I went to Kyoto for the first time in December 2003. At the time I was studying at the fantastic Tokyo International Christian University and was dating with my future wife. One day Miyuki told.
My parents are planing to meet New Year in my dad’s hometown in Okayama Prefecture. (Okayama is about seven hundred kilometres from Tokyo in the western part of Japan. From Kyoto, it would take another three hours by car to reach Okayama.) Andrew, maybe you want to come with us to Kyoto.”
I had only read about Kyoto in books. Until then the furthest distance I had travelled in Japan was probably to Kawagoe, which is one hour from Tokyo. When I heard the offer of such a trip I was as excited as a little child. As a diligent student I decided that I needed to do all my homework before the winter holidays, so that I could feel calm in front of myself and complete all my work. All in all it was my most productive academic year. I studied Japanese intensively every day from 8am to 3pm at the university. After classes I made it my duty to spend at least one hour writing Japanese hieroglyphics. This was particularly helpful in my studies because in the intensive Japanese language courses I always had to watch how to run at the front of the science train.
So when I heard about the offer to go to Kyoto I intensified my kanji writing practice and now I was writing a thick notebook of hieroglyphs for two hours every day.
We were due to leave on 28 December. Normally in Japan the New Year holiday starts on 28-29 December and runs until about 10 January. At that time, the whole of Japan travels to visit parents, relatives and graves. This is the great time of the exodus.
We, too, with my wife’s parents and my grandmother’s Honda, I mean car, set off for Kyoto. All these years later I do not remember much of the journey. I know that I listened to my wife’s father’s favourite songs and that we swayed to the beat for half of the journey to the tune of Take me Home country roud to the home I belong. It was a good time.
On arrival in Kyoto we stayed at the Mitsui garden hotel. A beautiful New Year’s ikebana greeted us at the hotel entrance. The Japanese know how to make damn beautiful compositions for the new year. Of course they have various ritual meanings. This was my first stay in a Japanese hotel. Everything is so innovative, so beautifully polished. Maybe that’s why it has stuck in my subconscious that the Mitsui Garden hotel chain is great. And it is indeed a wonderful mid-range hotel chain where one night costs at least EUR 100.
The next day my wife-to-be’s family informed me that they were going on to Okayama to visit her father’s parents and they would pick me up three days later when they returned to Kyoto.
An understandable decision, after all, no one would take a white-skinned gaijin foreigner to show his relatives. Who is he, how do you explain what he is doing with Miyuki? In a word many many questions for which there were no appropriate answers at the time.
After the whole thing was over I had three days to explore Kyoto and its surroundings. The one that sticks out most in my mind is the Fushimi Inari Temple in the suburbs of Kyoto,which at that time was not yet completely touristy. I also remember somehow, after visiting Fushimi Inari, I somehow found the remains of a castle in the mountains. I do not know what it was, what castle it was, how I got there or how I got back. Call it the happiness of the novice traveller, when you move forward, surrendering to fate, and unwittingly arrive at an uncharted oasis.
The New Year’s Eve night in a hotel is the most memorable of my wanderings in Kyoto at that time. New Year’s Eve in Japan is called oomisoka and is a special day with all sorts of traditions about which I had little idea at the time. I decided to celebrate Oomisoka in a very simple way – buy some food and watch the fireworks through the window. So I went down to the Seven Eleven convenience store next to hotel, bought a bento kit, some snacks, some chips like a real student and a beer.
Back at the hotel I sat on the bed and started flicking through the TV channels looking for something interesting for New Year’s Eve. The first thing that caught my eye was the national broadcaster’s channel which was showing as I later found out, the traditional New Year’s concert in Kohaku. This is a concert where teams of men and women are divided into two parts and compete for the votes of the audience. The truth be told it is not so much the race that is important as the concert itself. And the concert is a mix of new stars and old standbys such as Kitajima Saburo, Yoshi Ikuzo and so on. I’m not a big fan of Japanese pop music, so I decided to continue with the TV channels. And so my search was crowned with success. Bushido New Year’s tournament popped up before my eyes. In those days Bushido tournaments were a real phenomenon. That night the real dessert was to be the final bout between Akebono a former sumo wrestler and some local Japanese star. To give you an idea of Akebono’s size, it is like a small Fiat on two legs. This sumo wrestler is one of the toughest in sumo history. I don’t know exactly how much he weighs but something like 300 kg at least. That is a piece of dough. The kind of thing that if you bump into his chest you’re going to end up with your whole head in a bacon roll.
And if Akebono were to fall it was probably only with a bobcat that you could lift this fighter and thus free yourself from under the weight of fat. However as is often the case with this type of fighter – a giant Goliath with clay feet. The Japanese fighter repeatedly shafted Akebono’s shins and the giant had to concede victory to the handsome Japanese. The crowd went wild with joy.
Meanwhile I was sitting and eating chips waiting for the next attraction – Japanese fireworks. As the clock struck twelve o’clock I went to the window put my beer down and sat on the armchair looking for the fire flower signs. It’s quiet. 12.01 minutes – Silence. 12.05 minutes -Silence. Maybe locations is bad. I step outside the hotel and strain all my hearing aids to try to determine where the fireworks are going off.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Turns out the Japanese don’t celebrate the new year with fireworks at all. This is not Europe, this is not China, where you can blow the head off some churl with fireworks. The Japanese go to a Shinto temple on New Year’s Eve and bow to the gods to welcome the New Year. So I always remember Kyoto as a city of silence and unexpected discoveries.
