Ian Ropke writes…

The world of Buddhism is full of stories of amazing human feats achieved through meditation and power of the mind.  In Tibet there are especially powerful monks who travel so fast that they appear to fly; they can travel non-stop for 48 hours and cover over 320 km a day!  There are also stories of diamond-like crystalline substances found amongst the ashes of cremated super meditation monks (male and female).  In Japan there were monks that mummified themselves by eating nothing but a lacquer paste between meditation sessions.  And then there are the so-called spiritual athletes of Mount Hiei, the mountain which rises huge and majestic on the horizon at the northeast corner of the city of Kyoto.

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Ian Ropke writes:

Mackerel or saba comes into season this month. In the Heian period (794-1185), mackerel were delivered to Kyoto from the Japan Sea via the saba kaido—a 75-kilometer route connecting Kyoto with the port of Obama. To get the fish here, fifteen kilogram baskets packed with about twenty kilograms of salted mackerel were carried on horseback and on human backs overnight in a series of intense relays. The fish left Obama in the late evening and moved up the Kita River to Omi (on the west side of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture). From there, carriers crossed over two passes to Kutsuki village, where another carrier waited for the final leg to Kyoto. Passing through Ohara and Yase, the fish finally reached the market at Demachiyanagi at dawn the next day.

If you want to try some mackerel, why not try a bit of saba zushi (a Kyoto September delicacy)? In making traditional saba zushi, one side of the salted and vinegared fish is placed on slab of rice and covered with a strip of kelp (konbu). After being cut into rectangular slices, the whole thing is wrapped in a wrapping made from the flexible soft skin that covers bamboo shoots. Available in full slabs at any traditional sushi shop.

(Ed: Check out the Kyoto Visitor’s Guide Dining in Kyoto page for two recommended sushi shops:Yanagiya Honten and Hisago Zushi. Kyoto Foodie’s Peko also has an excellent article on Kyoto sushi and the sushi shop Izuju here.

Ian Ropke is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto, editor of Kyoto Visitors Guide, and director of Your Japan Private Tours. You can read his previous articles for Deep Kyoto here.)

New tea, azaleas, and cultural splendor

Ian Ropke writes:

The country town of Uji is famous for its temples, relaxing river-side scenery and a wide range of interesting cultural attractions. Uji has also been the tea capital of Japan since the 12th century. A short walk out of town in an easterly direction, and you will see the low, dark-green tea bushes covering the landscape. The first leaves of the year are picked in May. May is one of the best times to visit Uji — to stroll along the river (especially the north side, east of Uji Keihan Station) and take in the magnificence of the azaleas in full bloom, to see the wonders of its temples, to taste the first tea of the year, and to simply relax in a town that has been a tourist mecca for centuries. Here are some highlights.

Byodo-in: Byodo-in’s Phoenix Hall, which graces Japan’s ¥10 coin, is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful structures ever built in Japan. With its two wooden wings built to perfect proportions, and the central hall reflected in the large pond in front of it, the Phoenix Hall is well worth visiting.

Mampuku-ji: One of the more exotically beautiful temples in Japan, Mampuku-ji was built in the Chinese Ming (1368-1644) dynasty architectural style. As you pass through the towering gate you soon notice the purely Chinese details: the upwardly curved roof corners, the unique red colored buildings, the black tiled floors, and the broken swastika symbols used in the railings and elsewhere. A stroll around the grounds of Mampuku-ji is a rare treat and one that you are sure to remember for years to come. Mampuku-ji also serves Chinese vegetarian lunch courses: one very simple course that is reasonably priced and one more elaborate course (reservations required, call tourist information for details). To get to Mampuku-ji get off at Obaku Station (2 stops before Uji).

Uji can be reached via the Keihan Line (change at Chushojima), and JR (from Kyoto Stn.). It’s about 30 minutes from Kyoto. Here is a handy map of the area. Tourist information in English can be found here.

Text by Ian Ropke. Pictures of Mampuku-ji by Michael Lambe. Ian Ropke is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto, editor of Kyoto Visitors Guide, and director of Your Japan Private Tours. He posts regularly for Deep Kyoto on the 15th of each month.

My apologies to Ian for the delay in posting this article!

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A photograph and poem by Ian Ropke:

Miyako in the Mist

mist rising from my eyes
and I know there’s more

as when I see mists
twisting across the slopes way above Ginkakuji
drifting in a haunted motion between the red pines
and I imagine brontosaurus feeding calmly in the dawn

mists beckoning from a mile away
you capture me as easily

as when I am having breakfast
at the Miyako Hotel in the rainy season
and I slowly forget the luxury and the servants
as I’m caught up in the ineffable magic that is Kyoto

mists in the distance
moving towards heaven

I followed a mist dragon years ago
in the steep mountain folds beyond Arashiyama
moving south with the grace of 10,000 years
towards the rising dawn of a perfect May morning

mist in my eyes
when I feel too much inside

mist from the hazy abandon of your careless youth
rising from silent ponds, mingling with the deer’s screaming call
piercing the Heian dawn and electrifying the few hopeful sleepers
that still long for magic with one open ear.

Ian Ropke is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto, editor of Kyoto Visitors Guide, and director of Your Japan Private Tours. He will post regularly for Deep Kyoto on the 15th of each month.

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Ian Ropke writes:

The idea of a city conjures up a thousand images. There are enormous cities of power and wealth. There are dying cities. There are living cities. And yet behind all these adjectives shimmers the idea of the city, the ideal city, the dream of humankind, the showcase for all our best achievements. The city can and should be a symbiotic balance between our wild, unbound nature and the many ways human beings shape the world around us. One might say that a good city is a celebration of the sentient spirit, a place that symbolizes and actualizes to its best ability all there is to love about life. A great city is a great place to live. And living in a great city must, by definition, be somehow akin to living in a dream, or inhabiting a fairy tale like landscape of existence. Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, is such a city: a dream, an endless moment of fantastic magic. Kyoto is a place that remains host to nearly 1200 years of civilization. It is timeless. It is modern. It is sophisticated. It is serene. It is green. It is still a living rendition of heaven on earth.

Kyoto was envisioned as a work of art, and, today, some 1200 years later, the inspiration of those early grand design artists lives on within nearly every quarter of the city’s earliest boundaries. According to fenshui, or Chinese geomantic principles (the correct spatial and directional relation between heaven and earth, interior design, etc.), the north-south valley of Kyoto, surrounded on three sides by an unbroken ridge of mountain-like green hills, represents the ideal site for a city. It is bisected by two large rivers, which provide a flow of constant energy through the city, keeping it fresh and somehow pulsating with vitality and spiritual power. To the northeast, at the point known as the Devil’s or Tiger’s gate, from which evil or negative energy is most likely to enter, stands a high mountain, which serves to guard the city from any untoward invasion from other realms. For the Chinese, Kyoto was the perfect place to found a capital city. You can still feel the power today with a little meditative mindlessness.

Some people maintain that the world, like the body, has seven spiritual chakras or places that seem especially charged with a unique kind of energy and synchronicity. Kyoto has been widely agreed upon to be one of those planetary chakras. In living here for so many years, I too can confirm that there is something magical contained in the physical environment that serves as the host to the cities’ physical and spiritual needs.

I have been to many great world cities and the only other ones I have experienced that compare in some way are Benares and Jerusalem. It can not be a coincidence that all three are major religious centres. Kyoto is soaked in spiritual energy and it is no wonder that so many artists, seekers, and mystics have journeyed here and lived here over the centuries. In Kyoto one cannot help but think of the meaning of life, or wonder about the existence of god or the spirit world.

For many, who call Kyoto home, the city is a metaphysical experience, a highly poetic reality. Here we live in a sea of antiquity and ancient wisdom that lives on in the trees, the gardens, the innumerable temple and shrine sanctuaries, and countless living traditions. And yet in a sense Kyoto belongs to herself and not to those who live there. It is a living thing and few cities can claim this distinction. It is at once a matrix of living creations and long forgotten life forms. One feels a sense of gratitude just to be here, where we are indeed here at all.

In Kyoto one can not help but be aware that human existence is a dream, a sublime illusion, a gift of God. At four pm and ten pm we often hear the distant ring of the temple bells and we are reminded that life is short and that death is certain. Kyoto is a city where introspection and anonymity can be perfectly lived out. The people of this city leave others alone, do not show their curiosity, do not enquire about mundane things. This leaves us with much space. In Kyoto, one lives at home and is left alone should one choose it that way. Kyoto makes for an ideal place to enjoy the pleasures of life — food, good company, cultural expression, etc. But most of all Kyoto feeds the soul.

All words and images in this article are by Ian Ropke, the author of the Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto, editor of Kyoto Visitors Guide, and director of Your Japan Private Tours. He will post again on February 17th.

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