fun thing is, this picture was taken from the Kyoto Central Station directly across the street from the Kyoto Tower, which is a very impressive, beautiful and functional hyper-modern building.

This is one of the higher levels of the station. In the background is the upper part of the main hall and this place is some kind of garden on the Station's roof. A futuristic train station is the last you expect when you hear and read about Kyoto being the cultural capital of Japan with more than a thousand temples and shrines! Nevertheless, it's a nice place to hang around for a while.



Kyoto is well-known for a lot of buildings and places, but this what I thought one of the most beautiful: Nijo-jo. More a palace than a castle, Nijo is built all on one floor and bears the marks of habitation by the powerful Shoguns from Japan's Tokugawa era. And of course, no castle without an extensive garden within its walls...



This is a gate on Nijo's grounds. As you can see, the sakura was in full bloom when I was in Kyoto. Quite exceptional, for I had experienced the bulk of the Hanami festival already in Tokyo. This year however, Kyoto was a slight bit later with its blossoms than usual so I could enjoy Hanami twice!



In spite of all its temples and World Heritage sites (Kinkaku-ji — Golden Temple — and Ginkaku-ji — Silver Temple — are just among the most well-known), Kyoto is still a modern city. The amount of skyscrapers absolutely pales compared to Tokyo or Fukuoka, but it's still not the all-over rustic city it may seem sometimes. As visible in the background, central Kyoto is surrounded by hills on all but its south side.

Yet of course this rustic, Tokugawa-era Kyoto is omnipresent. This is Pontocho alley, a long street with tiny hotels, bars and restaurants of all levels and price classes. Together with Brian, an American I met in Tokyo, I even ran into a very professional-sounding karaoke bar!



This is what the typical house in central Kyoto looks like. The further you get towards the hills, the better and larger the houses get. Kyoto is built in a checkerboard pattern of larger avenues and smaller streets which makes getting lost almost impossible.

Most of these streets and alleys are so small that there is no place left for a garden. Therefore, residents just put some potted plants in front of their house. Miffy is thankful for the comfortable sunbathing spot, miss Takahashi! :)



On Kawaramachi-dori between Sanjo-dori (Number Three Street) and Shijo-dori (Number Four Street) is Kyoto's largest commercial centre. Always busy and crowded, sometimes even with loud motor gangs, it is the veritable heart of the city. This picture was taken at the beginning of Golden Week, a week full of national holidays.

One of the more spacy places I stayed at in Kyoto. After more than two weeks in a student's house in the very north of the city, I ended up in this place. The bed is nothing more than a futon, which was stored in the cupboard when I took te pic.

Now this what you visit Kyoto for! I had just visited Kiyomizu-dera (Freshwater Temple) with Kurt and Caz, a British couple and Mehdi, a Moroccan doctor who lives in Nice, when we ran into these two ladies. Lots of tourists, both Japanese and foreign, tried to get a good shot of them. Although I wasn't overly confident of my pronunciation, I was forward enough to ask them in Japanese whether they would mind if I took a picture of them...

...and they spontaneously posed for me! I thought it so cool that not even the Japanese tourists dared to ask, and they just allowed the rude gaijin ryokosha (foreign tourist) to take this picture!

In one of Kyoto's many temples I found this dead tree with all these pieces of paper tied to it. It was only later that I understood that the papers were fortunes you could buy at the temple, not unlike extended versions of the things you find in a fortune cookie. I guess that in order for the fortune to have effect, you need to leave it at the temple and thus people tie theirs to this tree. At least it yields a beautiful sight!



I wanted to show you the cold hard cash of Japan. As opposed to the Western countries, almost every financial transaction in Japan is made with cash. Don't bring your credit card to a restaurant or hotel, get some cash from a nearby ATM and then you're all set. Since I'm kind of a cash person myself, I didn't mind too much but I did think it strange! On the left you can see my shinkansen (bullet train) ticket from Kyoto to Hakata. I had to buy this ticket speaking nothing but Japanese because the guy who sold them spoke only some three words of English. I was quite proud that I managed, I even knew how to ask from what track the train would leave!



Some ninety minutes of train travel west of Kyoto is Himeji. Although Himeji is not very large, it is very well known for the largest and most beautiful castle in all of Japan, Himeji-jo. The castle and its gardens are marvelous to behold. Since the complex is so big, it does't quite register that there are actually a lot of visitors. On the top of the main donjon, I ran into a large group of students from Nijmegen who were in Japan for their studies. It was very nice to be able to speak Dutch again for a change!

Another view of Himeji-jo. I took some hundred pictures of the site, so I have plenty to choose from. I won't post all of them here, for even I think that I took way too much :)

Some weird art inspired on the castle's architecture in Himeji. This koi and its mirror-twin were guarding a bike lot near the castle.



Between Himeji and Kyoto is Kobe, the city that was struck by a major earthquake about ten years ago. No trace of that disaster is left in the city now. Kobe is a nice city to walk in, not too crowded and with a large and beautiful Chinatown. In the picture is the maritime museum in the harbour, which was unfortunately closed when I visited the city.



I also made a daytrip to Osaka and even stayed there for a couple of nights during Golden Week. This picture shows a large observatory on top of a couple of large skyscrapers. The 47th till 50th floors were accesible to the public for a small fee and the view from above is truly breathtaking. Osaka itself is not that special, though. It reminded me of Rotterdam in a lot of ways: characterless modernism, huge shopping centres in which you lose your way easily and no discernible old centre. Of course, Osaka was almost completely leveled in the Second World War, just like Rotterdam. What the city also shares with the world's largest port is that it has an amazing nightlife!

Together with wo girls, Louise (British) and Annalisa (Italian), I went to Iga-Ueno. This small village seems to have been the centre of ninja training in ancient Japan. Of course, this is exploited by the locals to lure tourists. Even the bridges in Iga-Ueno are adorned with these super deform ninjas.



The place to be when ninjas and ninjutsu are concerned is the Ninja House in Iga-Ueno. They even gave a demonstration of the ninjutsu skills, actually quite impressive! Very funny was that the actions and speeches of the actors were accompanied by a full soundtrack, complete with tension music and whoosh-whoosh sound effects synchronised with the actor's movements. Typically Japanese camp!



Kyoto is near Biwa-ko, Japan's largest freshwater lake about half the size of the IJsselmeer. One day I traveled to Hikone, a small castle town on the shores of the lake. Near the castle (which was just a smaller copy of Himeji-jo) I ran into this breathtakingly beautiful garden. Japanese love these gardens and I love taking pictures of them!



This charming lady kept a tea-house in the very same park. Although I declined to enjoy a tea ceremony with her, she was willing to pose for this picture.

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