京都

The fact is, the longer I put off updating my blog, the more pressure I feel to make a decent account of my long silence, which makes me feel all the more inclined to continue to put if off. A lot has happened since the beginning of March: my third-year students graduated, the school year ended, I went home to California for spring vacation, a new school year started, I took a trip to Kyoto. And here is my attempt to somehow bypass all of that and bring you to the place where I am now. ☺

However, I can’t not tell you a bit about Kyoto. Knowing that Kyoto is there makes me feel better about Japan as a whole. In Kyoto one discovers a wealth of Japanese art, culture, beauty, and history that seems depressingly absent from the Kanto region. Or perhaps just absent from the tract-house-and-chain-businesses-lined streets of Moka. I went during Japan’s “Golden Week,” so called because it’s a week when three public holidays occur three days in a row; and, as a result, all of Japan goes on vacation at the same time. For this one week, the trains are crowded, airline tickets are twice the usual cost, and booking a hotel room less than a month in advance is just about impossible. Everywhere I went in Kyoto was completely overrun with tourists—foreign and Japanese alike. But I loved it. A lot. In four days, I came nowhere near running out of things to see, and I eagerly anticipate my next opportunity to visit.