7-17-19 - Subway shake-down, Festival, Floats & Singing

Day 31. We travel from Osaka to Kyoto for the last day before we head to Tokyo tonight. When we arrive John has a rehearsal and we are free to explore. We decide to head to the Gion Festival which requires a subway. This will be our first train / subway in a non-english speaking country. We think we’ve figured it out and buy the tickets. We get off at our stop and find the exit. The train system requires you to put your ticket through to exit. When I do, the doors the exit doors don’t open. Someone in a uniform comes over and starts talking to me in Japanese. He calls over another two people in uniforms over. Ut-oh, last time this happened was a the DMZ. I have no idea what I did wrong but obviously something.

They finally find an English speaking officer who looks at our tickets and says we owe another 600 yen. This feels like a good old fashion American tourist shake-down. I’m trying to ask why we owe more money when Leanne injects a reality check saying “it’s US $5, just pay the man so we don't end having to sleep down here.” Point taken and I fork over the $5.

We arrive at the Gion Festival which is the most famous and long-running festival in Japan dating back to 869 (1,150 years ago). They have likes of the Rose Bowl parade and Macy Thanksgiving Day parade beat by more than a thousand years. The festival runs the month of July but today the Yamaboko Parade featuring a grand procession of floats with some of the floats reaching 25 meters in height. The origin of the festival was that during a plague outbreak, the people of Kyoto concluded that the Gods were mad at them and to solve the problem, they would throw a huge celebration to appease the Gods. I decide this is a good strategy to adopt. Anytime something goes wrong, I’ll conclude the Gods are mad and it’s time to throw a party.

For the afternoon, John and NCC are performing at the Kyoto Concert Hall, home of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra and one of the most famous concert halls in Japan (akin to our Carnegie Hall). The Ensemble Murata Hall is encompassed by an interior design that evokes a most unique atmosphere - stellar construction not he ceiling, a huge lighting platform reminiscent of a hovering spacecraft and lines of light that point to the magnetic north. It is a mini-universe of sorts specifically created for close encounters with music.

The performance is wonderful. This was the 4th performance in the NCC trip and John said it was the best venue from an acoustic point of view. After the show, I need to go to the bathroom and sure enough my Japanese bathroom woes continue. There is only one stall. I push on the door to see if it is unoccupied but it doesn’t open. I’m waiting and waiting and now I’m starting to get nervous that the bus is going to leave me. I knock on the door but no response. After what seems like an eternity, I get an epiphany that we’ve seen a lot of sliding doors in Japan. Sure enough, the stall door slides to the right and reveals an empty toilet. At this rate, I’m thinking the next time I need to go the bathroom, I might need to hold it until Australia. I return to the bus and everyone asks what took me so long. How would you answer that one?

We got to the train station and get a bullet train to Tokyo. The dinner served on the train is a bene box dinner. The box is elaborately decorated; however the contents of the box are mostly fish. No beuno. I don’t eat any fish but that’s a story for a different day. After checking into the hotel, my fellow non-fish eater Justin and I go to the McDonalds next to our hotel. 31 days on the road and we finally give in to the Evil Empire for the first time. Ug - done in by a bene box of fish.