PostCards From Abroad: Spring in Japan 2008

KYOTO

They say if you want to see Kyoto, you have better put aside at least a week or two for it. Kenji and I put aside only a day for the famous city. It wasn’t because we had over spent our time on other places though. Simply, we had planned it that way.

I hadn’t really wanted to see Kyoto in my recent trip to Japan actually. Not because I had found it uninteresting or what not. But I just thought that since Kyoto is located only about 40 minutes of shinkansen trip away from Kenji’s hometown, we could therefore visit the city anytime next time that we are back in the country to see Kenji’s parents. Well, at least that was what I thought.

But it seemed that Kenji couldn’t wait for another time to show me the famous city. So we still went to Kyoto but only for a day on one of those days that we were there. And as planned, we spent our time no more than at its famous movie village, the Toei Uzumasa Eigamura, which by itself consumed about half our day already!

1. Orientation

Our trip to Kyoto started out in Tenma, Osaka. We were then with Kinya who had stayed in Tenma with us for the night in one of the business hotels there. Kotaro who wasn’t in Tenma during the night joined us that morning as we set out for Kyoto after breakfast.

Kyoto wasn’t very far from Osaka. The Kyoto airport is even said to be only about 43km in theoretical air distance from the Osaka airport. Speaking of which, we didn’t go to Kyoto by plane, of course. Like everyone else traveling to Kyoto from Osaka, we went there by train. And our train ride took us about 50 minutes to get to Kyoto Station.

2. My First Impressions of Kyoto

My first impression of Kyoto didn’t set off until I was on a bus to Uzumasa. Not that I ignored the surprisingly modern-looking, gorgeous Kyoto JR Station though. No, I noticed it as soon as I arrived in Kyoto. But the bus ride had given me so much more on things Kyoto as we traveled on road and passed by a couple of temples, homes, schools and numerous other interesting features of the prefecture.

Kyoto on a first thought seemed to me like a very old town. The area the bus drove us to appeared quite populated with buildings that looked rather dilapidated and streets that emerged so narrow and unplanned. Kotaro who was with us in our travel in Kyoto informed me that Kyoto is older than his current hometown in Wakayama as I spoke to him about my thoughts of the city.

Despite my amazement over the extremely ancient state of some areas of Kyoto, I was really glad that I had chosen to go to Uzumasa by bus. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t get to see these parts of Kyoto given my extreme brief stay in the city.

3. My Day in Toei Uzumasa Eigamura

In Uzumasa, we found that the movie village wasn‘t in sight from the bus stop as how we were told it would be. But the guys quickly got themselves located and soon we found our way there. In no time though we arrived at the village's entrance gate, ready to begin our day.

Our day at the movie village was kicked off by visiting the Cinema Town where we checked out a bit of the cinema exhibition before trying out 3D Simulation at the Simulation Theatre. Then we explored the Super Hero Land section before going outdoors where we met some ‘samurais’ and experienced the park's Haunted House as we toured around the movie village together. Check out the photos below.

The movie village on the whole initially came across to me as a tourist attraction that shared similar concept as that of the once ceased-operation Asian Village in Singapore's Sentosa. But not long after, I realized that it is a place rather fun to be in, especially because there was so much about Japanese film culture for me to learn and explore about.

All in all, I guess I agree that a day in Kyoto was certainly not enough. Hence I'm hoping that I would come back to Kyoto again someday to check out some other parts of the prefecture. I don't know but perhaps I'd do so on the very next time that I am in Japan.