Why Kyoto

I feel like I'm playing catch-up. I've been here for 15 days and I'm so behind on this blog. Well the main reason is that I don't have regular access to Internet right now. The only place I use the Internet is at the Kyoto International House. It's not that far away from where I'm staying but we've been so busy in the last two weeks, which I won't go into until things are finalised, that I haven't been at the International House long enough to say anything. But don't worry, soon enough things will even out into a common normality and I'll have fun coming back and commenting on all the things I missed. As soon as I have regular access to the Internet, I will be posting more often, I think....

So I arrived in Kyoto (Direct Translation - Capital City). Why did we choose Kyoto, you ask. Where is Kyoto? That's what wikipedia is for. The point is, for all you lazy people out there who don't want to check, I'm not anywhere near Tokyo. Right now I don't want to touch Tokyo with a 10 foot stick. To give you an idea of what Kyoto is like, it's about 1.5 million people surrounded by mountains from all sides. Now I don't know my geography and I'm not sure what kind of weather I'm getting myself into but it's been hot here everyday since I arrived. 30°C everyday. The last few days have been rainy but whatever. Anyway, this was the capital city until 1868 at the time of the Imperial Restoration (which I also will not get into) when the capital was moved to Tokyo (Direct Translation-Eastern Capital). Kyoto was the capital city for about 700 years. In the center of the city, the Imperial Palace is a huge and amazing structure which I'll get into more when I visit it. Kyoto is about an 8 hour drive from Tokyo and about 45min from Osaka.

We chose to live in Kyoto for a few reasons. Firstly, Japan is known for volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes. Kyoto is protected on all sides from all of these wonderful things. I have no idea why Tokyo is as big as it is because it's the center for most of these problems in Japan. This safety idea was probably why Kyoto was chosen as the location of the capital. Being surrounded by mountains probably helped with defence too. So this kind of leads to my second reason. Since this was the center of the Empire for so long, we figured that many aristocrats and other wealthy people would have wanted to be near the Imperial Palace. The city of Kyoto grew around this type of society. Thus, today even though it's not the capital, Kyoto is considered the most cultural city for most things Japanese. Whether it be clothing, music and traditions, Kyoto appears to be covered in non-western culture. This is the richest place to get it in Japan. At least this is what I've been told. Thus, we chose this place because we figured that it would be the best place to learn about Japan and Japanese culture. I've recently visited Osaka and from what I can tell it is far more Westernised. You can see it from the way people dress and the kind of restaurants available.

Our choice of Kyoto may not have been the best because it may lack a certain variety that most cosmopolitan places seem to have. Right now, it doesn't seem like a problem but I wonder how much of the food I can eat before I start to miss other things or how much overall culture I can take before I yearn for something familiar. I guess living 45 min from Osaka will give me all the variety I need if I want it.

Now, I wonder what kind of image the reader has in his mind of what Kyoto must look like or be like. All I've seem to say is that it's very traditional. Well, it's not as old fashioned as I make it out to be; its simply the most cultural. Were definitely not talking about Upper Canada Village. There are cars, taxis, subways, banks and McDonalds just like any large city. But, it's not uncommon to see a woman walking around in a kimono. There are more temples here then I can currently count. I'm sure I'll say more about them after I've visited some. What I love most about Kyoto is the constant mixture of old and new, of tradition and modernism.