entry nº 22b // 20180804

[part 2 of an ongoing series]

•got to kyoto a while before i was supposed to meet up with heather, so i hopped on a train headed south out of the city to go to Byōdōin, a temple in the small city of Uji. if you’re thinking “where have i seen that place before…?” it’s because it’s on the backside of the 10-yen coin. or frontside, depending on how you see the world. the architecture of that place was nuts. i mean, like basically all the temples and shrines out here, but still. super well preserved and beautifully painted. also, how old is this thing? let me look it up. says here the only remaining original building was built in 1053. wtf?! yeah. 

•after that i took the train back north a bit to go to Fushimi-Inari Taisha. if you’re thinking, “where have i seen that place before…?” it’s because photos of this place seem to show up in every travel guide about japan out there. tons of red torii gates stacked up all the way to the top of this small mountain on the outskirts of kyoto. fairly packed with tourists, but not too packed, and i got there in the late afternoon anyway so it started to clear out. i decided to make the trek all the way up to the top of the hill, and by the time i got up to the top dusk had set in and it was luminous and subtly magical and felt like there was this latent sort of possibly around the edges everywhere, kind of back behind everything, gently suggestive, and it was poetic and sweet. i often reach for a word that describes that feeling and i don’t know what it is, or if there is one. what should i say? “boffo”? nah, probably not that. 

•anyway, i got back into the city and went to the “capsule hotel” where heather + co. were staying, and the feeling when the elevator doors opened into the lobby/lounge there was precisely the opposite of whatever i was trying to describe just above. a shitload of american tourists in full on college party mode. i was mortified. not in the “i’m way better than that and never do that” sense, but more just, like, unable to handle the contrast. as we all know, it’s not so much what happens as when and in what order it happens. so yeah. yikes. 

to be continued