In the last blog, I apologised for going 18 days without writing a blog. This time, there is a cool 2 months between the last blog and this one. Of course, life is a teeny tiny bit different for us all now. I had planned to write this entire blog in December and January, but that all went out the window. And hence, today’s blog is likely to be riddled with nihilism. Reading this years in the future, I might question why. CORONAVIRUS, that’s why.
It’s now 4 months since we went to Japan and it seems like a lifetime away. I’m pretty much at the stage now where I am piecing together memories through photos alone, longing for crowded places and human interaction. Thoughts of being in packed tourist areas almost seems like some kind of dream.
Anyway, enough of that. We woke up in our hostel again and decided, following the disappointment of missing the monkeys at Yamanouchi, we made a semi-last minute decision to go to Arashiyama Monkey Park to remedy that fact. We hopped on a bus and we were on our way. The area around the park was pretty beautiful, surrounding by mountains, sporting trees of all colours; the bright white sky only highlighting the fact.
It’s difficult to see from the photos, but the bridge crossing the river was incredibly busy. Tens of military personnel were on hand to usher us across the bridge in a shuffling queue from one side to the other. We then entered the park and made the 20 minute uphill hike towards the ruddy monkeys. We were surprised to find not one single monkey on the way up, and worried that might either not be there or confined to the tourist area in some form. Neither was true as we finally hit the top, they were everywhere! Monkeys of all ages walking amongst us, hanging from trees, hanging off various ropes and objects. They were cute, obvs, they’re monkeys, and it was lovely to see that they were able to walk where they pleased. You were allowed to feed the monkeys as long as you went into the hut and went behind the caged window; i.e. WE THE HUMANS were the caged animals. I can just hear the philosopher’s salivating. Here are some monks.
We spent a long time here, and rightly so. Just look at them. Cute little fuckers. We were right next to the Bamboo forest so we headed there. Now, we’d been to a few touristy places on our travels, but I feel like this one tipped over into too touristy. I appreciate the dripping irony of saying that, but here we are. We slowly shuffled around the tall, beautiful bamboo trees, with no opportunity to stop and take decent photos. To be honest, we were probably a little weary at this stage too. We didn’t hang around too long before heading back into the main town.
I don’t think I have mentioned until now that all holiday, I had been deliberating whether to go to a gig in Kyoto on a bit of a whim. Those that know me know that I love a gig and I get all twitchy if I go long enough without one. Midori Hirano was playing at a venue called Sata, with support from Atsuko Hatano. I decided I would go along whilst Julie would go shrine huntin’. It was a long ol’ walk to the venue from the centre of town, around 50 minutes. It was interesting to finally walk around some residential areas of Japan; I was beginning to wonder where the fuck everybody lived. The venue was your typical gig room; I made my way up to the makeshift bar and bought myself a red wine, to then find that the room that the gig was taking place in was locked shut. This was the first time I had been alone during the holiday, and it was time to put my Japanese learnings to the test. The barmaid was putting bottles away with her back to me, so I had to get her attention.
“Arigato?” I said, trying to get her attention.
Of course, this translates to – “thank you?”.
She gave me a funny look, and I motioned towards the door. She unlocked it and I walked into a pitch back room, but for a lady with a violin and loop pedal dimly lit on stage. As my eyes began to adjust, I realised there were no more than 20 people in here, all on separate seating, everyone fully attentive. The music was glorious, Atsuko Hatano is an incredible violinist, flip-flopping between contemporary classical flourishes, and twisted avant garde sounds that a violin simply has no right to make. It was completely captivating. As she finished the set, the lights went up to reveal the bright white room I was in. I grabbed myself another wine and sat there, just taking everything in. There were certainly no tourists in here and everyone seemed to know each other so I just sat there awkwardly, looking at pictures from the holiday so far on my phone. Before long, the lights dimmed once more for Midori Hirano to grace the stage with Kaliber16 on visuals. The following 30/40 minutes were hypnotic and incredibly inthralling. Midori’s piano was drenched in various reverbs and manipulated effects, creating such ethereal atmospheres that put me in places much bigger than the room I was in. She was joined by Atsuko for her final couple of tracks, creating quite the wall of gorgeous noise. Please excuse my horrendous photos…
As I left the venue, I was safe in the knowledge that I had absolutely made the right decision to go; consider me a new fan of both acts.
I walked to the bus stop and messaged Julie; she’d had a grand old time at the shrine, apart from the bit where she dropped her bag off a wall into the shrine garden and had to ask some people there to retrieve it. WHAT. A. WALLY.
We met back up and went back to the hostel. By now it was approaching midnight, and I had a date with the Mighty Blades at 1.30am, as they were playing Manchester United back home. I got some much needed 90 minutes of shut eye, and awoke on the bottom bunk of our bed to watch the match on my phone. Part of me wished for a dull-as-fuck opening 15 minutes so I could sack it off and sleep instead. And what happened? Only the best match of the season. We went 1-0 up and in my overzealous bed-bound celebration, Julie awoke with a “grrrrrr!”. We then went 2-0 up and I celebrated again in a similar fashion, this time thankfully without waking the beast. WHAT?! Julie, I meant Julie. Damn… autocorrect (?). Half time. 2-0 up. Time for a 10 minute nap (I believe I’ve mentioned in a previous blog what an incredible sleeper I am, and I proved this once more). Second half, and after some back and forth we ended up 2-3 down. Gutted. Shell-shocked. Why, God, why?! Alas, in the 90th minute, up pops hero of the day Oli McBurnie to score the equaliser. I had to physically hold my mouth to not wake Julie. Scenes.
15 days in Japan. 