Friendly Kyoto - well, it was until the taxi driver refused to open the door to let us in. That hasn't happened me in a long time, and you'd think that Kyoto would be used to taxis by now. Sarah went up to the window and knocked, saying 'nihongo ga dekiru yo' (we can speak Japanese). At this magical signal, he opened the door, but I wasn't having any of it. I leaned my head in the door and told him that I wasn't going to get in his taxi and that he had lowered the whole image of Kyoto.
We got another taxi immediately. Kyoto is full of taxis and this guy was happy to take our money and bring us to the Irish pub in Gion to see some jazz. He was a 'yes' man - he kept saying say to everything.
Are you from Kyoto?
Yes.
Do you like Kyoto?
Yes.
Where should we go to see in Kyoto?
Yes.
Have you ever been to Afghanistan?
Yes.
We had a drink at Tadg's in Gion and watched the jazz band who were rather fun. The piano player looked a little uncomfortable but that may have been because it was a small stage and he was six foot five with the most impressive nose we had ever seen.
On the way back, our renewed image of friendly Kyoto was slightly damaged. About 200 meters from Gion, as we walked down a tiny road that surely used to be for rickshaw only, we came to one of the most dangerous junctions that I have ever seen. Where these two tiny roads of less than five meters met, taxis were jostling for position in each direction. I almost lost my foot as a taxi swerved by me, narrowly also missing a taxi coming in the other direction. So much stress trapped inside these drivers, coming out in the form of anxious life-threatening dashes back to the line of taxis waiting in Gion.
When we finally got one of the madmen to stop, he had already morphed into the placid Kyoto taxi driver that we expect. He was an old man, pretty hard of hearing, from Kyoto of course. Almost all taxi drivers in Kyoto are from Kyoto, unlike Nagoya where they seem to mainly come from Kyushu.
The madness had been covered over again.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Hippy
I was on my way to Kyoto to play at some the Saint Patrick's day events. They like me down there. NIce people. Last year, I got to hang out with Lafcadio Hearn's great grandson and great-great grandson at last year's event. Kyoto is a very cultural place, full of fine temples, foreign artists and good German beer.
This guy had a chomage - one of the traditional Japanese style haircuts that he explained were very popular until the Meiji era. Japanese men use to tie their hair up in a ponytail. Men wearing ponytails give me the image either of a man trying to stay young beyond his time or else a mark of actually being cool. Recently, for Japanese men, I've found them to be cool. There's a guy in the computer department at my university who actually talks some sense at meetings. To me, in Japanese university culture, that equals 'cool'.
The taxi driver was 63 and he wore his chomage as a sign of an earlier time in his life. I asked him what work he had done before his current job. He said that he'd never really been into work and had been a hippy for years.
He had spent one and a half years travelling around Europe in his twenties, hitching rides and smoking hashish. He was in Spain during the time of Franco when trouble would descend if three people gathered together to chat. It was obviously a good time for couples. Franco made life hell for the Spanish but didn't really bother the foreigners and the drugs there were almost as good as Morocco.
He slept out on a lot of park benches and railway stations. 'Hippy', he was called in the early 1970's. 'Homeless' is what he would be called today. The image of an old man sleeping on a park bench definitely doesn't call to mind images of flower power and free love.
When he came back to Japan, he spent another three and a half years hippying around. When it got cold, he'd head down to Okinawa and then in the summer, he escaped the heat by hitching up to Hokkaido.
He says he's going back. I asked him when, so he decided on the spot that next year was a good time. He doesn't have to give up any job as he's a free-lance taxidriver. Once they have their freelance license, they have it for life. So, it's back to Morocco that he's heading.
Maybe it's true that it's always possible to go back.
This guy had a chomage - one of the traditional Japanese style haircuts that he explained were very popular until the Meiji era. Japanese men use to tie their hair up in a ponytail. Men wearing ponytails give me the image either of a man trying to stay young beyond his time or else a mark of actually being cool. Recently, for Japanese men, I've found them to be cool. There's a guy in the computer department at my university who actually talks some sense at meetings. To me, in Japanese university culture, that equals 'cool'.
The taxi driver was 63 and he wore his chomage as a sign of an earlier time in his life. I asked him what work he had done before his current job. He said that he'd never really been into work and had been a hippy for years.
He had spent one and a half years travelling around Europe in his twenties, hitching rides and smoking hashish. He was in Spain during the time of Franco when trouble would descend if three people gathered together to chat. It was obviously a good time for couples. Franco made life hell for the Spanish but didn't really bother the foreigners and the drugs there were almost as good as Morocco.
He slept out on a lot of park benches and railway stations. 'Hippy', he was called in the early 1970's. 'Homeless' is what he would be called today. The image of an old man sleeping on a park bench definitely doesn't call to mind images of flower power and free love.
When he came back to Japan, he spent another three and a half years hippying around. When it got cold, he'd head down to Okinawa and then in the summer, he escaped the heat by hitching up to Hokkaido.
He says he's going back. I asked him when, so he decided on the spot that next year was a good time. He doesn't have to give up any job as he's a free-lance taxidriver. Once they have their freelance license, they have it for life. So, it's back to Morocco that he's heading.
Maybe it's true that it's always possible to go back.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Gamagori
We went out to Gamagori two nights ago, a beautiful scenic spot on the Pacific coast of Japan. It's only 38 minutes from Nagoya, but I hadn't been there in 15 years since I did my initial training at a Japanese engineering company. This year has been so bizarrely warm that it seemed like an Irish summer by the sea. We walked out to the little 'island', Takeshima. I call it an 'island' because that's presumably what it used to be before they built the bridge. Still, the bridge is rather tasteful compared to most Japanese bridges. In fact, the whole area is still beautiful and the local wildlife seems to agree. I haven't seen so many birds together in one place in years. There were some fine fights for crumbs between the seagulls and the pidgeons. The seagulls were bigger and more viscious, but the pidgeons weren't scared of the people at all and succeded in getting most of the crumbs.
We took a taxi from the seafront at Gamagori to our lovely ryokan. It was very reasonable - only 13,500 yen for a great big room with a fabulous view, an outdoor onsen that was unfortunately rained upon that night, and a complimentary breakfast.
Our taxi driver said that he was thirty years older than me. I doubted that because I'm 37 and he looked considerably younger than 67. However, he turned out to be 63 which I took as a compliment on my own age, too.
"That's a great place you're staying at," he said. "You can take your drink right into the onsen and down to the sea."
Drinking is always one of my favourite conversations, so I asked "do you like drinking yourself?".
"Oh yes, I love it, but I gave it up ten years ago. I was sitting around the house drinking all day - couldn't hold down a job. Then the wife left me - said that I was a waste of space."
"Did she get married again?", I asked.
"Yes, but I kept drinking. Didn't stop until I had been hospitalized with liver problems for the third time."
"What did you drink, beer, sake?"
"Anything that I could get my hands on."
Gamagori is a nice place to visit, but it doesn't seem to have quite the soul that it used to. All the ferries out to the islands have stopped. We got our good rate because people aren't going there in the numbers that they used to. There aren't many young people around and the ones that we saw were more interested in their gameboys than the scenery around them. It's the kind of place where liquor shops do well.
We took a taxi from the seafront at Gamagori to our lovely ryokan. It was very reasonable - only 13,500 yen for a great big room with a fabulous view, an outdoor onsen that was unfortunately rained upon that night, and a complimentary breakfast.
Our taxi driver said that he was thirty years older than me. I doubted that because I'm 37 and he looked considerably younger than 67. However, he turned out to be 63 which I took as a compliment on my own age, too.
"That's a great place you're staying at," he said. "You can take your drink right into the onsen and down to the sea."
Drinking is always one of my favourite conversations, so I asked "do you like drinking yourself?".
"Oh yes, I love it, but I gave it up ten years ago. I was sitting around the house drinking all day - couldn't hold down a job. Then the wife left me - said that I was a waste of space."
"Did she get married again?", I asked.
"Yes, but I kept drinking. Didn't stop until I had been hospitalized with liver problems for the third time."
"What did you drink, beer, sake?"
"Anything that I could get my hands on."
Gamagori is a nice place to visit, but it doesn't seem to have quite the soul that it used to. All the ferries out to the islands have stopped. We got our good rate because people aren't going there in the numbers that they used to. There aren't many young people around and the ones that we saw were more interested in their gameboys than the scenery around them. It's the kind of place where liquor shops do well.
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