Japan: Land of palaces and pagodas

With more direct flights to Japan, the historic
cities of Nara and Kyoto are easily accessible.
GRAEME LAY reports.

First impressions are not promising. Osaka, a metropolis of 8 million people, occupies a plain bounded on three sides by rugged hills. From the elevated motorway the cityscape stretches away as a grey jumble of streets, workshops, apartments, tiled roofs, neon signs, gambling halls, building sites and golf-driving ranges. A network of power lines and telephone wires runs overhead, as if a gigantic, brain-damaged spider has spun a makeshift web. The city has a tangled, rickety, ramshackle appearance.

Looking more closely through the coach window, I am amazed to see small rice paddies among the hideous urban jumble. Bent, gumbooted women in white head scarfs slosh about in these plots, tending their precious plants, oblivious of the buildings surrounding them.

This view from the Osaka-Kyoto motorway is a suitable introduction to Japan: a land with a bewildering juxtaposition of beauty and disfigurement, of tranquillity and commotion, of tradition and modernisation. These startling contrasts are embodied in the two cities of Osaka and Kyoto.

The gateway to Osaka and Kyoto is Kansai Airport, a futuristic complex built on an artificial harbour in Osaka Bay. Spacious, helpful and, above all, superbly efficient, Kansai is connected to the mainland by a suspension bridge and causeway.

Spread around a wide, sheltered bay, Osaka city is no place to tarry. It's a port, an industrial city and a transport node, second only to Tokyo in size.

Although Osaka is almost entirely utilitarian, nearby are two outstanding cities - Nara and Kyoto.

Nara lies east of Osaka, about 35 minutes direct by train from Kansai Airport or 30 minutes by train from Namba Station. It was the first permanent capital of Japan, from 710 to 784AD.

Nara train station stands alongside a shopping arcade which leads straight into the city's heart, Yoshikien Garden and nearby Nara Park. The garden slopes gently upwards to Mt Kasuga and its surrounding hills, and within it is the world's oldest wooden structure, Horyuji Temple, and the world's largest, Todaiji Temple.

The buildings are awe-inspiring, their dark, interlocking wooden frames a marvel of construction. Housed within Todaiji Temple is a colossal bronze Buddha with one hand outstretched, which reduces the humans surrounding it to Lilliputian size.

Behind the temple grounds is an extension of Nara Park, where the wooded slopes and pathways are crowded not only with people but tame deer, considered divine messengers by the Japanese. Unafraid, the deer wander about the park, waiting to be fed special biscuits which can be bought at the park's many snack stalls.

A short walk through the trees is Kasuga Taisha Shrine, noted for its rows of ancient hanging lanterns and a spectacular "fuji" - a wisteria vine with purple flowers festooning a grid frame every spring, drawing thousands of camera-wielding photographers. Two days should be allocated to exploring Nara's parks, temples and the Nara National Museum.

Trains, trains, trains - Japan is a nation that moves mainly by rail. And, unlike most other countries, Japanese trains are clean, user-considerate and, above all, reliable.

If a train from Hosono station in Seika, where I'm staying, is scheduled to leave Hosono at 9.58 am, it leaves at 9.58 am. And it arrives at Kyoto when it's supposed to, exactly 73 minutes later. Railway signs are in English as well as Japanese, and the automatic ticket machines could be understood by a 10-year-old. The platforms are so clean you could eat sushi straight off the floor, thanks to the women who patrol them day and night with their brushes, vigilant for a discarded cigarette butt or candy wrapper. The carriages are clean and comfortable, although it's often necessary to stand.

Seika is a satellite town in Kyoto Prefecture in the centre of the Kinki region, although the only kinkiness I can detect is the pornographic comic the well-dressed, middle-aged man sitting next to me on the train is reading.

The Hosono to Kyoto train clips through the countryside alongside the Kizu River. The train passes through compact dormitory towns with chunky, grey-tiled houses and pretty, miniature gardens, then past expanses of farmland where the small rice plants push insistently up through their watery beds.

The carriage gets more crowded, the buildings become denser, the farmland shrivels away, the spider's web power lines return. Then the train slips into Kyoto city (1.4 million), the imperial capital of Japan for more than a thousand years.

Kyoto Station is a huge post-modern structure housing department stores, food halls, and a concert stage. A series of escalators carries visitors to its roof, where there are panoramic views of the city. Kyoto's sheltered, inland site gives it sweltering summers and bitterly cold winters. Spring and autumn are the best times to visit.



There are enough temples, shrines and pagodas in Kyoto to keep the visitor going for a fortnight. It's easy to overdose on them, so it's best to concentrate on a few at a time.

Best-known is Kinkakuji Temple, or the Golden Pavilion, which stands on a lake surrounded by a maple forest in north-west Kyoto. Gorgeous as it is, the pavilion is just a replica, dating back only to 1955.

More interesting and certainly more restful is Ryoanji Temple, a 20-minute walk along the street from the Golden Pavilion. In its lake and garden setting at the foot of forested slopes, Ryoanji is a superb example of traditional Japanese architecture. Alongside the temple is a 15th-century garden of pale, raked gravel and 15 carefully placed rocks, enclosed by a stone wall. Here people sit on steps and contemplate in Zen-fashion the simple but beautiful form of the garden.

The loveliest temple on the eastern side of Kyoto is 17th-century Kiyomizu, whose lofty pagoda soars from a hillside overlooked by a forest of cedar and fir. A short bus ride away is the canal-side walk known as the Path of Philosophy, a restful path lined with cherry trees which leads past tea houses and small restaurants, then up a steep street lined with small souvenir shops to Ginkakuji, also known as the Silver Temple. A raked white sand garden in the shape of Mt Fuji lies alongside Ginkakuji, and azaleas glow like coral amid the surrounding greenness.

There is no better area for the Western visitor to see Japanese history and culture than Nara-Kyoto. Midway between New Zealand and London, the Kansai-Osaka-Kyoto nexus makes an excellent four or five-day stopover.

The flights arrive and depart at civilised hours and the efficiency and complete safety of Japan enable the visitor to readily sample the refined delights of this engaging, exotic nation.



Border:

CASENOTES


GETTING THERE: Auckland to Osaka flight time, 11 hours 25 minutes.

Auckland-Osaka-London return airfares start at $2050 a person.

STOPOVER: Accommodation in a Western-style hotel in Kyoto is priced from $198-$299 each a night, share twin, including bus transfers to Kansai Airport.

PACKAGES: Kyoto package stopovers start from $477 each for four days, staying at the Holiday Inn Kyoto.

A three-day, two-night package for $536 each includes accommodation at the Rhiga Royal Hotel, a Kyoto morning tour, return Kansai Airport-Kyoto and station transfers.

DEALS: Japan Airlines, which code-shares with Air New Zealand on the Auckland-Kansai route, offers holiday "credits" to use towards the land content of a trip to Kyoto. For instance, if a return economy class JAL airfare of $1832 is bought, a bonus credit of $150 is provided, giving an additional cost of $374 each, share twin, instead of $524 each. The package includes four nights' accommodation at the Holiday Inn Kyoto, plus transfers Kansai Airport-Kyoto Station.

IN TRANSIT: There is a special transit accommodation price of $145 each, share twin, at the Hotel Nikko Kansai for those wishing to break their northbound journey for one night at Kansai before flying on to London.

TRAINS: A Japan Rail Pass offers substantial savings on train travel, as well as flexibility. For instance, seven consecutive days of unlimited travel using the Rail Pass costs $566 (economy class), $756 (first class). The rail pass must be bought in the visitor's home country and travel days begin once the pass has been validated in Japan.