Konnichiwa Kyoto

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I took so many more photos than are up on my flickr stream. Here they all are in their glory (and not so glory). They should be in the same order as the text below.

Christina and I set off for Akihabara on the 8:11 Tsukuba Express. At Akihabara we hopped across on the JR line to Tokyo Station and then skipped to the Shinkansen which took us to Kyoto. I am always in awe of the ease of Japanese rail. Everything runs on time and frequently. The ticket barriers even speak of efficiency! None of this time wasted in opening a gate for the ticketed passenger to walk through. Instead the gate is always open and closes on the unticketed passengers. Think about the precious time saved when millions must pass through the gates every day.

The Shinkansen is of course the bullet train that the world is in awe of (apart from France). It took about two hours and forty minutes to get to Kyoto. We passed Mount Fuji on the way. The morning was clear and it rose up glistening white. The country between the cities was mainly a mix of small buildings and farm land. No space is wasted in this area of Japan. We also passed the Sanyo Solar Ark.

Once we arrived in Kyoto, it was straight to the Tourist Information office in the station for us. We grabbed maps and suggested walking tours from the helpful woman on the desk (who annotated a map demonstrating that she was able to write upsidedown as easily as the right way up... the words, not the orientation of the writer). Then we grabbed some ramen noodles and braved the outside world.

The station was amazing. We left the 10th floor and entered this huge atrium with steps and escalators that went all the way down to the bottom. The steps were full of people sitting and watching a stage far below on the third floor. We took the escalators down and tried to block out the noise from the people "beatboxing" on the stage.

Our first impression of Kyoto as we left the station was one of rather cheesy ugliness as the building in front of us was decorated with a huge lighthouse type structure. In the evening we saw this all lit up on the skyline and grew to like the architectural oddity but at first we were laughing at it. It was only a few minutes away however that we saw our first temple.

I noticed that about Kyoto, that the temples and shrines just cropped up in the most normal settings. Of course they would though. Churches are found in residential areas, after all, with no great touristy fanfare. But it seemed to me that in Tokyo this was not the case and it surprised me to find religious structures in Kyoto alongside houses and shops.

Our hotel was Western style and pretty expensive for one night. If I was to visit Kyoto again, I would definitely try harder to find accommodation that was both more Japanese and cheap.

After capturing our breath at the hotel, we embarked on our weekend of Kyoto discovery. With walking guide and maps in hand, we took a bus to the Nanzenji Zen Buddhist temple. We entered through a two-storey gate. Although the site dates back to the thirteenth century, like most of Kyoto the gate was rebuilt after being destroyed in the fifteenth century. The setting was rather beautiful. Many trees, tall and thin, and artfully placed and carved rocks. Incense was burnt just beyond the gate. What would undoubtedly be overwhelming if indoors became an uplifting and relaxing addition to the air. In particular I loved the aqueduct in the grounds. It took me some time to wait for the arches to clear of people but once they did I was able to get a shot of the line of arches.

Christina and I moved on quite quickly because the day was disappearing and there was more to do. We took the "path of philosophy" past some teddy bear fishermen to Ginkakuji.

Ginkakuji was designed as a retirement villa but turned into a Buddhist temple. It was meant to be covered in silver but that never happened and what stands there now is a nice wooden pavilion topped with a phoenix. Surrounding the pavilion is a Zen garden and pond from the fifteenth century. I loved the garden. Sand was formed into a truncated cone, placed near more sand raked into smooth curves. It was almost an optical illusion with the curves of the sand following the curves of the ground and exaggerating them.

We walked up a path on a hillside overlooking the Silver Pavilion. The hillside was gently wooded and the ground was covered in a rich green moss. Unfortunately there were many tourists and it was hard to enjoy the setting properly because we had to move on.

We left the Ginkakuji just as it closed and hopped on a bus that ran south to the streets of east Kyoto. Christina's guide book suggested that this was full of old wooden houses and narrow streets and was the former "entertainment" district. However, when we got there it was early evening and the area was pretty quiet. The maps didn't cover these small back streets at all well so we wandered aimlessly for a while discovering the ornate carvings on the buildings and the lanterns that lit them (plus an inflatable Spider-man). We had hoped to get some proper Kyoto cuisine in this area but we weren't able to find any restaurants. So we settled for a family style restaurant near the river.

The next day we started before nine and got to our first port of call by ten. This was the Kinkakuji: The Golden Pavilion. We arrived there with a load of school kids and had to fight the crowds to get a glimpse of the golden pavilion across the lake. The pavilion is actually rather new as in 1950 a "fanatic monk" apparently burnt the fourteenth century building (who knew monks were such pyromaniacs?). The covering is real gold leaf.

Once sated with the expense of the place, we moved on the path through more wooded and mossy areas to the tea house. The old tea house was not open to the public but they had one for us tourists. There were bright red parasols and tables covered with red cloth to sit on. A Japanese woman brought us a bowl of matcha and a small sweet each and we sat for a while in this serene setting. On first sip, the tea was unbelievably bitter but it grew on me and by the bottom of the bowl, I wanted more. The sweet was rather bland tasting icing around a red bean paste filling but it seemed to suit the strong tea well.

Next on the agenda was the Ryoanji Temple which had a, and I quote, "rock garden surrounded by low earthen walls [that] may be thought of as the quintessence of Zen art". Well, all I can say is Zen art is quintessentially dull. I will further quote the leaflet: It is up to each visitor to find out for himself what this unique garden signifies. I am sorry to say that I was too lazy to do that and rushed on to sit for the best part of an hour by the lake by the temple. It was full of lotus flowers and terrapins and the blue sky.

We then walked to the JR line and caught the train to Nijo-jo (castle). This dates back to the seventeenth century and has bumped the Met in New York off the top spot in my "places I want to live in (when the world ends) list". The castle is bounded by a moat and wall and within it is an inner moat. In the outer circle is the Ninomaru Palace and the best place I visited in Kyoto. The building was a series of linked rooms with straw mats and painted walls. The art was amazing and I am not even a fan of Japanese art; it bordered on the abstract possibly depicting landscapes. I especially loved the windows covered with thin white paper that let the sunlight in and made the rooms glow. Of course, the main attraction of the building are its nightingale floors and they really did sound like birds calling. With all the tourists, it was as loud as the dawn chorus.

We also wandered the garden of the palace with its large lake and stone work and also the more modern garden along the north side of the castle. We rested for some time in the inner section of the castle. There was a high point where a castle tower once stood from which we got some great views of the castle and the city beyond its walls.

Feeling quite exhausted, we left Nijojo for Kyoto train station. We had intended to do the old Imperial Palace but the weekend had truly worn us out and we were thinking of the train journey back to Tokyo quite fondly. Before leaving Kyoto (on the 1800 Shinkansen), we rode the station escalators right up to the roof of the station and took in some great views of the city (spoiled in the photos by reflections). There was a brass band playing on the stage this time and we saw the expanse of Kyoto to the music of 2001.

And let's not forget the doorknob...

Huge Spider-man 3 Spoilers Afoot!


Spider-man 3 was the first film of the franchise that I knew I would love from the very first moments. I did not know what to expect with the first film and although I felt huge relief that it wasn't like Joel Schumacher's Batman films, I was webslinging home worried that I had dragged my friends out to a children's film. With the second film I was sitting disappointed though vaguely amused until the train scene. With the third film I was immediately plunged into action and emotion.

The first two films had moments of intense action and comedy but this was the first film, I thought, that managed to interweave the two successfully. Unlike both other films, it wasn't an hour of treading water until we got some action. It was straight away. And it wasn't some random crook but a character and a relationship we cared about: Harry Osbourn.

The moment when Peter saw Harry after the play, my heart leapt. There was no messing around. This was straight after Spider-man 2 and we had not missed a single delicious moment of this tragic friendship. Harry's attack on Peter was so sharp and sudden that I was screaming "where can the film go after this?". This was indeed the stunning fight scene of the movie and it was right at the beginning. The audience went wild. Every hit suffered by Peter and Harry was felt by us all. There were gasps and cries at every deftly choreographed move and finally cheers and applause when Peter downed his frenemy using one simple trip-web.

And then silence as it seemed very real that Peter had killed his friend.

In a series that semi-annoyed me with its lack of acknowledgement that Spider-man was dangerous, it took a rather dangerous turn. And I loved it.

Harry survived thanks to Goblin magic and came out of his brush with death with soap-opera amnesia. I both hated this device and loved it for being close to the comics. Then later I adored it for the side to Harry it allowed us to see. The simple childish glee. It bothered me a little that we had not seen this in him before but then it all made sense when he says that not knowing who you are carries a sense of freedom with it. I feel that this line should have been emphasised more (Spider-man is not a subtle franchise usually) as it is a large part of the film. This was a film that asked "Who is Peter Parker?" and then took it away from him to see who was left. More about that later, obviously. Right now I am delighting in my memories of Harry and Peter bouncing a basketball and later, Harry and MJ dancing. And failing to flip an omelette.

Basking over now. Let me mention the Sandman. I was pleased with the special effects but that is all that can be said for the Sandman. His back story was trite ("I was a crook to save my daughter") and the integration into Peter's story only worked up to where Peter "killed" Flint. After that he was just an under-motivated bad guy. And please don't get me started on the Particle Physics Test Facility...

The Sandman was there for Peter to vent on. To lose himself. And so we get to the idea of knowing who you are. Peter loses himself in his fame and later his rage (or rather, his wish to feel rage as it is really the loss of self he longed for). I loved the first part. It is right that Spidey should have such fans. He has very rarely been given fame in the comics or cartoons but whenever he is, this egotism is the result. It felt great to see it in full and hideous glory. I felt his fun as well, how he swung into his parade (posing momentarily in front of the stars and stripes) and, giddy with the love, shared a kiss with Gwen Stacey. It felt good but more than that, we got to the very essence of Peter Parker. The Peter we know and love, no matter the medium, is defined by those he loves. And yet naturally he is a bit of an egocentric prick. Only since the loss of Uncle Ben (and others in the comics) has he really put others first and that is where his fans fall in love with him. Which isn't to say we can't take some glee in revisiting that prick. And then relief and love that Peter is big enough to say "no, I don't want that...".

The result of his egotism was to hurt MJ. MJ who was the star of the second film for me and continued to out-perform everyone else. She was still the mature woman we saw a few years ago but now the consequences of her "sacrifice" came home and her life was more of a struggle. She never seemed to be brought down by that though. She dealt with her problems with a great strength and belief in self (in contrast to how Peter broke down in Spider-man 2). Every moment with her was a delight. When she turned away from Spidey in disgust as he kissed Gwen, I turned away with her. I was with her every step of the way when she attacked Peter in the restaurant. A moment that was possibly the most real and yet the most funny in the whole film. When Bruce Campbell came on screen the audience erupted into cheers. His best performance to date. But back to MJ, she runs thoughout all the films with her own story that is superhero free and about the tribulations of Real Life and I love her for it. A shame she has to end the film screaming though.

As I just mentioned one cameo, I feel I ought to mention that Stan Lee also got riotous applause. Plus all the other comedy performances in the show excelled. Diktovich and Ursula returned to my delight. And who would have thought that even Betty Brant could make me laugh so hard as she shocked poor J J Jameson into keeping his stress levels low? Jonah has never been so funny as when he was meekly taking his medication. Hoffman also made the Daily Bugle a fantastic place to be with his incessant sucking up.

The new addition to the Daily Bugle was of course Eddie Brock Junior. Or was it Brockman? At our first introduction with him I was not happy with the terrible character writing that was having someone care more about taking a photograph than their girlfriend falling to her death... but of course that was all part of setting up this villain, the first in the series to feel like a truly bad person rather than someone driven mad with science (aren't we all?). The disappointment of the Sandman was easy to ignore when we had a simple bad person to contend with. His attempt to weasel into Jonah's good books/newspaper with a faked photograph was brilliant as it led to a fabulous confrontation with Peter in the real world rather than Spider-man in the cartoony one. Eddie and his hatred of Peter Parker was set up brilliantly.

Of course, when the confrontation occured Peter was already in symbiote heaven. Peter lost himself to fame and then just plain loved losing himself. Attacking Sandman, Eddie and Harry (where I gasped at the venom- and truth- in his words) kept me glued to the screen. In a world where Peter gave up the most integral part of him, his concern for others, he really beame a force I couldn't tear my eyes from. And who would want to when this force was such fun at a jazz club? I go to sleep each night with a huge smile on my face, picturing him leap from piano to table to Gwen.

It couldn't last though as it wouldn't be Peter. He enjoyed it all, sure, but he chose to be himself. It perhaps was't much of a choice though as who else could he be? Harry's choice was the big one and this one I felt to be handled clumsily. He could cling to the madness he fell into in Spider-man 2, or he could let it go. And for me, why he let it go was not made clear. I know what I would have done. Well, actually I would have not even done that. When Harry and MJ danced together, I anticipated the end of the film which is not something I often do as I find it spoils my enjoyment but this time I could not stop myself. I saw Peter purposefully bringing back the Green Goblin to help him out. But that aside, I don't think that what we saw in the film was Harry making a Choice. He merely believed the truth because some Jeeves told it to him. I really wanted Peter to apologise to Harry, accept that he did wrong in letting Norman die. Accept responsibility at long last and leave Harry with the Choice of forgiveness. But no. A missed opportunity maybe but the many Imaginings that I have been able to have about the subject is testament to how well they have made these characters and themes come alive.

Which brings me to the end of the film and oh boy did it take my breath away. Peter and Harry together. The action could never be as good as the fight at the start of the film but the joy factor certainly made up for that. And I really think that Harry showed Peter up a bit, don't you? Could I be a Gobby fan as well as a Spidey one please? I was overwhelmed and just praying that they would end the film on this high point akin to Angel and friends fighting forever in their alleyway. It was not to be. But I don't mind because that is where my spirit resides. Forever thwipping and gliding. For eternity.