You have to go there to come back
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You have to go there to come back Sunday November 4
My former coworker in our Osaka office got married in Hawai'i to her fiance recently; since no one could attend the ceremony she scheduled a party back in Osaka this weekend. Yuiko's sister lives in Kyoto (30 minutes from Osaka), so I decided to make good use of the weekend and get out of Tokyo.
I only get two precious days for my weekend, so I decided to make the most of them. I find that when I travel by bullet train, I can't really sleep. Credit this to the cool scenery, to the fascination with a train that travels at that speed; either way, if I had left on the first train Saturday morning, I'd arrive tired.
If I had taken the last train (just after 9pm) on Friday, I'd have arrived in Kyoto late, and not been able to do anything interesting on Friday night other than ride in a train. Enter "Galaxy", the aptly-named sleeper-car train from 1986 that leaves Tokyo station nightly at 11:00pm, arriving in Kyoto at 6:45am. I'd never ridden a night train before, so I decided to try it out.
The space was sufficient (although Nathan may have had trouble?), there were clean sheets and a clean pillow cover; it is definitely worth the price (about $12 more than the bullet train, all said and done). The key point I missed, however, was the arrangement of the bunk beds. There are two levels, top and bottom, and two sets face each other in each berth.
What this means is that if you travel in a group of any less than four people, you'll be sleeping near people you don't know. There are curtains, so this wasn't a privacy issue, but for as great as the Japanese are about technology, they have not yet invented "snore-blocking curtains". Across the berth from me was the stereotypical drunk salaryman old guy who, upon falling asleep, snored loud enough to wake me up, many times. Any of you who know how I sleep, you can understand how severe this snoring must have been to have woken me up.
All said and done, I'd do it again. Preferably with four people, but it was a nice experience, and in certain ways, it's a better use of time than the bullet train.
Yesterday, I spent all day in Kyoto on Saori's (Yuiko's sister) bicycle. I went to Kyoto in just May for a wedding, but I was only able to spend an afternoon here, and with Yuiko and Teja, so I didn't really get to just wander around by myself.
Kyoto is full of temples. Once you've seen one, they get less interesting, admittedly, unless you're a history or architecture buff. The eastern side of the city is full of important temples, so there is a regular tourist industry for Japanese nationals and foreigners alike. I have some pictures to support this.
Last night, Taijiro (Saori's boyfriend), Saori, and I went to Kodaiji, one of the more famous temples, as it is lit up at night, quite beautifully. I asked Tai-chan, after a full day of exploring the city on bicycle, "I understand that Kyoto is famous as the first capital of Japan, famous for its temples, famous for this and that, but what interests me when I visit somewhere is not how people used to live, but how they live now."
About five to ten percent of Kyoto's population is students, according to Taijiro. Every year, a quarter of those people leave the city, and a new batch comes. This is starting to sound like a good recipe. There are lots and lots of tiny Western-style cafes where one could read books, study, or just hang out. Some of these cafes have French bakeries attached.
Tai also pointed out another key point: what has made Kyoto stand out in the past twenty years? The Protocol.
The city is trying very hard to market itself as a leader in environmentalism; the city buses run on recycled cooking oil (this is relatively old technology, actually), they are aggressive in recycling, and when I went to a cultural fair yesterday, all of the food was served on ... real plates. My kind of city. Maybe I should move to our company's Osaka office and commute from Kyoto daily?
In closing, I'd like to return to the title of this post. It had been quite awhile (July) since I had "gotten out of town"; I don't count the Great Wall of China. Even though it was a fantastic experience, it was with people from work, for work, and about work (as much as we tried to not make it about work). Todd and I have long discussed this basic principle of life; in order to maintain a reasonable amount of happiness and balance in our lives, sometimes we just need to leave town, go somewhere, do something, and come back.
If you go alone, it's even better. Todd?
You have to go there to come back, and in doing so, I recommend the Galaxy sleeper train. In groups of four.
