Vacation Recap! Part Three!!!

J112 Sunday August 12th

Woke up at a leisurely pace, showered and repacked my bags for the day, and was out the door by 10:30AM or so. Squeezed into the lobby of my hotel was a coffee shop, maybe a Seattle's Best or something similar. The remnants of a Japanese-style continental breakfast, complete with meat-sauce pasta (!?) lay cooling next to the order counter. I bought a maple syrup scone and sat at the bar while my breakfast was prepared.

The hotel had been slowly disgorging its guests while I was seated in the lobby. Both Japanese and foreigners milled about, munching on muffins or sipping hot drinks. Many thumbed through guide books or studied maps. A seat away from me was a young foreign woman. I struck up a conversation to kill time. She was a Nova teacher, and had been in Japan for about 10 months. She'd been in Kyoto for a day or so already, so I asked her for some good recommendations.

She pulled out a map, in English, of the city. It was glossy and well-printed, but extremely thin. She started to point out different locations. Nijo-jyo, the ancient castle at the city's heart. Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji, the Gold and Silver temples, respectively. She gave me the map, stating that she had an identical copy in her bag. I thanked her and retreated to my breakfast, having since arrived, which I nibbled contemplatively as I pored over the map.

The castle and Kinkakuji were on my must-see list; the castle was a freaking Japanese castle (and if you don't know me, understand that I am "down with" such things) and the temple had been recommended by literally every student I'd told my plans to. A few other things stood out as I read over the map. There was an International Manga Museum near Nijo-jyo, which I circled.

One thing you may hear, from foreigners who have visited it or from native Japanese people, is that Kyoto has a lot of shrines. This is an understatement in a class that few understatements can belong to. This is like saying the ocean is big, the sun is hot, or Jupiter is breezy. Kyoto has more shrines, temples, tombs, and ruins per square block than any city I've ever been to. I thought Paris was packed full of old buildings and stuff, but Kyoto blows it away.

The map was covered in a plethora of symbols, each denoting the presence of a shrine or temple. I finished my breakfast, feeling slightly overwhelmed, but determined to see the city. First things first, though; I had to ditch my duffel. I couldn't survive another day hauling it around with me.

I trudged back to the station, the blister I had acquired the previous day making itself quite loudly known to my central nervous system. I found the station's Koban (remember that? police box?). One of the officers on duty actually spoke a little English, and helped me find the coin lockers. In the basement of the station, where the shopping center began and the terminals ended, was a large room where bank after bank of coin lockers stood like soldiers. 300 yen a pop, they were surprisingly deep. I found an empty locker, 1492 (yay Columbus!), deposited my bag and, subsequently, my money, and locked my duffel up tight. The key came with me, and was tucked safely in the depths of my back pack. Considerably lighter than I was, I set off to find adventure.

My first stop would be the castle and the manga museum. They looked very close on the map, and I found one bus stop that serviced them both. Another aside: the Kyoto bus system is a work of art and beauty. Every bus has the same flat rate, 220 yen per adult/110 yen per child, no matter how far you go. If you go one stop, it's 220 yen. If you ride the bus all the way around the entire city, it's still just 220 yen. Normal buses charge you depending on how far you go, with rates slowly but steadily rising as you sojourn elsewhere. Not so in Kyoto. Also, there are over a dozen bus lines snaking their way through the city's streets. You can, quite literally, go anywhere you want to in the city. The lines were so prolific that you could usually get to your destination with no transfers to another line, and even then you could get anywhere without transferring more than once.

Anyway, I boarded a bus bound for Nijo-jyo. The ride was pleasant enough, though the heat of the day was already growing to be immense. Tokyo had been quite hot, and Kyoto was even hotter, but Tokyo lacked Kyoto's constant breeze. Kyoto is built into the seat of a wide valley, which acts as a wind tunnel. Nothing gale-force, the winds are quite weak, but they do help move the air and prevent it from becoming stifling or stagnant.

The bus ride was short, giving me ample opportunity to scope out the city as the bus bumped and rattled along. Kyoto is much like any other Japanese city. Toward the center, where the train station is, it's a bustling metropolis with lots of tall buildings, tons of people, and night-banishing neon. As you move away from the heart of the city, it becomes shockingly less fancy. Houses and buildings seem to shrink into one another, huddling together as if for warmth.

When I arrived at Nijo-jyo, I was amazed by its sheer size. The castle's super-structure is completely intact, having never suffered the ravages of war. The numerous inner buildings have their own stories, many succumbing to that eternal plague of city life, fire, but most have been rebuilt after their complete or partial destruction. Still, magnificent as the castle was, I wanted to see the manga museum first.

I started down a road which, according to my map, was the correct direction of the museum. I walked. And I walked. And I walked. After nearly 15 minutes of walking in the blazing heat, I found a conbini and asked for directions. I was going the right way, they said. I just wasn't there yet. I walked some more, another 10 minutes or so, until I finally turned a corner and was greeted with a curious sight.

I saw a bright green lawn of well-cut grass. A large, boxy, L-shaped building, obviously an old structure, but upkept and repainted. In the middle of the lawn was a small DigiCam mounted on a tripod, staring intently at the sky. I saw a large, stone sign, and sure enough I had found the Kyoto International Manga Museum.

Entry was about 500 yen for an all-day ticket; even if I left the premises, I could return if I showed my ticket stub.

The Kyoto International Manga Museum is built within the remains of an old Elementary school. Its floors, walls, and ceilings are quite old, but well-maintained. What was really cool, though, was the comics. Every wall sported a tall bookshelf. Upon these book shelves, in Japanese-Alphabetical order, were some 200,000 volumes of manga. Entire series, carefully collected and organized, rested upon aged oak shelves. And, once you paid your ticket, you could read them. The Manga Museum is as much a Library as it is a Museum.

I felt momentarily dizzy at the sheer mass of it all. So many stories, all in one place. I've been in libraries before, quite enjoying their church-like quiet and reverence for learning and reading. But this place felt a little different. I couldn't put my finger on it.

The book shelves wound their way through every corridor on every floor, from 1 to 3. I wasn't the only patron of the facility; dozens of people had settled in to comfortable spots with stacks of borrowed manga to read to their heart's content. Young adults perched on stair wells. Older people relaxed in plush chairs. Children squatted on the floor or sprawled on bean bags. Everywhere there was the soft, near-silence of reading.

The museum had several displays. Two booths had been set up where aspiring artist could practice their craft, sketching (in one booth) caricatures of patrons or (in the other) sketching, inking, and coloring (via colored pencil) playing cards depicting colorful and weird fantasy monsters.

There was also a workshop to make your own paper fan, with lots of art materials to make designs and patterns on the fan itself. There was an old man doing hourly shows using an old picture projection system from the Edo period. Guys like him would travel around Japan from town to town, putting on a picture show. Their cart had a gas light, or some other form of light generation, behind a rack. The rack could be slotted with semi-transparent silk screen pictures. When lit from behind, and with enough darkness around, the cart's system could project the image onto a wall. The man would narrate a story, switching plates every once in a while to illustrate new parts of the story.

Throughout the halls were hundreds of drawings, mounted on the walls. Some 600 manga artists had been asked to draw a geisha for the museum, and the pieces were on display here. The art styles ranged the entire gamut of the creative world. Some were Impressionistic or Abstract, others clung quite close to the traditional Japanese manga look. Some were parodies, with plump or ugly geisha, others were aloof, still others were giddy or coy. It was really neat to see so many interpretations of the same idea.

The second and third floors had a few more exhibitions. One was dedicated to a long-running weekly publication, sort of the default kid's comic book in Japan. It was celebrating an anniversary this year and there was a big display featuring tons of old issues, games based off of the properties, and toys. Two other displays dealt with the winners of two different manga competitions. One was an International Manga contest, where 5 winners from different Asian countries had their work on display. The other was a Japan-only manga award, won by three artists.

The three artists differed greatly, but each had a subtle humor to their styles. One worked mostly in water color and ink. The middle one was monochrome ink. The last had dark but vibrant colors over inks. All were fantastic.

The last two displays I saw were on the Third floor. One was a history of manga, stretching back to before World War I to the present. There was little English literature, however, so I couldn't get much out of the display. I read that, post-WWII, paper was so scarce that manga publication almost dried up completely. Osamu Tezuka, the "Father of Manga" revitalized the industry with his groundbreaking titles and brought the art form into the modern times. The other display was a collection of Korean manga, manhwa, that has grown in popularity in Japan over the past decade.

I read and perused to my heart's content, but I knew that I had to get going, lest I miss out on other things. I grabbed a quick lunch at an attached coffee shop. The walls were covered in sketches by famous manga artists; Monkey-sensi, creator of Lupin III and Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Gundam.

I hiked back across the scorching city streets to Nijo Castle. The walk was a little faster this time, thanks to the fact that I knew where the place was. Near the castle's southwestern corner I stopped at a shop. In the windows glinted katana and various other ancient Japanese weaponry. The store was smaller than my kitchen, essentially a broom closet with a window. The swords inside were beautiful, though, and appeared to be hand-forged. They didn't look machined like so many katanas that are around these days. Their heat lines were random and chaotic, without the heat-stress of a blowtorch (which some imposters use to give their machined swords a more 'realistic' look).

A Spanish couple were in the store, discussing in mixed Japanese, Spanish, and English the particulars of a set of small daggers. The shop's owner was working with one of the daggers, gently removing the blade from the handle, so as to show the maker's mark on the tang.

I didn't stay long, though I would have liked to. I had to get going to the castle if I was to do anything constructive with my day.

This post is getting huge, and I need to get started on my morning exercise. I'm going to post what I've written so far and finish it tonight.