Scowl Like A Samurai

The last couple of weekends have been pretty full-on to the point where I was actually vertical for most of it. After the previous weekends' jaunt at Amanohashidate, this weekend played host to yet another trip away, this time to Kyoto. Keita, Nomura-san, Maggie, Rob and I departed Miyazu a the horrendous time of 7.40am in a (legally) borrowed van that belonged to one of the other volleyball members, and drove to Kyoto City, a journey that takes just under two hours. Keita, despite having no sleep the night before as he manned his 24hr fishing shop, was holding out pretty well as driver but I noticed in the boot he had an entire tray of liquid wakefulness. The ride passed impossibly fast as the countryside gave way to three and four storey buildings that gained several floors as we neared the city centre. Our first stop was the Toei Movie park. This movie park is technically a film set made up of Edo Period buildings, many of which were replicas of famous areas in Kyou (Kyoto) and Edo (Tokyo) built from descriptions and old photographs. Here, most of the jidaigeki (historical dramas) are filmed however when it is not in use for filming, it's open to the public and they hold performances in the streets and in the big gekijou hall that's built to look like the old kabuki halls. When we first arrived, Nomura-san and I dragged everyone over to the replica Shinsengumi headquarters gate. Of course I was stoked and Maggie and Keita could understand why, but Rob was completely clueless. 

Shinsengumi headquarters!! Uber excitement!!

On the way to the gekijou hall we had a photo with one of the many people dressed as samurai dotted around the park, complete with historically accurate samurai scowl.

Rob's just happy to have a live blade in his hand.

At the gekijou hall we seated ourselves on the backless benches that filled every inch of floor in the wide hall along the hundred or so others. The show we were about to see, we were told, was about ninjas, and in a puff of smoke and the playing of the shakuhachi flute it began. Of course like all such shows it was over-the-top chambara drama with lots at acrobatics which I'm used to seeing, but Rob who sat beside me was cracking up during the whole show. At the half-way point the villain who up until this point had been just a disembodied voice, appeared on stage in yet another puff of ozone depleting smoke, while doing the peace sign. Ken-chan was his name and he walked down the centre aisle posing for photos in his full evil guy costume talking to audience members, including us in English and translating for the rest of the audience. As fast as to heavily dramatic show changed to talk show mode, it was back into the action and evil guy mode. I understood the entire show so I enjoyed it a lot. I even knew what a keppanjou was, which was the object of concern in the show. It's a contract of allegiance signed in blood for those of you playing at home.

The ghost of Ken-chan.

For the rest of our time there we dawdled around checking out some of the other street shows, shops and an alley of stalls. The best street show we happened to pass by was a chambara show involving an actor playing the famous Okita Souji of the Shinsengumi, against a couple of ronin thugs down a Kyoto backstreet. It started off pretty typically as chambara does and after justice was served upon the two ronin after an exclamation of revenge and parrying thrusts of the sword, they sprang back to life to bow at the applauding audience. After this they invited several audience members to join them in the chambara action with their swords and a little boy, a junior high aged girl and a newly married man were chosen to take their place with the samurai. The ronin guys were hilarious throwing jokes of one another as the head ronin ordered his counterpart around demonstrating the correct was to die (don't take too long and not too noisy, sound advice for anyone considering this favourite pastime). Finally after the practice round, the unlikely heroes were ready to bring the ronin thugs to justice. First was the little boy. He did his rehearsed moves, slicing through the ronin and doing his finishing peace sign pose over his fallen victim. He was made of awesome. Next was the middle school girl, who wasn't as flashy as the little boy but did her moves and her peace sign. Finally was the guy, and the actors had his wife stand in the arena area to take photos, which she agreed to after much cajoling. Everything was going as expected until the ronin decided to reverse roles, cut through the guy and proceeded to run off with his wife. It was a very good show and I kind of regret not putting my hand up to join them, but that's not the last time I'll go to the movie park; the opportunity will arise again, involving cosplay. The idea was triggered by a group of Hakuouki cosplayers we saw there for a split second before they disappeared to a photo shoot somewhere in the park, so Rurouni Kenshin cosplay maybe on the boards for the next year. 

Lovin' the chonmage Souji.

Victory thumbs up!

Other street shows they put on was the oiran parade, where a woman dressed as an oiran (a high ranking Kyoto geisha) and paraded through the area of the town built to look like Yoshiwara (the biggest red-light district of Edo, now Tokyo) with her attendants: two apprentice maiko girls, an umbrella bearer and an announcer. Even though the route she took was short, only a 100 metres or so, it still took a long time because of the way she walked. She had six inch high geta on and had to walk in a gait that made her push each foot out in a fan shape before coming back to the centre (sloooowly). To get from two metres before me to two metres past me took over a minute, but I guess anyone would be slow if they had to wear monster sandals and a ten kilogram kimono.

I'm surprised she can still smile under that huge weight.

Before hitting the Edo style eateries I made everyone stop at the Shinsengumi store so I could ohhh and ahhh at the merchandise. I did buy a banner that was printed in the Shinsengumi colours and had all the names of the chiefs and squad captains (in their own handwriting, I noted). I was very tempted to buy a replica of Hijikata Toshizou's Izumi no Kanesada katana, but I thought I'd go for quality. There's no way I'd leave Japan without getting my hand's on a good one. Rob too, wanted one of the swords just for the cool factor of it; he didn't care who's. After they dragged me away from the merchandise, bodily, wiping the drool of of my chin, we headed to a small gyudon place for lunch and chowed down after a 25 minute wait to get inside. Twas good. As we said our gochisousamas and walked out of the curtained front door, Nomura-san repeatedly slapped my arm pointing at a building across the way adorned with a very familiar sign hanging above the door. Ikedaya it read. Needless to say both of us were beyond words as we staggered over to this artifact of great excitement. This was the scene to behold as we walked in the empty building, please contain your excitement.

I believe this was one of Nokia's first models they released towards the end of the Edo Period.
It even had photo capabilities. If there's one thing the Japanese know, that's technology.

This was a replica of the famous Ikedaya, the inn where the Shinsengumi raided and killed members of the anti-foreigner faction, or Joui (revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians)in Kyou, 1865, the battle that made them famous (or infamous with regards to the Joui loving Kyouans). As Nomura-san and I reenacted the entrance scene from every Shinsengumi show we had seen (we even knew from which entrance they entered, which room the Joui rebels were in... we were on fire) while Rob, Maggie and Keita looked on incredulously and later leaving us behind as they moved on. Those were moments of gold, I tell you.

Needless to say, it had piqued my interest.

To top of our time at the park we went to the obakeyashiki, or haunted house which was ninja themed. It wasn't overly scary, so much so that I actually don't remember going in (but Maggie assures me I did. Go figure). Finally we exited through the gift shop we I had to hold myself back, so much so that I didn't buy a thing, an amazing feat in itself despite most things being Hijikata themed. We marked the occasion by taking a purikura together before headed off to our next port of call, the International Manga Museum. Let the nerdy times roll.

The manga museum was cool. It was pretty much a massive library of all of the popular and influential manga of the last century. Since I have only been introduced to the world of manga and anime in the last five years, I didn't recognise many of the titles but for Maggie, Nomura-san and Keita who had been into it since childhood, they loved it. For Rob, this had been his first encounter of the world of manga and from the few shelves of English manga he picked up his new favourite story. Pretty Face. Here's a little synopsis from Wikipedia: 

   "Rando Masahi, a self-centered, brash karate star, was the victim of a horrific bus accident that left him comatose and his face terribly disfigured by extensive burns. Genius plastic surgeon Dr. Manabe saved Rando's life and went to work on his face, gradually reconstructing it based on a photograph found on the wreckage of the bus.
    When Rando wakes up from his coma, a year has passed, and Dr. Manabe has made remarkable progress. But in a cruel twist of fate, the photo the doctor used as a reference was not a picture of Rando, but a snapshot of Rina Kurimi, the girl whom Rando has a crush on!"

Trust me, my face is as incredulous as yours. We hit the gift shop where I finally picked up a copy of Tokyo by Foot, a drawing diary of a guys experiences in the neighbourhoods of Tokyo that mum showed me back in NZ. 

Shhhh!

Hunger panged as evening fell and Maggie and I wanted to introduce our friends to the awesomeness that is Ganko. Unfortunately we couldn't get a seat downstairs in front of the counter to talk to the two chefs we met last time, but we did get to eat somewhere new upstairs where it was full of people and good food and well worth being evicted from our usual place downstairs. And so ended our amazing day in Kyoto. At least it marked off one touristy thing we had done in Kyoto despite living so close which kind of drives us away from doing the tourist circuit knowing we will come back again soon. Someday I return to Kyoto with the intention of going to Mibu-mura, the Shinsengumi fan holy land. Just watch as I write three pages of stuff you have no idea nor care about.