Kyoto - Ultimate Trip Recap

Holy shit, I haven't updated this blog in nearly two months. Let's change that.

This morning I arrived back in Fukushima from a four-day expedition in Kyoto. The select few of you who read my blog probably recall back in October when a group of students from the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (hereon called Kyoto Gaidai) came to play with us at our concert. This is because we have a sort of "sister" wind ensemble relationship (kind of like sister cities) with that universities wind ensemble. Every March, a few students from Aizu go down to Kyoto to visit the other group. I was one of them.

We ended up taking a night bus there and back, and we went this past Tuesday night. It was on a double decker bus, direct from Koriyama to Kyoto Station. The top floor was so small and narrow that even my Japanese friends were complaining. I ended up drifting off to sleep for about an hour at a time, randomly waking up at different parts of the evening to check our progress on Google Maps and shift in my seat in pain from the sore tailbone that I fell on in undergrad.

After we arrived at Kyoto Station on Wednesday morning, we passed some time at a cafe before meeting up with some of the students from Kyoto Gaidai to take us to where we'd be staying. Oono-san, one of the other students, and I would be staying in the west end of the city with one of the students from Kyoto Gaidai who came in October. As you may know, I have a hard time with name retention. However, much to my help and delight, I later found out that this student's actual nickname was, and this is true, "Jimmy." Jimmy lived right off the same bus line, right next to one of the many shrines that scatter the entire city of Kyoto.

We dropped off our stuff at Jimmy's apartment and then went to Kyoto Gaidai's main campus. There, we met the other students for an introduction meeting and a few games, with a brief break in the middle for some ramen at a nearby shop. Some of the conversations were native-level Japanese, so naturally I missed out on a few jokes, although I did have some moments to socialize, like when we played shiritori (しりとり), a Japanese word-guessing game where you have to give a word that starts with the last letter or character of the previous word. We did a few rounds using pictures, and then a few rounds using English. (I proofread the English versions, of course.)

Afterwards, we broke off into different groups for the day, and my group went to a nearby mall to shop and hang around. We then headed back to Jimmy's apartment for drinks (I didn't), and that's when I learned that Jimmy was a lightweight. He got so drunk that he actually got into bed and went to sleep, while everyone else was still in his room.

The next day, Thursday, was a sightseeing day. We all met up at Fushimi Inari-taisha (伏見稲荷大社), the shrine famous for the pathways lined with toori (鳥居). What you may not know is that each of these toori are paid for by various companies, whose names are written on the back of the toori that it paid for. The group that I was sightseeing with decided not to traverse the entire shrine, as that takes a good portion of the day, so we decided to go to other places in the city.

The next stop was Sanjusangen-dou (三十三間堂), which was a museum of Buddhist statues from the earlier part of the last millennium depicting the various gods worshipped in Japan. (No photos were allowed inside the hall.) Following there was Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺), where we got to see a lovely view of the city and wash our hands under a sacred waterfall.

We then spent some time afterwards walking around Nishiki Market, a series of covered side streets [that turn into actual streets after the shops close for the night] hosting all sorts of food shops, before heading to meet everyone else at a hole in the wall izakaya right next to the Rhino, the very same hotel that I stayed in when I first visited Kyoto two years prior. I was tired from walking around, so I ended up sleeping through dinner while everyone else was getting hammered. I wasn't the only one who fell asleep at the party; Jimmy also passed out from the liquor. We ended up having to wake him up to take us home while some of the others went out for karaoke.

But the evening was not over for Oono-san and I. We got back to Jimmy's apartment, only for there to be no power. The breaker was fine, he wasn't behind on his payments, and the support hotline was closed for the night. I had already dealt with sleeping on Jimmy's floor for one night, which was okay, but I didn't want to do it again in the dark with no power or heat. Therefore, I searched online for a hotel that would be able to take us in that late. Ironically, the closest one was the Rhino, which was back towards the city center. Oono-san called the hotel to confirm, and we parted ways and retraced our steps and checked into the hotel just in time. As it had turned out, the hotel was undergoing reservations the last time I had stayed there, and the results were fantastic. We had a nice corner room overlooking the city.

The next morning, Friday, was the actual practice between the two wind ensembles. Oono-san and I checked out and headed back to Kyoto Gaidai's campus. We were the first to arrive, only to find out that the starting time that was part of our original schedule was incorrect. We ended up hanging around for everyone, and we all got setup. Thankfully, Kyoto Gaidai had a Yamaha YBS-62 bari that I could use, so I didn't have to haul the one from Aizu. That horn had a darker sound with my mouthpiece attached, which I thought was pretty cool.

We started practice with sectionals, where we tuned and went over the two songs we would be playing. Taniguchi-san, who I first met in October, was there, and my Japanese was up to par for the practice time. We then broke off for lunch, which is a good time for me to share with you an awkward moment of cultural exchange.

SCENE: A giant lecture room at a university in Kyoto. Early afternoon. Students sit around in a large group of semi-groups eating packed and convenience store lunches.

Enter 大きと変な外国人 from stage right. He is wearing sunglasses and Bluetooth headphones, and carrying a plastic bag with McDonald's food. The other students do not mind him. 大きと変な外国人 takes out his lunch from the bag: a specialty burger, some chicken nuggets, and a drink. He eats one of the nuggets first before unwrapping his burger. The burger is a mess; the fast food worker put on too much sauce, and the bun and inside of the wrapper are soaked. 大きと変な外国人 lets out an audible grumble, then takes a bite out of the burger regardless.

At this point, the other students break from their conversations and phones and stare at 大きと変な外国人 as he is finishing his first bite. He notices their stares and suddenly gets slightly nervous. He swallows what's in his mouth.

大きと変な外国人: 「な、何？」

大野さん speaks for the rest of the group.

大野さん: 「いいえ、何でもない。」

大きと変な外国人 takes a second to process the situation, then shrugs and continues eating his lunch. The other students continue with their conversations and lunches.

END SCENE

Following lunch, we all set up for practice, going through both pieces section by section. The songs were Shiokaze-no-maachi (汐風のマーチ) and Copacabana. (To the dinosaurs that read this blog: yes, it's the Barry Manilow song.) We took a brief break after practice, and then we played both songs in their entirety. Jimmy recorded the audio for both, and I tried to get video on my Canon PowerShot. However, I only managed to get Copacabana; the other one did not save to my camera for some odd reason. The video should appear on our wind ensemble's Youtube account in the near future.

At this point, after a few photos, it was time to pack up and head next door for an afterparty. Everyone from Aizu gave remarks, including myself (mostly in English, but with some Japanese), and we helped ourselves to some free food. I got to properly socialize with Taniguchi-san, as well as Tanikawa-san, another saxophone player who did not come to Aizu in October but spoke English rather well. We received a small bag from Kyoto Gaidai with a very nice sweat towel, and took one last picture as a group before heading off to the train station to catch our bus.

I have been to Kyoto Station before, but I did not know that aside from the tracks and the bus stop, the entire facility was an architect's dream come to life. Among the many different shopping areas was a Macy's-like department store that went up ten floors, and I know this because I took an outside escalator to the top of the station, where we all got to see a good view of the city. It was a perfect moment to the end of a short but fantastic trip. I need to come back to Kyoto one more time before I leave Japan. Maybe next time I'll swing by Osaka afterwards, as it's a short distance away from Kyoto.

And finally, one interesting side story. As we were packing our things up, Jimmy came over to me to try to pay me back for the hotel. I tried to tell him that he didn't need to worry about paying for our hotel because it wasn't his fault that his apartment lost power. Turns out that wasn't the whole story. Jimmy apparently called the utility company the next morning to explain his situation. Due to an accounting glitch on their end, they not only turned his power back on for the hotel, they gave us the money for the hotel that Oono-san and I stayed in. You certainly wouldn't expect that shit from Eversource now, would you?

So thank you, Jimmy, for your hospitality. (Tackawanna thanks you, too, because that's now hood paint money.) And thank you to all of the students at Kyoto Gaidai that welcomed us. If I have time after my thesis defense next year, I'll try to come back on the next trip, if only for a day.

-wp