Tsutenkaku, Osaka, Japan Photo by Chilam Siu on Unsplash
My first sight of Kyoto is the McDonald’s at Kyoto Station. I’ve been dropped off a sleepless night bus at 5am and it’s the first place to open. There’s a queue of 40 people waiting for the shutters to open at 5:30. I don’t know if they’re travelling, on the way to work or on the way home but everyone is hanging around casually as if it’s 12 hours later.
Much of Kyoto is on a colour scale of brown from chocolate to sandy – the buildings, the cobbled streets, the banks and exposed rocks of the low-flowing Kamo River. The street colours radiate a charming and beautiful autumnal glow in the low-hanging winter sun, and the city is framed beautifully on the north and east sides by low mountains peeking between the few skyscrapers of the downtown, and the low-rise suburbs of Higashiyama, on the other side of the nearby river.
Ladies in elegant kimono sweep shop-fronts. Groups of girls in yukata float along in flip-flops and cute mitten-socks with perfectly-trained walks, clutching handbags, iPhones and bottles of vending-machine coffee. I’m not sure if they have somewhere to be or it’s just another form of formal wear. I could do with a pair of those to dress-up my knackered and banjaxed feet when I wear flip-flops.
Narrow alleyways, people wait dutifully in single file for traffic lights at narrow laneways you could jump over like a stream. Though the alleys are used as quite normal thoroughfares, rather than just local access, and the hybrids zip silently up and down so you can’t hear approaching traffic. I’ve started to obey the rules and do as the locals do. It gives you time to relax and enjoy your surroundings. There’s a slow diligence to movement here. Old folks pedal through the Kyoto Imperial Gardens on low-rider fixie bikes, their legs flailing on the single gear that’s too low for their surprisingly powerful thrust. My usual power-walk has gotten gentler since I’ve been here.
There’s something distinctive and beautiful and iconic about a seeing a single figure ambling gently down one of the many alleys in the distance, like a non-player character fulfilling their walking routine in an RPG. My mind starts to fill in blanks with the inspirations for the beloved computer games of my childhood. The elevator jingles playing in convenience stores and restaurants sound like soft 8-bit loops from peaceful villages populated with elves and spirits.
Osaka is only down the road from Kyoto, but it’s a world away in terms of how it feels.
Kyoto is a low-rise; refined and graceful and elegantly dressed. There are temples everywhere. The residents seem to be aware of their duties to their native city, its history and its image of great old Japan to the outside world.
Osaka is high-rise and down to earth; it’s good craic, and its residents are notoriously Western-friendly and curious.
Kyoto and Osaka are part of one big family, the Kansai region in the mid-west of Honshu. The cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe form one big metropolitan area of almost 20 million people. I hopped on the subway outside my guesthouse in Higashiyama in Kyoto’s city centre and was able to ride the train to central Osaka in 45 minutes.
Immediately on getting out in Osaka, things are busier. The buildings are taller, the traffic is heavier, the roads and highways spiral upwards and criss-cross each other, disappearing out of sight behind high-rise offices. There’s a lot of neon in Osaka.
People are younger, scruffier, cooler. The streets are grubbier. Osaka is bigger. People tell me Kyoto is an ‘older’ city – they mean in terms of the population demographics. There are a lot of old people in Kyoto, in fairness. And there are a lot of young people in Osaka.
In Osaka, they have cigarette butts on the ground. You don’t get that everywhere else. People drink beers on the street. Lads in suits drink cans in car parks before they head off on up town for a feed and a shkelp of pints. People talk to the strangers beside them at the bars. People eat. Osakans love their food. You can buy it everywhere, you can eat it anywhere. People are stylish. Lads with ski goggles and pocket chains and skinny sweatpants. The same guy. He looked like a character from SSX Tricky even though he wasn’t within 200km of any snow. But he looked good.
Everyone in Japan is stylish. No matter how scruffy they are, everyone looks like they chose their own outfit at least. By comparison, everyone in Ireland looks the same.
There isn’t really a choice between visiting Kyoto and Osaka – you need to visit both.