(ALL) Around Kyoto (6/17)

Looking out at Kyoto from the hotel

Today marked the one month anniversary of my arrival in Asia! I woke up in a beautiful hotel in a beautiful city after a particularly beautiful night on the town and couldn't help but gush about the glory I felt to my fellow travelers as we prepared ourselves for another day of adventure. My professors tolerated my elated rambling over our eclectic continental breakfast before I wandered off to liberate a backpack-full of chicken nuggets for lunch later-- food is pricey in Kyoto!

The day's first highlight came to me in the form of a stranger at the bus stop between our hotel and our first destination, the Philosopher's Walk. I noticed the gentleman to my left paying a noticeable amount of attention to me, and when I looked his way was greeted with a kind and knowing smile. He was holding out his left wrist and casually snapped the beaded, elastic bracelet that rested upon it, nodding assertively towards the bracelet on my own wrist (the one that Myongsang Sunim had given to us at Unmunsa). Without sharing a single word, I understood exactly what he meant, and felt in that moment like I belonged to some secret Buddhist club.

Fast forward a few months-- I'm riding my bike through Athens and I pull up beside a gentleman wearing a similar bracelet. I gesture to mine, just like the gentleman at the bus stop had, and ask the biker if he's Buddhist. He cagily asks in response if anyone can call themselves Buddhist before riding off. I had way more fun with the person at the bus stop, without the words and the posturing. Was I a Buddhist in Kyoto? Was the person with the bracelet at the bus stop? It didn't matter-- we shared a beautiful single-serving moment of connectedness in one of the most temporary of places, and I loved it.

A Kyoto city bus-- not as opulent as Korea's tour busses

A glimpse of Kyoto near the Philosopher's Walk

After a brief bus ride across town, we arrived at our destination-- the Philosopher's Walk. This tour was somewhat guided by Drs Yi and Tessman who had both been here numerous times, but I passed the time at my own pace, taking in the sights and sounds beside my own thoughts and feelings.

The path was impressively scenic for its location along the edge of Kyoto

The interaction of nature and human construction was very compelling; it was an interplay that persisted throughout my tour of Japan

The path was very silent and peaceful, perfect for introspection

The greens and earthy browns were accentuated by the previous day's rains

We passed many gates and shrines along the way

 At one point, I came across a gang of cats. There were about twenty of them gathered loosely around what appeared to be a dilapidated, cat-scale amusement park outside a local business. I couldn't quite get a picture of the entire scene, as most of the cats existed in a constant cat-like state of motion, drifting from cover to close proximity and then out of sight altogether. It was interesting to me that so many of them chose the same place to chill, but what the hell do I know about cats' social psychology.

I imagined this cat to be the cat ruler, perching in a place of pride above the others

This was the maximum number of cats in one photo that the gang's rules would allow

A goofy tanuki waving from the end of the path

Dr. Yi explained that Kyoto was Japan's capital for over a thousand years. The imperial government was always suspicious of religion, so Buddhists and Shintos were relegated into the same small area in the city, resulting in a unique interplay between the two traditions (such as Shinto shrines and roof styles atop Buddhist temples). Kyoto is a very planned and controlled city, which Yi argued fit in well with its Shinto origins (in which everything is a spirit, and cleaning, protecting, and honoring spirits through human interaction is worship, not interference). We didn't get much more introduction to Shinto and Japanese spiritual philosophy, but it was interesting nonetheless to infer its influences in the things we saw, ranging from the upkeep of the Philosopher's Walk itself to the Zen gardens in our next stop, Nanzenji Temple.

Again, that gorgeous interplay between human construction and nature that pervaded Japanese aesthetics

On the way to Nanzenji

Moss game strong

A shrine before a shrine

Buddy in the back left is like, "wtf r u doin". In retrospect perhaps this photo was culturally insensitive.

Nanzenji, or the southern Zen temple, was described by Dr. Yi as a reaction to pedantic sutra-based Buddhism. It advocated personal experience to find enlightenment because the long list of sutras to be memorized and recited was seen as preposterous to a younger generation of Buddhists. Northern Zen was all about facing the world and meditating; Southern Zen was that plus "riddles" (koans?) to focus the mind (Dr. Yi used the sound of one hand clapping as an example).

Dr. Yi also drew attention to the scale of the temple-- temples in Japan were state-sponsored, unlike those in Korea, which were persecuted by the state.

Gathering outside Nanzenji

Reflection room

Shrine

Illustration of shrine

A mind-blowingly immaculate rendering of the temple

One of the most peaceful meeting rooms I've ever seen

First glimpse of the zen garden

More zen

Looking over the garden

Tryna get my mediation on by the zen garden

A poet, observing and writing

 Much of my time at the temple was spent walking and observing, but I was strongly drawn to the zen garden pictured above. It was the first real zen garden I'd ever seen, at a temple in Japan, no less. I'd seen them depicted in popular culture for years before, and had always been intrigued in the ideas behind them. I still feel like there's so much about them that I don't understand, which I also feel is completely missing the point of the simplicity of the gardens themselves, but the minimalism that seems to underlie much of Japanese culture and thought is not something that comes naturally to me for some reason.

I liked sitting before the garden and meditating. It was one of those few places throughout my travels that seemed to make meditation easier or more effective. It was also awesome to find the woman pictured above, deep in thought and practicing the written word. I envied her and felt connected to her as well. I wished I could visit such a glorious place and write-- I got the impression somehow that she did so regularly (or at least enjoyed imagining that she did). But I was presently visiting such a glorious place, with both pen and paper-- I could be writing, rather than thinking about/fantasizing/fetishizing! And by this point it felt contrived and unnatural and forced, and so I did not. But I did take some obtuse notes, and they go a little something like this!:

Rock garden illustrates values of zen-simplicity, spontaneity. Fullness in emptiness, balance but not monotony. Becoming wise enough to accept impermanence and change. No such thing as self.

Maybe I'll write a poem one day about the time I saw a poet writing a poem and wanted myself to do so but did not.

Behind the temple was an awesome aqueduct, or at least something that resembled one. Again, a testament to the time and money that was invested by the state into religious sites. The thing made for an interesting photo op.

An......... aqueduct?

An accidentally awesome series with my friend Hayes

The Hayesing intensifies

Hayes' picture of me taking pictures of him through the...... aqueduct?

Speaking of Hayes, he made some friends on our way to our next destination! He studied Japanese in college and these students loved talking with him.

Hayes, mid-sentence, captivating his audience

Everyone had a good time

Our next stop was Rokuonji Temple, better known as the Golden Palace. It was constructed between 1185 and 1332 and has transitioned from temple to shogun palace to zen Buddhist temple. It was restored in 1615 and again in 1867, and is much more of a tourist trap than Nanzenji was. There was nothing to go into or explore, so our visit seemed much shorter.

The palace, swarmed by onlookers

I was there too, and did the tourist thing, albeit awkwardly

There were, however, a lot of lively animals!

Fishy feeding frenzy

There was a turtle there too!

We caught another bus back to the city center and split up for lunch. I was captivated by how spacious and seemingly empty Kyoto was. It didn't feel claustrophobic like a lot of Korean architecture and urban planning; there were wide streets and open spaces between buildings and blocks and in general more acceptance of emptiness and nothingness than in any other city I'd seen. And the silence was downright eerie! I noticed that buses and some cars turned themselves off at stop lights, likely something to do with Kyoto's environmental consciousness, but not just the natural, flooded-with-carbon-dioxide environment, also the sonic one in which all city denizens exist. It really created a unique setting that was then populated by a lot of legitimate uniqueness.

Waitin' on the bus

Navigating downtown

Japanese Hot Topic

A shrine store.......?

 It was interesting to wander through Kyoto's shopping district, seeing what was for sale and how people interacted with it. I actually did some shopping of my own, in search of an album by a Japanese artist called LITE I'd heard on college radio before leaving the States. I'd thus far failed to find it in either Korea or China. Neither the 4-story record monstrosity nor the single-story specialty shop I visited in Kyoto had the artist-- and this was in their home country! What a drag.

AN ADORABLE CAT! WHAT KIND OF CAT IS THIS CAT?!

 I've mentioned the use of space in Kyoto, and here are some pictures documenting it. The first two capture Kyoto's relationship with transportation-- it isn't given the same primacy it enjoys here in the states, where our vehicles so often form a moat around our places of residence and work; instead, it is put away neatly just like any other possession. I feel like this spoke both to the contrast in individualism between American and Japanese culture as it did exhibitionism, but I'll spare you my baseless and ill-informed pontification.

everything in its right place

even cars, our deities in the west

a picture of the space in the center of Kyoto

and a strikingly catastrophic and otherwise unrelated depiction of disaster on the side of a bus

After lunch, we visited Nijojo, also known as Nijo Castle. Yi explained it was the place where the shoguns returned power to the emperor in the 1800s, creating a unified and nationalistic Japan.

Some traditional dress on the way to the castle

Gazing on its majesty

I was there, too

A sign along the Nightingale floor

 One of the coolest parts of the castle was its Nightingale floor, pictured above. It was intentionally made squeaky to prevent assassins from sneaking in and murdering the royalty. I tried sneaking across it and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself... but then again I wasn't wearing armor and wielding a heavy weapon, either.

My favorite part of the castle was definitely the garden. Not only was it beautiful itself, but it was the backdrop to a beautiful conversation with one of Dr. Yi's friends, a prominent department head from a prestigious Korean college that she described as Korea's MIT. I was sitting by myself on a bench and mulling things over when she approached me and asked to join me. I forget how it happened, but at some point (probably when asked what I studied?) I mentioned my interest in philosophy and she reciprocated with a boatload of theory that I was completely unfamiliar with! She mentioned she was in the process of translating Deleuze's Thousand Plateaus into Korean and was doing an extremely close reading with her faculty friends. Apparently a lot of postmodern and poststructuralist theory hasn't been translated or popularized in Korean, which is really exciting to me-- the idea that there are theories and philosophies hidden behind linguistic barriers that are not yet shared across state lines. She gave me a ton of recommendations ranging from Zizek to Debord, Agamben to Levinas to Benjamin, none of whom I'd come across in my studies. I love talking to people who are wiser, more experienced, better read, etc. than myself and getting a hand up from them!

Here are some pictures of the garden in which I learned about contemporary theory from a Korean professor.

The expansive garden

Awesome rock integration

A very lively pond

Gazing out at the castle's innards

This marked the end of our scheduled programming for the day-- and what a full and fun day it had been! But a friend and I somehow caught Dr. Tessman at the right time as he was about to head out on an adventure of his own, and we were lucky enough to be invited to tag along. Our destination was Dr. Tessman's favorite sushi place, one that he made a point to visit every time he came to Kyoto, but our path took us through Gion, the contemporary "Geisha" (or more accurately geiko) district, and along the river, where we discussed differences between Japanese and Korean culture and history, as well as Marxism, education reform, and cultural change. What a day!

A sculpture on Kyoto's streets

Some awesome Rockabilly dancers getting down in a city square!

A geiko!!!!

Our chef

And his art

YUM

And here's a video from the day!