Kyoto Protocol

Kyoto and Osaka are only 50 kilometers apart but they have reputations as polar opposites. While Osaka is a casual and friendly mess of a city, life in Kyoto follows a regimen of manners that mystifies even fellow Japanese. I’ve been told that if someone asks you over for tea there, you have to wait for the third offer before accepting; only then do they mean it. Even restaurant workers must have written references for employment in Kyoto. Osaka cuisine consists of street food well prepared: specialties include okonomiyaki (cabbage pancakes) and takoyaki (octopus balls), the Japanese equivalents of barbecue, pizza, or cheese steaks. Kyoto, by contrast, is all haute cuisine. Deciding where to eat there is a momentous and intimidating task. As a rule I don’t like to go out too hungry when looking for a restaurant, as I tend either to jump at the first thing I see or to grow weak from hunger and fail to enjoy my meal. Having caught a last minute bus into Kyoto, however, I was famished when I arrived. After checking into my hotel I walked around Pontocho, the district of narrow streets lined with pricey, set-menu restaurants just west of the Kamogawa. I settled on Bistro Zuzu, a casual place with two young chefs and a pretty hip looking crowd. The menu evoked a Western tapas place, passing over traditional Kyoto cuisine for a diverse selection of small, cheap dishes. I was a little afraid the place would emphasize style over substance but I needn’t have worried. The beef stew with tongue of cattle was outstanding, as were the Caesar’s salad and the grilled fish and cheese spring rolls with sea urchin egg sauce. I topped it off with a rice ball stuffed with Japanese apricot that cost me all of 190 yen.

Later in the evening I ended up at the Hub, a pub where union jacks cover the walls and Japanese deejays spin Britpop and punk records. I met a 35-ish Swiss guy and we got drunk and traded Japanese swine-flu paranoia horror stories. Eventually we got on the dance floor, which was crowded with a nice mix of Western and Japanese guys and girls (mostly Japanese and mostly guys) and bounced our feet and our beers to a mix that ranged from XTC and the Jam right up to the Hives, the Libertines, and the View. Amazingly, the deejay managed to cue up the Clash’s “Police on My Back” right in time for the arrival of the Japanese cops, who had presumably arrived to quell the noise spilling out to the street at all hours but got distracted posing for pictures with several of the foreign visitors.

Too tough for the tourist bus, I spent my days in Kyoto trudging between landmarks. I learned that warlords like to build temples, though I could have told you that by driving past the mega-churches on I-75 in Ohio. I imagine it is a hazard of life here that its manifest beauty goes to your head. Pretty much all of Japan’s young people want to visit America, but while Osakans fantasize about going to New York, Kyoto’s youth pine for the West coast. Among the dizzying array of youth subcultures in Japan, one that looms large in Kyoto is “kogal,” the young girls with blonde-dyed hair and artificial suntans who seem to reside in a Southern California of the mind. An exception was the Tranq Room, about the coolest place I’ve been to anywhere in Japan, where I had dinner and drinks my second evening in town. Their nama-yuba rice bowl and apple-ginger iced tea were mighty rejuvenating after dragging my ass up the Philosopher’s Trail to the Temple of the Silver Pavilion in 30-plus (Celsius) heat. The place also had a Serge Gainsbourg record cover on the wall, a faded Vincent Gallo signature on one of their vinyl sofas, an excellent sound system playing steel drum renditions of Burt Bacharach hits, and a friendly staff that flouted Kyoto’s stand-offish reputation.

On Sunday I made my way to the International Manga Museum (which ended up being more of a manga library) and eventually to Kyoto Station. I almost found myself stranded in Kyoto for another night; the first clerk I spoke to told me all remaining buses for the day were sold out. After scrambling across the station to another desk they issued me a ticket on a later bus, and I spent the interim eating free samples of pickles and bean jelly at the train station gift shop and getting a haircut. Predictably, everything is done just so at the Japanese barber shop. Don’t bother telling the barber how short you want it, he’s an artist and he’ll do it his way. For an extra 1000 yen he threw in a rigorous shampoo and a shave that included every inch of skin from my forehead down to my neckline. It was heavenly, but on the hot bus back my aftershave and hair lotion began to melt and I felt firsthand the female fear of runny makeup.