the International Manga Museum, Rokkaku-dō, and Nishiki Market

A few quick messages before we begin:

1. Yes, I'm a day late with this post. Sue me. It's humongous. And I spent last night down at the Gecko's Terrace Restaurant inaugurating myself into the Shooters Club with an Alabama Slammer, a kamikaze, a mudslide, a yak's milk, a turkey roaster, and a Dr. Pepper. I was a bit too busy to blog.
2. I've told you only a teency bit about the prices and cost of things in Japan: admission fees and whatnot. I have not, however, told you much about the ancillary costs. By that I mean bottles of water (¥105-200), which I bought about once every three hours to offset the gallons of sweat I was shedding in the Japanese climate; snacks (¥110-400), stuff like onigiri (rice balls) or gimbap (yes, they had that in Japan) or sandwiches (which actually didn't suck) purchased in convenience stores; meals (¥800-2500, depending on whether I bought it from a snack stand or a bona fide restaurant), and so on. Just know that in between all the Big Crazy Things I Do In Japan there's a lot of small stuff like munchies and agua.
3. I was in Itaewon (the foreigner's ward of the Yongsan borough in central Seoul—remember?) yesterday and I happened to find myself in a bookshop. I picked up something by Bill Bryson. Now, Bryson's reputation as a grammarian is well-known and well-deserved. However, I had no prior experience with his travel writing. Even a superficial glance at his book In a Sunburned Country revealed him to be a humorous and entertaining writer. Looking back over my Japan posts, I've had the feeling that something was slightly off; now I know what it is. The writing's boring as hell. I need to make my posts funnier. So that's what I'll try to do from here on out. 
4. We're in Kyoto now. It's August 4. I just got off the Shinkansen from Tokyo. It's about twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

Let's settle the bet right now: I'm a geek. I'm not going to apologize for it. Geek is the new sexy. That's why we have TV shows like The Big Bang Theory. It's the reason people who've attended Comic-Con more than once in their natural lifetime haven't been burned at the stake. It's why my mother finds William Shatner attractive when he's in a Star Trek uniform (or rather, the tattered shreds of a Star Trek uniform).

Thank goodness for this new liberalism in the way geek culture is viewed! Five years ago I would have sneaked out of my 14th-floor hotel room in Kyoto with a knotted bed sheet, crept down to the International Manga Museum in the dead of night, paged through a couple of issues of Barefoot Gen, and then hightailed it back to bed and never uttered a word about the affair to anyone. Now I can stand up and boldly tell you about it.

The word "manga" belies any pat definition. You could say it's Japanese comics and graphic novels, but it's more than that. It's a culture. Hardcore otaku (fanboys) wait in lines to buy the next issue of their favorite manga; animation studios make obscene amounts of money turning these comics into animated TV series ("anime" for short); the merchandising industry makes a crap-ton of yen making and selling figurines, posters, lunchboxes, trading cards and other paraphernalia featuring popular characters. In reality, the anime and manga craze is a super-cult of unapologetic geekdom and sanctified nerdiness which has spread across Japan and the entire globe. From its humble beginnings in Japanese newspapers in the early 20th century to the truly massive pop culture monster that it's become (just look at Akibahara, for Pete's sake), manga and anime have become mainstream in Japan, and are rapidly becoming so everywhere in the world. You'll find manga sections in every Barnes & Noble in America. Companies have sprung up in Canada, the U.S. and Europe concerned with nothing else but translating these comics, light novels and cartoon shows so North American and European otaku can get the same kicks as their Japanese counterparts.

You wouldn't think it to look at the International Manga Museum on Karasuma Street in Kyoto, though. It's actually quite humble.

The main building is to the right and in the background (behind the netting which surrounds the open field in front of the entrance).

The resemblance to an unassuming public library didn't stop at the door, though. Photography wasn't permitted inside, but I can tell you that the museum was full of long linoleum-tiled hallways, creaky wooden staircases, glacial elevators, dark-stained and nicked wood paneling, and shelves piled high with faded and dog-eared but still colorful manga books.

It was also full of people. Some were foreigners, like me, making a pilgrimage to what they assumed would be a Manga Mecca; but most visitors were Japanese, young and old alike, sitting on any available flat surface and perusing their favorite titles. There were some English information brochures, but all the placards and posters inside the museum proper were in Japanese. There was little for us foreigners to do but peruse the photographs and the newspaper headlines detailing the meteoric rise of manga to international consciousness, and gaze with thoughtful but uncomprehending eyes at classic issues. I wound up tiptoeing through the halls like a guilty ghost, feeling like I was intruding on a fan club's private session in a public library. I wound up paging through a few issues of Barefoot Gen and then sneaking out.

It was time to stop indulging my rampant inner geek and start actually exploring Kyoto. So, on my way back down the main drag, I took some random pics:

Apparently a few green trees and some mountains in the background is all it takes to make me start liking a city, especially after the urban jungle that was Tokyo. I found myself growing fond of Kyoto within the first half-hour of strolling through it. It just seemed calmer, quieter, less pretentious and...well, greener. I like green. Green is good. We desert rats try to find green everywhere we go. That's why I like Palm Springs so much. More golf courses than Scotland.

I stopped at a Family Mart convenience store for some water and snacks and couldn't help snapping this picture.

If I'm not mistaken, the foreign stuff's on the top shelf (obviously), and all the bottled (er, jarred) sakes are on the lower shelves. Quite a better booze selection than any Korean pyeonuijeom, yes sirree!

Outside the Family Mart, I noticed this sign:

Well, who'd a' thunk it? A Buddhist temple just a few meters away? Why not?

Unlike at Zōjō-ji, this time I managed to get a pic of all the golden shinies in the temple proper. Score!

The hand-washing well-basin-cistern-thingy. Nice dragon!

This was Rokkaku-dō, so named because of its hexagonal shape ("roku" is the Japanese word for "six," so I'm assuming that "rokkaku" is the word for "hexagon"). For such a tiny temple tucked away behind Kyoto's main drag, it actually has some startlingly profound claims to fame. It's part of a pilgrimage route, for one thing. No big deal, right? But then I found out that Rokkaku is believed to be the birthplace of ikebana.

Ikebana, you uncultured swine! The art of Japanese flower arrangement!

And in fact, there was an ikebana equipment shop across the road with all sorts of shears, knives, scythes, and other dastardly instruments in the window. I'd have taken a picture but I was afraid the owner would come out and shank me.

While at the temple, I had the chance to rectify my previous mistake at Zōjō-ji. If you'll recall, I didn't cleanse my hands before tossing in the coin and praying, which probably caused the Shinto deities to install some hideous disfiguring illness in my future. This time, at Rokkaku, I did everything right. I washed my hands, tossed in another hundred-yen coin, rang the bell (there was a bell at this one), prayed, and clapped. If anything went wrong, it's probably that I didn't ring the bell loudly enough. At least the gods would just find me merely inaudible this time around, instead of downright offensive.

A few blocks back down Karasuma and a left on Nishikikoji Street brought me to Nishiki Market. Like a lot of Korean and Japanese markets I'd been to, this one was an arcade, or shōtengai: a narrow street or alley covered by a roof (and the occasional glass skylight) and lined with shops and food stalls. I had heard Nishiki Market mentioned several times as one of the best free things to do in Kyoto, and as it was early afternoon and I was getting hungry, I felt the need for a snack. I meandered and weaved down the arcade's central aisle, taking note of the heavy foreigner presence and all the weird and wacky things for sale. I also tried to do some surreptitious on-the-fly photography, but the results were either blurry or zoomed-in too much. I have got to read up about apertures and f/stops.

Fish snacks!

If you know anything about the Vaunter, then you know I tried one of these (a medium-size one, for 350 yen). And it was delicious.

Eels for 650 yen?! Highway robbery!

I followed the market alley until it T-boned into a full-blown shopping mall with name-brand clothing stores (the last two pictures above), in which I have about as much interest as wood pulp. So I turned around and walked back out.

On the way, I noticed a liquor store and decided to go in. I wanted to find out if they had nigori-zake, or unfiltered sake (cloudy rice wine similar to Korean makgeolli). They did, but it was prohibitively expensive, upwards of ¥3000 per bottle. So I deferred and got a bottle of Japanese-brewed Kölsch beer for ¥456. German-style Japanese beer...fancy that?

I found a convenient place in an alley behind a large garbage can to drink it. Having thoroughly researched things like manga museums, raw horse restaurants and pachinko parlors, I had stupidly neglected to find out whether Japan objects to people drinking on the street or not. So I decided to hedge my bets and wedge myself behind a rubbish bin for a brew. It was refreshing and flavorful (the brew, not the rubbish bin).

And that was essentially that. I got back to the hotel room at about two in the afternoon. I checked my e-mails,sampled the two new whiskies I'd picked up at that loaded Family Mart earlier, and researched my next day's perambulations. The whisky helped with the research. Honest Injun, it did.

I figured I'd best get as much of this crap as I can before I go back home, right? You can't take it with you...literally.

Next up: ARASHIYAMA AND TOGETSUKYO BRIDGE. Don't miss it. This is where things get scenic.