Bro, Everybody likes Mario

I want to want to write everyday, dear reader. I honestly do. But it is my super self-centered solo vacation, after all. And ultimately, one must do what one wants. Like, for example, if one wants to watch an entire season of Altered Carbon while doing fantasy baseball mock drafts over a few pours of Nikka in the hotel room, why shouldn’t one? Nevertheless, apologies to one reader, to whom I promised a fresh entry in this diary two days past. Their kind words of encouragement have helped jolt me back into the fray of choosing words and spinning yarns from them.

Now on my way to Osaka (I type this as the endless city passes before me out of long train windows), my plan was to stop and spend the day in Nara, feeding the very docile Deer and partaking in the very good shrines and historical what-have-you’s the area provides, nestled as it is conveniently between Kyoto and Osaka in this part of the densely populated Kansai region. Not even including vast, nearby Nagoya, the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto megacity is home to over 10 million, and nearly double that in the surrounding prefecture. But this excursion in Nara was not to be, as it is raining, and not the fun kind of fuck-it-I’ll-do-it-anyway rain. It’s straight Gumpin’ in this piece, some of that big old fat rain.

These past four days in historic Kyoto have been good for the heart. Surrounded on three sides by small mountain, Kyoto is home to 17 UNESCO World Heritage sights, and I believe I took in eight of them. There were a lot of stairs, and my butt and thighs are sore but somewhat firm by my standards. I feel perhaps like former Vancouver Canuck Kyle Wellwood, who was notoriously fat and small during his career, an atypical frame for a professional hockey player. Wellwood showed up to training camp one summer looking as though he had finally spent some time in the gym. One reporter remarked to the always very fit Canuck Kevin Bieksa that Wellwood looked like he was in good shape. Bieksa responded, “Yeah, for Kyle Wellwood”. Fear not, dear reader. The Largefather is no less large, and the adventures remain dummy fat. Thick, but (for my boomers) with two “q’s”, like this: THIQQ.

Also, before we get into distilling a semi-coherent narrative from the vapour of little moments, I think it’s worth mentioning that my car on this local semi-express from Kyoto Station to Osaka Station is all but empty. Two chatting teenage boys in matching sports wear sit a few meters down, names embroidered across their triceps, and who knows what game they play. One old fellow is affixed to his phone, and there’s a pretty girl with green hair and thick ankles who’s passing glances at me from behind her mask. She’s wearing muted coral-pink pumps and her coat looks expensive but worn.

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The Nishiki Market is a long corridor with shops on both sides, basically a covered alley that spans about 6 blocks before opening up to a wider, perpendicular covered corridor that resembles a more traditional mall at the end. From the sky, I imagine it looks like Squat letter “t” nestled in between Kyoto’s towers. These so-called “shopping streets” are everywhere in Japan, but Nishiki was my favourite so far. It being the thing I knew to do that was closest to my hotel smack in the middle of the new and tall fashion district of that old town, I ate some weird stuff, including a tiny octopus filled with a quail’s egg, and some not-weird stuff, like some grilled prawns. My favourite shop was cooking supplies store where I bought some sauces, spices, and noodles that I could probably get the likes of from a specialty shop back home, but they don’t take up too much bag space, and they’ll make me think of that time, peering up at me from my refrigerator door or countertop until they’re spent. What a comforting idea. I slept well that night, full of so many different kinds of food.  

As another interruption to our regularly scheduled programming, I have now arrived in my hotel in Osaka, and my earlier rooms, save the three capsule nights initially in Tokyo, were grand suites by comparison. This lil cutie right here is 6’x7’ with a shower stall that also contains the sink, with the toilet mercifully on the other side of the partition. The desk at which I sit contains the garbage can and mini-fridge beneath, and I cannot put my bags away because there is nowhere for them. They are in the middle, like Jimmy Eat World. But it’s honestly adorable, it’s everything I need it to be, and its situated in a working-class neighbourhood which is a nice switch-up from where I was staying before.

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It’s been easy for me up until this point to simply relay my experiences here from memory alone, but I now need the assistance of my photo history on my phone, because I’d packed so much into two of the days in Kyoto. Rather than finishing up this post with a long political diatribe like I did last time, I think a photo-dump will be better suited. I gots me some good’uns.  

Kyoto was the capital of Japan in her various forms for over a millennium before emperor Kanmu moved it to Tokyo in 1868. The city is truly a large cog in the machine of human history, and the most important work I did on the first night in Kyoto after Nishiki market was to map things out so that I could be efficient with my time. It is quite a large city after all, and many of the most important monuments are found in the foothills around the city, remote from one another and the city centre. But there is some confusion to be found for a gaijin, because some of the names are quite similar. My first morning, I rose very early, at 7:10 to catch the sunrise at Kinkakuji, the golden temple that is said to contain parts of the remains of the Buddha. When I took the train to the bus terminal that would take me there, I was not aware that there was another temple, many kilometers in the opposite direction that was called Ginkakuji. This one letter undid some of my planning, but ultimately worked out for the best, setting me on I think my favourite day of my travels so far. Realizing far too late that I was going away from my planned destination, I consulted the maps app and found I was indeed headed toward something probably quite cool. I got off at a stop near the philosopher’s path, a riverside trail that was breathtaking in the morning, even before the sakura season makes the whole world pink for a few weeks. Some small green buds were beginning to emerge from their wooden prisons.

Tourist vendors began to line the streets as I left the path on the ascent to that first temple, and the perfectly pruned ancient trees, the moss covered grounds, the immaculately raked sand lots, and the perfectly rugged ponds with stone statues on islands within stole the show away from the 500 year old temples themselves. I climed the trail behind the temple to see the city beneath me stretch forever in the distance until they ran up against the mountains on the other end.

I walked again for hours, through suburbs and commercial areas and parks on my way to Gion shopping district where I had the best Korean beef I’ve had, and eventually found Shoren-in Monzeki, a 12^th century residence that became a monastery and temple usually headed by priests who were also members of the royal family. Its perfectly symmetrical sliding doors and tamami-mat floors gave the impression of a house of mirrors so much so that upon entering the first room, I slowed my pace and put out my arm just in case. No one saw. The Shoren-in contained a 15^th century painting of the works of the Buddha, which is not usually on display to the public. No photography of this work is permitted, but it was quite transporting.

I stopped at the Kahitsukan Modern Art Gallery, where I became familiar with the work of the mid-20^th-century expressionist Kaoru Yamaguchi. He was right up my alley.

After that, I made my last big climb of the day, through the steep, winding streets of Kiyomizu to the Kiyomizu-Dera temple, a shock of bright colours that invoked the painted temples of India, orange, yellow and cyan atop grey stone and gravel. It was a Saturday, and I’m told by locals that while the streets are usually stuffed with Chinese, American, Korean and European tourists, COVID-19 and emboldened the Japanese to take their city’s attractions back. Everyone and their dog (literally) had rented a kimono to stroll the alleys in the old way.

That night, tired of seeing other humans, I did the thing I said when we first started our tale. I watched Netflix, and chilled. Baseball fantasy preparation, some Japanese whiskey, youtube videos and spotify. A room to myself, alone in a city of millions.  

Kyoto is also home to the Nintendo Corporation. My favourite interaction to my knuckle tattoos so far were from the bartenders in Pontocho who bought me a sleeve of beer in congratulations on my silly choice of permanent body adornment. “So, you like super Mario?”, one fellow asked me, to which I answered, “Bro, everybody likes Mario”. I didn’t realize there could require clarity on the global popularity of our dear Italian plumber and his exploits.

The following days, I saw more temples, looked at beautiful ceramic pots and wicker baskets more intricate and beautiful than any I’d seen, strode through bamboo forests and along riversides watching the blue boats paddled by happy couples and young families. I ate some truly great food. I made friends with bartenders and Americans and got hit on by a British teenager on her gap year who got corona’d out of studying in South Korea and had to settle for studying in Japan. These poor rich kids, man, I tell ya.  

So here we are now, in the tiniest hotel room. I just had lunch a block away in a place with no English and no menu and popped just the words “I trust you” into the G-translate. The proprietors were delighted, and my trust was not misplaced. I also showered, and a quick note on that: All the showers I’ve encountered so far in Japan have removable heads, but these showerheads do not stay put in their holsters and want nothing more than to aim themselves out of the shower, as though making the entire bathroom wet is their only path to freedom. It is the fight I was born to win, having learned that if you loosely knot the hose, it can sometimes pacify the rebellious faucet.

I will now travel out into Osaka, and this is a place where I intend to take full advantage of the nightlife. There is a cool concert to see every night that I’m here.

There is still sand everywhere from my trip to the shore in Hamamatsu. I was there for an hour or two, nearly a week ago. I can shake no more. This is my life now.