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Sunday was day for the conventional sort of sight-seeing, this time heading towards the `city` which I guess means Marunouchi and Ginza, business and shopping. Accidentally wandering into the Tokyo International Forum was a nice suprise, a volume climbing over 20/30 storeys, apparently designed by Rafael Vinoly (?). The tourist info centre was may key priority to organise a hotel/train for Kyoto, a friendly bunch sorted it plus booked me into a capsule hotel for my last night, should be interesting!
The Imperial Palace is set within Marunouchi but you can see very little, they keep the doors closed! So I was intending to kick back somewher local in Ginza, maybe even a movie, but Ginza drew me in, a very different character than the rest of Tokyo; the overhead wires/cables all vanish, and it get very smart. Tokyo really is a wealthy city, they know how to spend well, eat the best food and sleep in glitzy hotels. There are far fewer `westerners` than you imagine and although Im told the signs have changed in recent years to have both alphabets must is still predominately Japanese.
Ginza changed my mind as far as slowing the pace down, the architecture was facinating, a `cultured Blade Runner` diverse building styles with an array of gleaming neon pulsing along the wide avenues. Here the style is black, high heels and Gucci bags, my Salomon walking boots made me look a little underdressed! I was a little snap happy with the digital photos but everywhere you look is a tall decadent facade of marble/metal mesh/glass and of course neon. I walked and walked and walked, until the faint whiff of a Japanese Beer Hall floated by, Japanese...mmmm...ok, so called but it looked all German to me, a tall arched volume with tiled walls/columns, waiters serving large glasses of frothy beer, but the givaway was the Bavarian music and the bratwurst on the menu!
Monday started with another Japanese breakfast, one of those and you cant eat another morsel for the rest of the day, I`ve yet to have a proper lunch! The 10.36 train (yes 36, it matters, these guys put the Swiss to shame) ferried me to Kyoto, perhaps the wrong word to describe the Bullet train, but to be honest it felt little different than a 125, but with more leg room. The difference was the scenery; I think most of the urban sprawl of Japan follows the railway tracks so little respite from the endless rows of buildings, and of course those wires. The highlight, and for the second time this trip, Mount Fuji, this time from ground level. I can see whay it is held with such reverence by the Japanese people, it has majestic, and perhaps spiritual quality different from other landscape elements.
Off the train, downtown Kyoto, your confronted with the grey concrete non-descript stuff that belongs in too many cities, but the guide book says `bear with it`, a 10 minute bus ride away off the flat plane in which Kyoto stands to the eastern foothills and there is a significant change in scale and quality. Fortunately my `Inn` was amongst it all. Arriving through my hotel doorway and I was `gob-smacked` two spacious and traditional rooms with dividing screens overlooking a temple and, as I hurriedly searched for my camera, a path way for Geishas to stroll before their evenings entertainment started in the many quiet lodgings that surrounded the area. No, not the sort of entertainment I was anticipating and at $3000 (US) for an hour or two, there are not many non-corporate types that will be seeking them out too!
Leaving my Roykan, tip-toeing across the stones laid in the Japanese Garden the next day (today) with yet another breakfast, I headed to the Imperial Palace, not for a visit, but for permission to gain entry to one of Masahiro Nakantani`s recommendations, Katsura Palace. A place where access is only gained as part of a tour party and formally booked in advance. The Palace is desribed as a pivitol work of Japanese architecture, discovered by the German architect Bruno Taut in the 30`s (perhaps a liitle insulting to the locals!) But very influential on Le Corbusier and Gropius. Certainly parallels can be drawn with their contemporary modernisim with it`s simplicity, orthogonal and modular spaces, devoid of decoration, and the elegant proportions of the palace and surrounding structures. The landscape in which it stands has been modelled to provide alternate views depending on the season and the time of day. A lake provides a reflective pool for the moon while the building facing, a platform on which to watch.
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