Kyoto - ancient capital of Japan - Kyto - Kyouto - Kyo-to - Japanese capital - Japan's capital - Japan's ancient capital - former imperial capital - sometime capital of Japan - tourism in Kyoto - sightseeing in Kyoto - Kyoto tourist attractions - let's visit Kyoto - fridge magnets - mankekineko - cats in Japan - Japanese cats -
Section 44 Entry 0001. Date: 2003 May 24 Saturday.
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Today I decided that I should finally sit down and start writing about my trip to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan.
Kyoto
(... note that the first "o" is long ...)
This trip lasted from May 7 through May 10 - three nights, four days. Our party was a party of four: myself, my parents, and one Japanese national, who will be referred to (if reference seems appropriate) as "the guide".
Anyway, the first significant thing I have to report about Kyoto is that it is extremely difficult to find fridge magnets in that city. Perhaps we missed something. Maybe if you walk down the right street then you see, in front of you, the Great Kyoto Fridge Magnet Emporium.
But the fact is that with four of us on the lookout for fridge magnets, we didn't see a single one in four days
Maybe at this point I should search the Internet with the Google search engine and see what comes up if I punch in "kyoto fridge magnet". Okay, here goes ....
.... and I get "about 136" results, including the following:-
... Somewhere in Texas a village has lost its idiot. Howard is Bush's fridge magnet. Fight plaque not Iraq. ... Platypus poison may kill pain. Kyoto good for the nation. ..."
Which doesn't look very promising.
So, anyway, as far as I could determine, there were no fridge magnets in Kyoto. But there were plenty of cats. I'll try to get round to the cats tomorrow.
Section 44 Entry 0002. Date: 2003 May 24 Saturday.
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The following photos are both of and yet not of Kyoto - they've been warped a bit by being processed by my imagination.
During the Kyoto trip, my imagination started working on a fantasy novel in the tradition of fantasy - all the links in this paragraph lead to a publicity page about the novel, BAMBOO HORSES, and if you follow the links then they bring you (eventually) to a page where you can click for full-size versions of the photos shown here.
As you can gather from the tone of the entry above, I am less than entirely focused on the task of describing Kyoto ... and the reason for this is that the real city has been supplanted by the self-building city which has started to dominate my imagination ....
Section 44 Entry 0003. Date: 2003 May 25 Sunday.
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Today, just a quick note to wrap up my account of the Kyoto trip - this will be a bit sketchy, I'm afraid.
The Kyoto that I visited was a modern city of low-rise buildings, most of which were made of concrete. It was speckled, here and there, with older wooden buildings, a number of which are overpriced junk shops (or, if you prefer, "antique shops".)
The Kyoto that I visited (and yours might quite conceivably be different) was also infested with cats, something that became apparent when one member of our party wanted to know what the story was with "that bloody ridiculous cat," an item which proved on examination to be just a perfectly ordinary manekineko, a money-beckoning cat.
A manekineko, a figurine in the form of a cat with one paw raised, is described by the dictionary as "a beckoning cat". However, the standard function of these cats is to invite money to enter a business establishment. They can be found all over the place, fulfilling (or trying to fulfill) precisely that function. You may see them on the counters of cheap eateries or in the windows of exquisitely elegant fashion shops.
The following dialog took place:-
"I think they're kitsch."
"They can't be kitsch. They're culturally authentic. Things which are culturally authentic can't be kitsch."
The "can't be kitsch" statement was mine, and sounded good at the time of its utterance. However, seen through other eyes, it has to be admited that the manekineko is kitsch.
And that was what opened our eyes to the world of cats. There are cats everywhere. Real, live cats on occasion. And any number of pottery cats, printed cats, postcard cats, calendar cats - the shops are full of them.
And that, really, is all I have to say on Kyoto.
At this stage I'm going to pause in my blogging for a while. I've been reevaluating my use of time, and I realize that at the moment I should be focusing in sharply on the novel that I have in progress, the BAMBOO HORSES project, a novel in the metarealistic tradition - a novel which is not about Japan but which, rather, is set in the nation of Nizon, which is a different place entirely.
I also want to work on my Japanese language project - it's time to get serious about learning Japanese.
An e-mail is sent from this site twice a year. Anyone joining the mailing list at the moment gets the second newsletter, the April 2003 - November 2003 newsletter (details).
The third newsletter will be sent to everyone on the mailing list either late in November 2003 or early in December 2003.
The third newsletter will contain at least two short stories (stories not available on this website). It will also indicate the status of the BAMBOO HORSES project, a work in progress.
If it happens that the blog has been inactive for a while, then the newsletter will indicate whether it has been reactivated.
The third newsletter will also indicate the status of the Japanese language project.
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My spam is slowly but steadily increasing. At the moment it's manageable, but it's entirely possible that in the future I may have to institute a software solution, so that non-conforming e-mail (the Viagra advertisements, the business opportunities involving transferring millions of dollars of embargoed African funds and the rest of it) gets automatically deleted.
Right at the moment, I'm not planning to blog again for at least a month or so, unless something drastic happens - for example, the disease which I won't name gets loose here in Japan, or we get hit by the big earthquake that scientists are expecting to happen somewhere (maybe right underneath this house) sometime (maybe today, or maybe twenty-five years from now ... nobody knows.)
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