Tuesday morning find me in scorpy humour. I want nothing more than to lay in bed and let the day go away. Everyone else wants to go to Kyoto. The Oulfella insists on optimising his time on holiday. I get it - for him it's a one time trip - but the very phrase 'optimising time' crashes me right back into the office where I have so much shit to do and so little time to do it in.
I thought I would've preferred to wander aimlessly around Dotonbori or Den-Den town - but I tag along anyway so as not to ruin everyone elses trip. I don't do the Honne and Tatamea thing - I tell everyone exactly how fucking awful I feel - but go along anyway.
The Shinkansen is a wonderful way to travel. I don't think, if you actually live in Japan, you wouldn't use the Shinkansen for frivolous hops across to the next city over - the tickets are pricy if you've to pay for them. The JR Pass makes it a trivial decision. Kyoto rolls up in less than fifteen minutes.
We don't go to Gion - we've heard stories of it being crowded. Carrying my big brutus of a camera, I'm also keenly aware of the recent ban on photography in parts of the city - too many tourists being dickheads with cameras to get the same perfect instagram moment everyone else already got. It's the essence of tourism - knocking down the same pins everyone else knocked down before you - just to say that you did.
We head out to Arashiyama - where the bamboo forest is - taking an overcrowded local train that helps me feel at home. The oufella's found a shrine that he thinks might be interesting to see - built around an artifical lake. Finding it is another matter - Google maps winds us through quiet suburbs and housing estates, through an open plot on a dirt path, past the fascinating timber foundations of a brand new house, then a photography studio and a school built at the point the City ends and farmland begins. I wonder what it's like to attend that school - with a clear stream running past a field on the other side of the road.
It's peaceful. It should've been soothing.
My mood gets worse and worse, despite it. The sun is hot and I can only see the world in its worst light. I feel dragged. I feel like turning for home and wandering back. I feel like we've gone out into the middle of nowhere, lost by Google and making fools of ourselves by wandering past ordinary people's houses.
What would I think of a group of Japanese tourists walking past my house - where there's fuck-all worth seeing for kilometres around? Somebody's lost and about to get mugged.
I'm certain I don't have to fear the second one of those in Kyoto. For a while, I find myself pondering on Kyoto Animation - and how many of the scenes passing by have a vague sense of familiarity. On some level, it feels like a space I've been in before. It lingers as a vague sense of melancholy. This is the place that created Kyoto Animation.
I don't understand how to give voice to my feeling about that. The whole time arson attack lingers in my mind. More than it should.
Daikaku-ji is almost empty when we arrive. It's perfect.
The Temple and its lake date from the 9th century - a century before Dublin City came to be. For a time, it was a palace used by empresses and pricess' consorts. Nowadays, a few quiet visitors take their time to stroll among the ages. A sign at the entrance advises us to remove our shoes. My size-13 boots barely fit in the cubby provided. A token admission charge helps contribute to the upkeep of the temple.
The socks on my feet slide across polished timber floors. Tatami is something else - different from carpet. Comf0rtable and warm under foot - but without the hardness of timber, the coldness of tile or the furry mess of carpet. Most of all, it's quiet under socked feet.
A small bin contains some slippers which you're supposed to wear on the outside timber walkways. None of them fit my feet so I pad around in socks only. Anyone who sees me probably think's I'm an idiot.
Nightingale floors chirp and squawk under my feet, despite my best efforts. We walk from building to building, past courtroom and halls - and their sumptuous painted dividing screens. The whole complex has accreted over the centuries in the way planets do, with each age of Japan adding its own mark.
I enjoy the walk around the pond, falling behind the group with only my camera and the trees and birds for company. It feels like calm. A small path leads me through a tunnel of lush, summer-green trees, with a babbling stream as company. Birds are call to each other as I pass. Japanese crows call so differently to ours - Irish crow has a much drier, harsher voice. A Japanese Crow's call echoes and carries.
After a few minutes, I catch up to the group.
Our next visit, is to a small temple a short walk away. Aside from a couple of schoolgirls, it's empty. A small gravel path leads us around a green carpet of forest moss. Golden sunlight streams through the forest canopy above, falling on small stone lanterns and a wooden shrine barely large enough for one person. A sign offers visitors the chance to leave a prayer on a small wooden baton. Dozens of them carry messages in a multiple of languages. From World Peace, to success in exams, to Freedome for Hong Kong. One thing comes to mind.
Happiness for all, for free. And let none go away unsatisfied.
I don't know if that'd be too twee or not, but it sits with me. It sticks in my head as we walk back down away from the temple, still not sure exactly where to go. What used to be a cafe is now just a vending machine with some old stone-bench seating and a sun-bleached rubbish bin. It's a handy place to stop for a drink. A few schoolgirls give us strange looks, as if we've stopped somewhere we're not supposed to.
There's no sign to warn us that we're doing something wrong.
We track down to another temple and another garden. This one a UNESCO world heritage site. Also spectacular, with mountain and forest backdrops around a managed pond and ancient timber buildings. We're back on the tourist trail fighting for our moments with hundreds of others. We follow the trail down through the Bamboo forest the area is famous for, past other tourists dressed in traditional Kimonos, and trains of Chinese in their groups following leaders with red paddles.
It's time to remind myself. We're not in traffic - we are traffic. Getting frustrated with them would be hypocritical.
We make our way back to Kyoto station on an evening commuter train. The stop before, leads tothe Japan Railways museum.
I insist on visiting. And I get lost for far too short a time in Japanese railway heritage. Everything from one of the first steam locomotives built in Japan, to the very first Series-0 Shinkansen with its onboard dining car. Even after fifty years, the basic components are the same. There's the Green car, there're the seats that swap direction with the train. It feels like it could still have been in service to this day, if given the chance.
Japanese industrial design from the sixties has a unique asthetic all of its own. A sort of chromed futurism that somehow still seams clean and modern to this day.
Elsewhere, vistors are given the chance to drive their own similated train, work a signal room, ride on a short rail-car, interact with an actual level-crossing, or a fully assembled working point-system with its signalling interlocks intact - demonstrating with hands-on experiences how a railway works.
Out back, one of the museum's steam lcomotives is returning from the day's excursions, basking in the evening sunlight as its crew get about the heavy work of putting it to sleep again. I could've spent far more time there. The others bored quickly. There was so much more to see.
I've always been a fan of heavy metal.
We travel back to Osaka for the final night. The oulfella and the smallfella head back to the same burger place as the night before. Me mate and I head to an Ichiran.
The system is brilliant. There's a machine that takes your money and prints out a ticket. Then, a single staff member hands you a card to mark - how do youy like your ramen? Firm or soft. Spicy or Mild. With extra pork? With extra noodles? The chef's recommendations are marked for those not feeling adventurous - and sure enough, I choose those as a starting point. My mate goes for the stiffer noodles because they soften in the broth.
After a wait outside, we're finally allowed in to a single seat at a long bar. We are given our own individual privade cublical, with water, some instructions for ordering extras, and a simple fabric window to seperate us from the staff beyond. The window opens just long enough to take our order slip, before we're left to wait in what feels like an incongruous privacy. After a few minutes wait, a perfectly formed bowl of Tonkatsu ramen emerges from behind the screen.
It's fuckin' perfect. It's gone in less time than it took to prepare, the entire bowl being slurped down to the last of the rich, meaty broth. The bowl is left clean as I leave my seat.
My mate follows a few minute later. I wait outside in the cool evening air, soaking in the comfort of a satisfied stomach.
I spend my last night in Osaka answering a few questions from the office and making sure things still ran smoothly, turning in long after anyone had gone to sleep.blin, the All-China bat-kissing champion coughs and everything is different.