So, hello friends and strangers who forgot you subscribed to this. I’m writing from a shinkansen (aka “bullet train”) leaving Kyoto on our way to Shin-Yokohama, on what’s been an amazing journey. And one that I intended to travelblog.
That hasn't happened for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I’m a bit sick of my own writing voice, which sounds either overly authoritative or madly wishy-washy, and another is the things that I thought to write about were out of tune with the basic spirit of this trip, which is: we are having a freaking amazing time.
But the main reason I haven’t written until now is that travelblogging is either a day by day experiential log or something that fits into a larger narrative. And I’ve been finding the former very difficult to do without referencing either my expectations from previous trips or from research and expectation. (As to the latter, there’s no real preordained narrative other than “I turned 50 and wanted to do something awesome”, and narratives that unfold are only obvious in retrospect.)
This conflict of expectations and reality reached its apex on the first day of Naoshima, the most famous of the “art islands” that I first heard of twenty years ago, at which time getting there was an intrepid adventure and staying there was astonishingly expensive. In the intervening time, it’s become not only my holy grail of destinations but an entrenched part of the tourist trail - not to the degree of Kyoto, certainly, but several friends have beat me to the punch over the years. I’d got the book, I’d seen the pictures, I knew what to expect -
- and so, when I largely got that on my first day, I was a bit … bemused? Nonplussed? I keep wanting to say disappointment, but it’s a self-evidently absurd word to use. And yet, maybe, meeting one’s expectations can be it’s own form of disappointment.
To step back: when my wife asked me what I was looking forward to in Japan, I struggled to articulate exactly what. From two previous visits, there were no shortage of sights that I could return to, and many others I’d heard about. But on both previous visits, my most memorable moments were serendipitous encounters and discoveries, the kind that it feels, somehow, can only happen in Japan. The kind that are permitted by an overwhelming feeling of personal safety entering strange spaces, a culture that is specific and not westernized but has a culture that has absorbed specific, sometimes unexpected elements (jazz!) and people generally willing and eager to connect with westerners.
Ultimately, I had some astonishing art experiences on Naoshima. Two James Turrell installations, a Tadao Ando building dedicated to the photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto (above), and various art houses. (The Teshima Art Museum, on said neighbouring island, topped them all. It’s one building/piece/installation, and I ain't saying a word. Just go.)
But I’ll be just as likely to remember a swim on a beautiful day, watching boys fish by Yayoi Kusama’s red pumpkin, and an astonishing one-man izakaya that was delicious and dizzying. And a building that's not on the official circuit where water plays a pivotal role.
And I’ll most definitely remember the generous warm hospitality of our hosts Jen and Ono at Yado Blue Room, who played no small part in both giving us an unforgettable experience and rewiring my expectations from “MUST CONSUME ALL THE ART” to something along the lines of, hey, you’re on a beautiful island, enjoy and relax.
How do you plan a trip where you prioritize the unplanned? I don't really know, and as someone who worries about maximizing value in travel (particularly as carbon footprints begin to seem as shameful as driving gas guzzlers). But our time in Kyoto again gave a similar lesson.
I first visited Arashiyama in 2002. It’s on the outskirts of Kyoto, and famous for its bamboo forest. I wouldn't say, even then, it was obscure - I’m sure I learned of it through Lonely Planet - but my memories of it were relatively tranquil. (This may have been affected by visiting during Gion Matsuri, a summer festival in Kyoto that meant it was intensely packed downtown.)
I visited again three weeks after Fukushima, a strange time, but this is how it worked out, and it was sparsely populated. I remember a calm, relaxing walk through the bamboo forest, with maybe one or two other tourists in sight.
I insisted on Sarah coming to Arashiyama and seeing the bamboo forest. I had not reckoned with it becoming a place that would not only not be desecrated by the installation of a moving walkway, but one that might actually be improved. Certainly, I can't imagine how else to control the congestion.
We ticked that box, and we ticked the Golden Pavilion, but what we’ll remember for decades is the night we went to a neighborhood we were told was hip, but got off the wrong side of the subway, and I found us a small cocktail bar with a desperately out of tune piano that eventually found us and the two proprietors singing our hearts out.
This morning, I closed out my time in Kyoto by visiting Kyoto Ambient, a festival centered around ambient music in performance along with two installation spaces, one anchored by Ryuichi Sakomoto (and visual collaborator Shiro Takatani) and one with installations by Cornelius, Buffalo Daughter and Seiichi Yamamoto of Boredoms fame. (I can palpably feel my diverse readership bifurcating between disbelief that I’ve stumbled into something this awesome and disinclination to continue reading.)
I only learned Kyoto Ambient was occurring two days ago, and today was its first day, so I had zero idea of what I was getting into, apart from my knowledge of the artists. (For the record: I’d seen the Sakamoto doc CODA and listened quite a bit to async, loved the Boredoms, might still own a Cornelius CD that came out on Matador 25 years ago, and knew Buffalo Daughter existed.)
I had limited time and the installation was split across two venues. Last first: the Sakamoto turned out to be a visual installation of async in a stunning space (one that we might have seen in CODA, I’d have to check) with visuals that used a repetitive but beautiful gimmick. (Those horizontal lines on the left match the closest exposed pixel, so the image shifts from representation to constantly shifting lines.)
It was great, I guess? But I was rushed and I was not able to let myself be absorbed, and also, to some degree, knowing async meant I wasn't taken by surprise. I was, however, very taken by surprise in the other building - not by Yamamoto (although his piece, accompanied by dual projections, was beautiful) but by two installations by Cornelius.
One I didn’t take a picture of, but involved standing on a metal octagonal platform surrounded by speakers and lights for 4.5 minutes. Lots of visual activity, lots of movement of sound sources. For lack of a better word: cool.
The other was a room full of fog and light. Mysteriously, although there were a couple dozen people visiting the building, I had this to myself. The picture I’ve included is indicative and useless. Ambient electronics, mist, light colors that shift, all create a profoundly dislocating experience in a good way. I’ve been in similar sorts of spaces by the likes of James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson, visually speaking, but nothing with the audio matching -
- and amidst this womblike atmosphere, for a moment, the lights went pure white, and a voice spoke the only word of the piece: “dream”. And then the colors returned, and I laughed out loud.
My friend Tim once told me he writes to figure out what he thinks about something, and that’s helped motivate me to do this. And what I think is that I travel to have experiences that delight me by reminding me the world is more strange, beautiful and wonderful than I am capable of imagining. It becomes harder to have these experiences as you chase a travel plan that's premeditated, marketed to you on Instagram, or rooted in nostalgia. And yet, in point of fact, despite or because of my worrying, it’s been increasingly and surprisingly easy to have these experiences every single day on this trip. They just seem to arrive, if you make room for them (and talk to locals and do some inspired Google maps hunting).
Sayonara,
Doug
Beautiful, Doug.