JOIN USIt is not everyday, certainly not everywhere, that you’d love to be caught between a monster, a samurai and a ninja. And yes, a couple of pretty superwomen in flouncy frocks and blow-dried hair. A samurai with the topknot who can snip a head off with his sword before you can drop a jaw. A ninja who has no bones in his body and leaps to the sky as if god packed springs in his heels. A monster who rises neck-up from a pond, hisses, and vanishes into the water again. In TOEI Kyoto Studio Park, you never know what lurks in the ol’world alleys. A ninja stands on a roof, a costumed samurai pretends being slain by a kid and pretty women in pretty kimonos stroll around in Japan’s only theme park where one can observe the filming of period dramas.
Past recalled
The Kyoto Studio Park, where more than 200 films and television dramas are shot every year, is essentially a mock-up town from the Edo Period, complete with a Nihonbashi bridge, a traditional court house, a Meiji-period police box, and a part of the former Yoshiwara red-light district. There’s a location studio room where tricks of making films are presented; a ninja show; and a haunted house said to be the scariest in Japan. For that mandatory photo-op, one can dress like a samurai or geisha in borrowed costume.
In Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan and one of the oldest metropolises in Asia, the red of the autumn leaves meld beautifully with the orange of thousands of torii (gates) that lend Fushimi Inari-tasha (a Shinto shrine) a surreal look. Situated at the base of the Inari mountain, the shrine is dedicated to the god of rice.
Sculpted foxes guard the gates and miniature gates hang on an iron trellis. Legend has it that if you write a wish on the orange torii and leave it at the shrine, the gods fulfil your wish. As you walk up the roughly hewn stone steps, you hear the bells clanging and the murmur of a million prayers. What takes the breath away is the pathway to the inner shrine that is flanked by gigantic toriis donated by the devout. The overload of orange is mesmerising — it was here that the famous film Memoir of a Geisha was shot.
Being an imperial capital for 1,000 years can leave a city stuck in time. Kyoto, however, seems to be straddling time zones smoothly in a pair of traditional zori sandals. The steel and glass structure lends a futuristic look to the station. Step out and you probably feel you have cranked the clock and walked back in time where women wore exquisite kimonos, knelt on tatami (mat) and turned the ancient tea ceremony into an art.
The city, which has been known as Miyako before being christened Kyoto in the 11th century, fuses the modern with the ancient — there’s a geisha district and a Manga museum. There’s Golden Pavilion (it’s gold-plated) — which shimmers in the ripples of a pond — and Silver Pavilion (does not have even an ounce of silver) that take forward the memories of an almost-forgotten era.
Walk the streets of Kyoto and you’d probably be intrigued by the crowd milling around in the Shoji-Dori shopping district that hawks luxury brands alongside high-end souvenirs. You’d find men in drainpipes. Women straight out of a fashion catalogue: everyone in stockings and boots. Straight hair. Blingy dress. Rouged cheeks. Hello Kitty phone straps. Hurrying to somewhere, punching messages on their phones. So alike that you’d think they had tumbled out of a factory assembly line.
If you find this intriguing enough, wait till you step into a Zen-intrigue. Yes, that is what the dry rock garden of Ryoanji Temple is. On the raked white gravel lie the scattered 15 rocks. There is no evidence of symmetry or a definite pattern, or even a method. You can only hazard a guess, or cling on to the various scholarly conjectures. Some believe it depicts an ocean dotted with tiny islands. Still others believe that it’s a map of the Chinese Zen monasteries. Others imagine a tiger carrying its cubs. Ignore all these assumptions. You’ll fall into an academic trap. Just know that it is one of the best examples of Zen landscaping in Japan. And sit still there. You’ll never know the plot of Ryoan ji’s landscape. You’d probably find your peace there.
Time for tea
Do what you want, but do not leave Kyoto without sipping on Japanese tea. In Japan, tea ceremony is not merely about simmering a handful of tea leaves in a pot. It’s an art. It encompasses not only the making of tea, but also spirituality, appreciation of tea utensils and bowls, and Zen Buddhism. In En, a traditional teahouse, you can even learn to make tea with a bamboo whisk.
This ancient town lends its name to the Kyoto Protocol that sets binding obligations on nations to reduce greenhouse gases. However, there’s more to the city than the protocol. Author Haruki Murakami once said: “It is hard to be an individual in Japan.”
Perhaps, he is right. In Kyoto, you could live in a yesterday. In a today. Or, you could sleepwalk into a futuristic tomorrow.