All Protocol

A rare two days off consecutively meant that Princess Prettygood and I had time for a brief excursion before she started her new job. I start my 2 weeks off next week and it is unlikely that she'll have running days off during that time. And so it was that we went to Kyoto, the former Imperial Capital of Japan.

I'd been once before in the middle of the rainy season in 2004 when the water came up higher than my Converse trainers could deal with. I left the morning after overnighting at the world's noisiest hostel but knew I would give Kyoto a second chance.



We took an early bullet train which got us to Kyoto by 9-ish, then changed to a local train for Uji. Uji bridge is rather lovely, with birds sweeping over the fast moving river. The rain, which should have been annoying, was cooling, leaving the air feeling like lukewarm soup as we visited Byodo-In, the place on the 10 yen coin.

Princess bought some tea and then we went up to Kyoto proper to visit Sanjusangendo, which houses a vast number of divine golden warrior statues, several Buddhist deities and almost as many notices to forbid photography and informing that "your camera will be checked before you leave". Mine weren't, not even the digital one, but I was a good boy and played by the rules.

We hit up Kiyomizu Temple as the next place on our itinerary. Several noisy tourist groups, sponsorship from Hitachi and Fujicolor, some OK temples in a breathtaking mountain setting. I'll be honest, I enjoyed tasting the yatsuhashi at the souvenir shops more than that temple.

Next we wandered around Gion and Pontocho, the latter for food. The fact that Princess did not kill me, nor even punch me in the face due to my lack of opinion regarding dining choices is a testament to her even temper and loveliness. We ate kaiseki ryori, essentially Japanese haute cuisine, and I avoided making any major gaffes I think.

Hotel. BBC World News. Sleep. Wake up.

Ryoan-ji was far from our hotel, but the 40-minute bus ride was pleasant enough. It took us past Nijo-Jo, which we would later visit and find closed. Ryoan-ji is one of Japan's "three most beautiful gardens", one of which is in Mito and the other of which is somewhere I forgot since coaching tour guides. I know that it's not the garden outside the apartment below me, but I digress. It's one of those stone Zen gardens. It's essentially the definitive one, and it's nice and all of the other white people were quietly voiced and humble before it. It was rather enjoyable even though you couldn't go up close.

Princess Prettygood broke my jaw while I told her I didn't mind what we ate. We opted for, and by this I mean she opted for, a restaurant that declared "We do not sell ramen, humberg (sic) or curry rice".

Next up, Kinkakuji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion which Yukio Mishima wrote about in a novel I will probably never read because I hated one of his other books from only the first five chapters. It's OK. It's crowded. It really is made of gold. You can't go in to the gold bit itself. It's one of the must sees but I don't really get why. Thailand does the whole gilded-temple thing thing better, in my opinion.

Ginkakuji, translated as Silver Temple, due to moonlight reflection I think I read somewhere was much better. Another huge tour group but a quiet one. The gardens here were absolutely marvellous and this or Sanjusangendo may have been the highlight for me. Next was coffee and missing Nijo-Jo's visiting period and then a wander around town.

Coffee. Pork cutlet (my choice!) and then Kyoto station.

I haven't developed my film yet but it will be done soon I think.