The Biggest Problem with Japan

DAN

We've been in Kyoto for 2 days and I've finally had enough thinking time to put my finger on what's been niggling me about Japan. There is too much amazing stuff here.

The manga museum that we went to see yesterday is the perfect example of this. It's pretty much a library containing hundreds of thousands of manga books. If you went there every day for a year you wouldn't even make a dent in the amount of stuff they have. It's filled with people lounging around on every surface they can find, just reading comics. It's almost like visiting a temple or something.

Looks like the ghouls and ghosts are out tonight

But the frustrating amount of amazing stuff is also kind of fractal. The manga museum is a brilliant place to visit in a city full of amazing sights, in a country full of weird and wonderful locations. The sheer amount of exciting things to do is horrible. I know that I've missed out on literally a thousand things already. I'm finding it hard to take.

But the fractal nature of that amazingness even stretched into the contents of the museum too. There was an exhibition on manga and war. After the Hiroshima peace festival it was fascinating to see so many graphic depictions of personal war accounts, from atom bomb survivors to satirical accounts to child recruits. So many of them were drawn in amazing detail and were utterly beautiful. There were just too many to appreciate. I wanted to have them all, whether in my brain, in a book or on my wall. There were too many good things.

No photos allowed at the manga museum or the temple,
which was kind of a relief

But the even more terrible part of it was that we had just 30 minutes to look at it all, nestled between a pop up diary class and getting our portaits done by a professional manga artist. During the pop up diary making class we heard some kind of theatrical production going on and later learned that they put on fantastic puppet shows there, but we'd missed it. We really cannot win.

Another example : Last night I found myself reading up on Japanese love hotels (places that you go to have sex, but often more complicated than that). There is a love hotel which is Jurassic Park themed. They have jeeps and massive fences. You can go somewhere and have sex in Jurassic Park. Why? Why the hell not? I just learnt about this now, but there are things as strange and fun as this round almost every corner.

But it is exhausting. I find that I have to stop myself dragging Flo and Emma round because of my fear of missing out. It's not easy. Last night we went to the Kōdai-ji temple that had been opened for the night. It was massive and magic and exactly what you'd want. It had bamboo groves and still lakes that reflected the trees like a perfect mirror. There was a yokai exhibition on there too, with ancient scrolls full of cartoonish demons and visions of hell. They even had a weird video light show, which had embarrassingly bad 90s chill out dance music that made it all the more fun.

The temple at night

But Kōdai-ji is just considered to be a sub-temple. There are thousands of temples and shrines in Kyoto. Quite a few of them have night openings and illuminations, but which one do you choose? Luckily I have Emma here to help. She's made so many suggestions that have led to our amazing experiences so far. I think this holiday wouldn't be half as good if not for her.

The magic bamboo groves

It's funny though, because with all these magic things going on sometimes the little incidental things stick out. We were travelling back at night when suddenly Flo saw a crane hiding under a little stone bridge. We stopped and sat on the bridge from half an hour, watching the cane fishing and creeping around. That was maybe the best bit of the day.

Tomorrow we head to Nara, where deer nod to you and you can visit the world's largest Buddha in the world's largest wooden house.

My goodness!