Trekking the Nippon Highway

Well hello again, and it has been a while since I have updated…but like I told some people this is going to take several weeks to complete. I got a lot going on right now!

Following the conclusion of the tour de Kinkakuji, the group and I took a bus from the northern parts of Kyoto where we were toward the Geisha district. Now there are a lot of misconceptions and strange ideas about what Geisha girls do, but we will straighten some of those out here. We walked from the bus station across a river as the sun was getting ready to go down on us, and stopped to wait for Peter (from Canada) to meet up with us. He was a former soccer player in college, and decided he wanted to travel around the world doing journalism. He headed west and landed in Japan, and said he never made it past japan! He currently resides with his wife in Kyoto…and has lived there for twelve years.

The river near Gion

Hustle bustle outside the Kabuki theatre

Peter explained to us that the statue pictured below is a monument to how the Geisha culture started. He said that originally Kabuki and Geisha were basically part of one group of eccentric artistic-type people that roamed the banks of the above river making art, dancing, performing music, merry-making and “doing other things.” Supposedly the more powerful castes decided to get them off the banks of the river and into the theatres. Eventually Geisha and Kabuki parted ways…as developed rules that only men were allowed in Kabuki and of course only women could be geisha.

Monument to those who danced along the riverbanks

Entryway to a tea-house district

Before long we were following Peter into the heart of a geisha district neighboring Gion. Peter explained to us, as we stopped near a tea house, that Geishas are basically waitresses, musicians, dancers, and flight attendants (without the flight) all kind of balled into one. They may be hired out as escorts for a single person, a group, a couple or what have you to be entertainment for an evening on the town or at a party. They do, however, mainly work in the tea houses that are numerous in the area. Below you can see a photo of japanese characters on wood above a doorway. These are the names of all the girls that work in the tea house. Likely most of them live there…but this is not always the case. Notice that all the first (top) characters in their names are the same. The girls on that board have all apprenticed and learned the art of Geisha from the tea house mother. They must take part of her name into their professional name to indicate that they were trained by this mother. Above each name is a symbol with three interlocking circles, which is a symbol of tea houses in this district…Gion’s tea houses had a different symbol.

Professional names of girls working in the tea house

Peter also told us that all the tea-houses are a members-only business. The only way to be introduced into a house is by another member. That member puts his reputation on the line by inviting you in, so you had better be on your best behavior! They serve drinks as I understand it but these are not bars…mostly a form of cultural entertainment that the financially-well-off indulge in to distinguish themselves.

The girls start their training in the early teens, and usually begin full time work as Geisha at the ages of 16 to 17. These girls are skilled at conversation, playing instruments such as the Shamisen, serving, dancing, and other such trades. Though peter spoke a lot about the Geisha, a more in-depth glance at this culture is recommended if it piques your interest. For more accurate 😉 information on the Geisha culture, go here: Geisha.

Maiko girl

Can you guess who?

We concluded our evening with a dinner and drinks with Peter. He and I spoke a lot about living in Japan, and he gave me some helpful hints as to what one can do in order to put a foot in the door for living in Japan. This is a goal of mine. Well maybe I’ll hook up with a Geisha girl when I go back 🙂

Next up I have a full day of touring Kyoto independantly and the adventures that lie therein.

Alright now this was a fun day! See we had planned to tour Gion upon our arrival to Kyoto yesterday, but since the weather was horrid we decided to postpone it until today. More on this little tidbit later. So we have breakfast at the ryokan around 7:30 or so, and then assemble our day gear and make for Kyoto station. We jumped aboard a train bound for a little not-really-a-town north of Kyoto by several miles, and got off at a station which was in a nice open area. There was a feild of flowers near the walkway to our destination.

Our destination was a boat dock. We were going to take a scenic tour of the Hozu river via watercraft. Supposedly the rapids were quite dangerous (ha ha ha oh…oh man thats funny). We ‘ordered’ a boat and waited around for a few minutes, watching these big boats coming and going from the long wooden dock. These were big fiberglass vessels…probably 25 feet long(?) with a 3 man crew.

So after a while we here “Shireya something something” over the loudspeaker; that was our party! Shireya (Celia pronounced in Japanese) is our tour guide if you haven’t read any other posts I have written. Anyway we were guided to one of the vessels by a nice older fellow, and proceeded to climb aboard. The boat held quite a few people.

A motley crew.

While we waited for everyone to get aboard I snapped that photo. We shoved off with the older fellow at the oar on the front migi (or righthand) side of the boat, a man with a bamboo pole on the front left, and a fellow on rudder at the rear. We passed beneath beautiful bridges and through awsome grassland, followed a canyon setting. In it we hit a few spots of rough water and some rocky areas…but our guide acted as if we were running the colorado river (though life vests were not provided). There were different varieties of what I think we Americans would call herons, cormorants, and even a hawk!

We also encountered some turtles sunning on the rocks and a deer foraging on the side of the canyon. There were bamboo forests on both sides of the river for most the length of the trip…but there were also coniferous trees further up. The guides would switch off on their three respective jobs every so often… It was quite entertaining when Elvis stepped up to the pole position. He had the hairdo, the blue jeans, white shirt, and a Ford belt buckle…what a crackup.

Toward the end of our long excursion a snack boat pulled up next to us and sold baked rice balls, squid, octopus, and some other goodies. Someone offered me a rice ball and I ate it…was pretty good. We ended our journey in a township called Kameoka, and there was a variety of things going on. I saw a fisherman out in the river wearing waders. He was dragging nets around and setting up to catch fish:

We took a train away from Kameoka to Ryoan-ji (temple), which is known for its gravel-garden. This place had a really nice park/garden with a pond, interesting plants, and peaceful walkways. In between the temple and our coming and going there was a beautiful large black butterfly that was resting on a leaf:

The gravel garden wasn’t that great and I have photos of a better one! Ryoan-ji was a little over-rated I think…but still it was interesting. The next destination was Kinkaku-ji, a.k.a. the Golden Pavillion. It was pretty impressive, and there were tourists from all over not just Japan, but Russia, Mexico or spain, england, the US…all over. I think there were Germans there to.

The pavillion sits across the pond from where you first see it, and then you get to walk around the pond toward it to make for some interesting shots.

Kinkakuji had some beautiful old pines out front, a nice little garden walk, and the people watching was fantastic! Though it was a bit more on the beaten tourist path, it was definitely worth seeing. Since this entry is so long already I am going to bust up Kyoto day 2 into two parts. We’ll get to Gion and dinner with Peter on the next post.

Ok finally I am at a point where I can continue updating this journal/blog/mess. I have been wrestling my computer trying to get it to do what I want and have finally succeeded. After a full week of ... [Continue reading this entry]