Do Japanese have a Sense of Humour? Laughter, Comedy, and Jokes in Japan

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The other day I went to a comedy charity night in Shibuya which featured seven comedians from various countries, including one Japanese. The audience though was almost entirely non-Japanese and I got to thinking about humour in Japan. Certainly, from the outside Japanese society looks strict and serious and some have even suggested that Japanese lack a sense of humour, or at least don't consider having a sense of humour as important as say a Brit would. But while it is true that there is no word for humour per se in Japanese (the English transliteration yūmoa =ユーモア is used), there is definitely a lot of joking and laughter in Japan, though the content and context seem rather different compared with the UK. Oshima argues that Japanese "jokes" are better understood as funny stories "told among close friends and family members to gain solidarity." Certainly, Japanese people don't really exchange or tell "jokes" to each other as kids might do in the playground or adults down the pub in Britain (if you ask a Japanese to tell you a joke they will probably be non-plussed!).

Poster for a local rakugo performance

In Japanese, owarai (お笑い), from the Japanese verb to laugh, can refer to a comical story, something laughable, or the comedy business in general. The latter consists primarily of rakugo (落語), a sit-down show by a single kimono clad performer based on a long shaggy-dog-style story, and manzai (漫才), a more modern two-person comedy act based on fast-paced dialogue. The former, rakugo, draws from a stock of fixed stories -  featuring a number of characters - that the performer personalises by adding his or her own gestures, timing, expressions, voices, and mannerisms (see here for an example of one of the most famous rakugo stories done in English). Though audiences tend to be older, most universities boast a rakugo club. The latter, manzai, typically features a straight/smart person, known as tsukkomi, and a funny/foolish person, known as boke, who is usually the target of a few smacks to the head by the straight guy. Japanese TV is full of manzai and slapstick humour; most of the popular comedians are from Osaka (Yoshimoto being the most famous agency) and humour is one area where the East/West divide can be most clearly seen in Japan. One of the most popular duos are Downtown (DVD pictured), and they feature in a new year's eve comedy program every year which is a must-watch for many young Japanese. This year's show, however, featured one half of Downtown, Masatoshi Hamada, in blackface, highlighting stark differences in what is deemed to be "funny" inside and outside Japan (in fairness, some Japanese also objected to the skit or konto - though quite a few others defended it as "Japanese comedy").

On a day to day level, Japanese enjoy engaging in riddles (nazonazo) and wordplay (dajare or kotoba-asobi), something which is made easier by the fact that the Japanese language has a relatively limited number of sounds resulting in the existence of many homonyms. This kind of "joke" is also known as an

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oyaji-gyagu (親父ギャグ）or "dad-joke" because the pun is usually feeble and corny. When such a pun is funny it might be praised as being omoshiroi which in Japanese means both "funny" and "interesting": clever or interesting word play is also funny. But while satirical comedy certainly exists in Japan, such as the work of Hisashi Inoue, political satire and parody is almost non-existent, and making fun of politicians, which is a staple of comedy in the West (I grew-up watching Spitting Image), is pretty much taboo in Japan (at least in the mainstream media). This is something of a mystery, especially given the mountain of material available! The only explanation I have heard is that this could be considered meiyokison (名誉棄損) which means defamation, libel, or slander though it seems to be as much a cultural as a legal issue. If any Japanese readers can shed some light on this, do please get in touch!

Gotta Catch 'em all: Hikikomori Support through Pokemon

The franchise and monsters known as Pokemon (Pocket Monsters) boast a worldwide following, and few characters are more universally recognisable than Pikachu. Of course, Pikachu or any of the characters in Pokemon lack any strongly "Japanese" characteristics: Koichi Iwabuchi has called this kind of popular culture "odourless culture" (mushū bunka =無臭文化) and argues that the lack of an obvious Japanese look, taste, or smell is precisely the reason why it has such universal appeal. Certainly, most Japanese cultural products undergo some sort of adaptation to local markets to make them more accessible: the American version of Pokemon, for example, saw a slew of changes to names, signs, food, jokes, music, and pacing.

In the recently opened Pokemon Center in Nihonbashi - the nation's 25th and biggest Pokemon facility - there are thousands of Japanese looking Pikachu for sale. The picture shows lines of Pikachu wearing Happi (法被) - a traditional straight-sleeved coat worn at festivals - and Hakama (袴), sometimes described as "Japanese-style trousers" (see previous post here). The 1300㎡ center also has a Pokemon cafe which requires prior reservations, though the food is not particularly Japanese: curry and pancakes in the shape of Pikachu! Pikachu is in fact about the only character who has kept his original Japanese name, with pika being an onomatopoeic term for a flashing light and chū just a generally cute sound (used to describe both squeaks and kisses!).

The release of the AR Pokemon Go game for smart-phones (sumaho =スマホ) in 2016 saw huge interest in Japan, as elsewhere, but also generated a lot of negative publicity. There were a spate of traffic and other accidents in which players were so absorbed in the game they walked into the road or bumped into other pedestrians; in March 2017, one driver was imprisoned for three years for killing a boy while playing the game. Posters appeared at stations, imploring passengers to stop using their smart-phones while walking, known as aruki-sumaho (歩きスマホ). However, amid all the media brouhaha (sōdō =騒動) a number of positive uses for the app emerged, including as a fitness tool for the middle-aged, a way to attract tourists to disaster hit areas, and even for suicide prevention. One of the most interesting proposals though has come from the Japanese government who have suggested that Pokemon Go can help hikikomori - social recluses who are estimated to number anywhere from half a million to as many as 1.2% of the population - deal with isolation and withdrawal from society, a proposal which has solid scientific backing. Gotta catch 'em all, or, as they say in Japanese, pokemon getto daze (ポケモンゲットだぜ)!

Italy and Japan, Italy in Japan: L'Italia più vicina (Part 2)

Still no closer to unravelling the mystery of my Italian fan-base (do drop me a line!), but I'll continue with part 2 and more on Italian culture in Japan. Let's look at food first, specifically Japan's love affair with Italian cuisine which has exploded since the 1990s. Indeed, Italian restaurants are absolutely everywhere and are even more common than the ubiquitous Indian and Chinese eateries. I've heard it said that the two cuisines share a lot of common elements, such as an emphasis on seasonality and simplicity.

Mr Donut's "Napolitan": A snip at ¥680

In fact, Japanese love pasta so much they even created their own dish: Napolitan (ナポリタン) which was created after the war by the chef of the New grand Hotel in Yokohama who was apparently inspired by GHQ rations of spaghetti mixed with tomato sauce (ketchup). Today, Napolitan, containing ham, sausage, green peppers, and canned mushrooms topped with powdered cheese (recipe here), is a staple at small cafes and family restaurants and is even featured on the menu of the fast food franchise Mr Donut (pictured). Unaware that it is a Japanese original, many Japanese travel to Napoli and ask for this only to be met with blank stares: ''Spaghetti alla Napoletana” is a completely unrelated dish! But although Italians coming to Japan may be horrified to find "ketchup spaghetti" carrying the name of one of their most hallowed cities, they will also surely enjoy other inventions such as tarako (cod roe) and mentaiko (spicy pollack roe) spaghetti with nori (seaweed) sprinkled on top which are absolutely delicious!


One thing I've noticed in recent years is the diversification of Japan's coffee culture: whereas in the past there was usually little choice beyond burendo (blended filtered drip coffee) or "American" (weak diluted espresso), today there are thousands of speciality shops and bars and Japan has become one of the biggest importers of coffee beans in the world. In particular, genuine espresso has become immensely popular: it is available (single or double) in one of the most popular cafes in Tokyo, Pronto, which is conceived as "an Italian bar, where you can enjoy aromatic Italian-style coffee and bread in the morning and pasta for lunch." Another cafe that seems to be appearing all over the place recently is Segafredo, whose headquarters are in Italy.

After all that food and drink, you'll probably ready to settle down to a good film and luckily the Festival del Cinema Italiano (Itaria eiga sai=イタリア映画祭) was  held in Tokyo earlier this month and will open in Osaka later this month. As well as showcasing some recent award winning films, a number of famous Italian directors also visited Japan and held talk shows after their films. In the panel hosting the Manetti brothers and Sydney Sibilia, the directors waxed lyrical about how influential Japanese anime (cartoons) had been for them, particularly classics like Captain Tsubasa and the Rose of Versailles, which were apparently something of an after-school staple for many Italians during their youth. It was interesting to note a frisson of unease among the high-brow Japanese audience which only grew when in response to a question on the influence of the legendary Japanese director Kurosawa, the Italian directors instead cited Takeshi Kitano as an inspiration (in Japan, "Beat Takeshi" is more widely known for his role as a comical TV host than for his directing of Tarantino-esque movies). De Gustibus non est disputandum!

Italy and Japan, Italy in Japan: L'Italia più vicina (Part 1)

One of the fun things about writing a blog is seeing how many hits the various posts get and which countries the viewers are in. In my 100th blog post I listed the top 10 countries from where I draw my audience: at that time the top three were Japan, the United States, and Russia. Since then, however, Italy has come out of nowhere to be consistently top, with almost 700 hits a month and mysterious peaks of 60 views every two or three days. So as a special thanks to my Italian viewers (grazie per aver letto!) I thought I'd do a special post on the relationship between Italy and Japan.

Japan-Italian relations go back to Marco Polo who though never actually visiting the country wrote about it in his famous book, describing the failed Mongolian invasions, stressing the trade possibilities, and even introducing the Chinese pronunciation of the country, Cipangu, from which we get the name "Japan" today (the Japanese themselves, of course, refer to the place as Nihon or Nippon). The first Italians set foot in the country a few hundred years later, in the form of Jesuit missionaries (between 1542 and 1600, 18 of the 95 Jesuit missionaries were apparently Italian).

After the period known as sakoku (鎖国) when Japan was, for the most part, closed off to European nations - in part due to the perceived threat of Christianity as detailed in the recent Scorsese film "Silence" based on the Endo Shusaku novel - the Meiji Restoration (1868) saw Japan engage in rapid modernisation and industrialisation in a bid to "catch up" with the West. It is said that the Italian struggle for independence (1861) known as the Risorgimento was something of a blue-print for this transformation. See here for more details of the Italian envoys, merchants, advisors, and others who were prominent in Japan during this period as well as the some of the similarities and differences between the two countries.

Since the 1990s there has been a marked "Italy-boom" with a keen interest in Italian culture in Japan. Italy is one of the most popular destinations in Europe for Japanese tourists, and for Japanese females in particular Italy seems to hold a special attraction. Perhaps one reason for the appeal is that the countries are so different: Japan is a supremely organised, efficient, punctual, and rule-ordered society so perhaps the spontaniety, passion, creativity, and romance of Italian society offers a unique release from what can be a rather stifling local environment? Even inside Japan, Italian culture is everywhere: in part 2, I'll cover food and language in more detail. For now, I'm going to leave you with a picture of the magnificent Istituto Italiano di Cultura (itaria bunka kaikan ＝イタリア文化会館), in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, a striking red building completed in 2005 and designed by the famous Milanese architect Gae Aulenti. In the meantime, I would love to hear from my mystery Italian viewers - send me a comment in the message box right!

Enoshima for Lunch: The Perfect Golden Week Day-Trip

As mentioned in an earlier post, despite "hard-working" (kinben =勤勉) being the dominant image of the Japanese, both inside and outside Japan, the Japanese actually enjoy more national holidays than many other countries. Now "Golden Week" (ゴールデンウィーク) is upon us, a cluster of holidays that provide a "golden" opportunity to take consecutive days off. The holidays consist of Showa Day (昭和の日) on April 29th (moved to Monday 30th this year) through to Constitution Memorial Day (Kenpō ki'nen-bi=憲法記念日), Greenery Day (Midori no hi=みどりの日), and Children's Day (Kodomo no hi=こどもの日) on May 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. In practice, however, Golden Week is crowded and travel (especially flights) exorbitantly expensive, so many Japanese choose to stay home and recharge their batteries - or take a day-trip.

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A perfect destination for a day-trip from Tokyo is Enoshima (江の島), a small off-shore island just over an hour south-west of Tokyo that is joined to the mainland by a 600m bridge. You can arrive either at Enoshima Station (on the Enoshima electric railway or enoden) or Katase-Enoshima Station (pictured) which is modelled on the Dragon Palace in the famous Japanese folk-tale Urashima Taro. The story, which sees the fisherman protagonist spend three days in the underwater palace only to find that three-hundred years have passed when he returns to his village, is used by Japanese to refer to people who have returned from abroad after a lengthy absence to find that many things have changed.

Like many tourist sites in Japan, Enoshima has a "must-eat" speciality or meibutsu (名物) associated with it, and in this case it is shirasu (白子) which is an almost transparent boiled whitebait/whitefish. These are the tiny young fry of sardines, anchovy, or herring - much smaller than the UK equivalent - which are full of calcium and DHA. They are typically sprinkled on top of white rice to make what is known as a shirasu-don, an abbreviation of donburi (丼) which refers to any bowl of rice with food on top (see here for a post on the popular fast food gyūdon or beef bowl). The picture shows a bowl of rice with whitebait, salted salmon roe (ikura), and fatty tuna minced with spring onion (negitoro) - with a blob of wasabi in the centre. This is kind of a kaisen-don (海鮮丼) or seafood-bowl though a kaisen-don proper would also have lots of sashimi on top too. Needless to say it is ridiculously good! Happy Golden Week everyone!!

Guardian Lion-dogs: The Beginning and End of all Things

Komainu pair with torii gate and fox pair in background

One of the ideas behind the blog is to observe the everyday, to stroll the streets of the metropolis noticing the little things that are missed by most and examine them with a view to gaining a deeper understanding of Japanese society (in this sense, I am very much influenced by the notion of the flâneur or flâneuse). A good example are the tiny red torii gates (discussed here) strategically placed to deter passers-by from urinating or dumping rubbish.

Left komainu (mouth closed) at Yamagata Gokoku-jinja

Today's object of interest are komainu (狛犬) or lion-dogs, pairs of wooden, stone, or metal animals typically guarding and protecting the entrance to a shrine or sometimes temple. In this sense, they are similar to the pairs of foxes (introduced in a previous post) which are a common sight at temples and shrines dedicated to the Goddess Inari across Japan (including the most famous of all, Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto). Sometimes these komainu can be enormous. In Yamagata City, a new pair of komainu made from metal were unveiled to guard the Shrine for the War Dead (Gokoku-jinja=護国神社) produced using a local cast/mould technique in the aptly named Dō-machi (literally "Bronze neighbourhood"). It is said they will last "18,000 years."

A small pair of komainu on the gate of a house

Shīsā in Okinawa

Unlike foxes, komainu are also seen (in miniature) at the entrance to regular houses and even rooftops, especially in Okinawa where they are called shīsā (シーサー) and are found all over the place (often made of red clay). One interesting feature of these beast pairs is that the lion-dog on the left typically has its mouth closed while the one on the right has its mouth open. The open mouth is said to be pronouncing the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet (a) while the closed mouth one is pronouncing the final letter (um/n), giving the sacred sound "Aum/n" (sometimes written Om) which is said to represent the beginning and end of all things. In everyday conversation, this has a positive meaning: if a couple or group perform an action together seamlessly, almost telepathically, for example in sport, it is refered to as aun no kokyū (あうん[阿吽]の呼吸).

Unfortunately, the word Aum has a different, darker connotation for most Japanese: Aum Shinrikyō (オウム真理教) is the name of the doomsday cult which carried out the 1995 sarin Tokyo subway attack which killed 12 and injured nearly 1000. 23 years on, speculation is rife that preparations are now being made to execute the 13 members who were found guilty of the crime, including blind guru Asahara (yes, Japan still has the death penalty). What was particularly shocking for Japanese was that many of the perpetrators were young elite post-graduates from Japan's top universities. There was much soul-searching over why this was and reasons posited included the post-war spiritual vacuum, alienation from an overly-materialist society, and loneliness/lack of community due to rapid urbanisation.

Disneyland, Kawaii Culture, and the Rejection of Adulthood

This Sunday (April 15th) marks the 35th anniversary of the opening of Tokyo Disneyland in 1983. The popularity of Disneyland (and DisneySea which opened in 2001) in Japan is phenomenal: the number of visitors to the two parks over the past 35 years totals about 720 million. In fiscal 2017 alone there were 30.1 million visitors to the two, around a quarter of the Japanese population! That is not to say that 1 in 4 Japanese have visited though; as well as non-Japanese visitors there are a solid core of repeaters, particularly high-school girls, who buy the annual passport and go as often as once a week!

Many of these teenage (and older) fans will go with groups of friends all dressed up the same, known as "matching coordination" (osoro kōde =おそろコーデ): a recent trend is to all wear the same school uniform (seifuku dizunī =制服ディズニー) a kind of cosplay (complete with Mickey Mouse ears) that even high-school graduates enjoy. This trend reflects the high social capital enjoyed by the female high-school (joshi-kōsei =女子高生) or JK brand whose members have a high degree of pride in their identity as a "JK."

While visiting Disneyland, visitors young and old alike will stock up on cute Disney goods (it is de riguer to have a cute character - usually just one - hanging off your bag in high-school - or even university - see picture). Thus, the whole cute character boom lasts far longer in Japan age-wise and Japanese young adults can strike their Western counterparts as immature and even childish. This is indeed the essential meaning of the Japanese word kawaii which though usually translated as "cute" is rather different from its English equivalent. Sharon Kinsella, in a superb chapter entitled "Cuties in Japan" (1995), defines kawaii as "sweet, adorable, innocent, pure, simple, genuine, gentle, vulnerable, weak, and inexperienced." For her, the Japanese kawaii movement represents a rebellion against or escape from the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood, immersion in a pre-social world that is nothing less than a rejection of Japanese society itself.

The word kawaii first emerged in the 1970s but only reached what Kinsella calls its"peak of saccharine intensity" in the early 1980s - exactly when Disneyland opened. On reflection, Disney is the perfect match for Japanese with its emphasis on (a) cute and (b) customer service. Since Steam Boat Willy in 1928, Disney films have been adored in Japan, perhaps even more so than in America (though as Kinsella points out "Disney cute" tends to romanticise an ideal rural pre-industrial society rather than childhood per se). In fact Japanese comics (manga) - which are read by young and old alike - drew inspiration from Disney: Osamu Tezuka, the "god" of Japanese manga and the father of the cute big-eyed style characteristic of many manga today was strongly influenced by Walt Disney.

In recent years though, competition has emerged for Disneyland, competition which suggests that cute (Minions and Hello Kitty aside) is no longer indispensable for attracting a Japanese audience. Universal Studios Japan (USJ) opened in Osaka in 2001 and topped 100 million visitors by 2012, even before the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened in 2014. A look at the Global Attractions Attendance Report for 2016 shows USJ catching up fast and now sitting at number 4 in the worldwide ranking with an annual attendance of 13.9 million, sandwiched between Tokyo Disneyland at number 3 (16 million annual visitors) and Tokyo DisneySea (13.6 million). Is kawaii culture fading? Are Japanese youth ready to re-embrace adulthood? If the queen of kawaii, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, is anything to go by, the answer is yes: Kyary recently dyed her hair black and started wearing natural make-up leaving fans asking whether she had grown up and journalists speculating that the era of Harajuku kawaii Lolita fashion was finally over.

Octopus Balls Bridging the East/West Divide

Takoyaki Pringles - only in Kansai

In a previous post I mentioned that in contrast to the UK north/south divide, in Japan the division is East (Kantō =関東) vs West (Kansai =関西) particularly with regard to culture and language. For example, in contrast to the national stereotype of Japanese as quiet, indirect, and polite, people from Kansai (especially Osaka) are said to be blunt and direct (verging on rude), but also quirky and humour-loving (as well as careful with their money). Even escalator etiquette is different between Tokyo and Osaka: the former stand on the left and the latter on the right, apparently a remnant of the dominant samurai vs merchant populations.

One of the biggest differences between Kanto and Kansai though is the food. Dashi stock tastes and is made differently, with Tokyoites favouring stronger more pungent tastes (stinky natto fermented soya beans are much more popular in the East than the West!). A well-known food which originated in Osaka - "invented" in 1935 by a street vendor who drew inspiration from akashiyaki - are octopus balls known as takoyaki. These are small round dumplings made from batter with pieces of octopus in the middle usually covered with a Worcestershire type brown sauce, mayonnaise, and dried bonito shavings (which wriggle around on top due to the heat as if they were alive!). Tako (タコ - the kanji is not widely known) means octopus and yaki comes from yaku (焼く) meaning to cook, fry, or grill: many Japanese foods contain this word (such as as yaki-tori, okonomi-yaki, or yaki-soba).

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Although originating in Osaka, takoyaki are common all over Japan today, from supermarkets to convenience stores. People also make these at home using a cast iron electric takoyaki pan like the one pictured. It takes quite a bit of skill to do this well though as the balls have to be turned with a pick in the semi-spherical mould so that all the batter is cooked thoroughly and a ball shape is created. Watching a professional turn hundreds of octopus balls in lightning fast fashion is quite a sight to behold!

In Tokyo takoyaki is definitely a snack food, something one might pick up on the way home after a night out drinking. The picture shows our local takoyaki truck which parks itself in front of the station at night to entice intoxicated office workers, in the fashion of the British burger or kebab van. In Osaka, though, takoyaki is eaten as a main dish with rice, something which never fails to surprise Tokyoites.

Amazing Japanese Bakeries: English Bread, Bean Paste Bread, and Curry Bread

When once thinks of everyday food in Japan, rice is the first thing that comes to mind. However, bread is also hugely popular; indeed, your typical busy Japanese is probably just as likely to have toast and coffee for breakfast as rice! The Japanese have a traditional breakfast (rice, soup, fish, vegetables etc) about as often as a Brit enjoys a full English breakfast (i.e. not very often). The word for bread in Japanese is pan (パン), the same as Spanish, though the word itself reportedly came from Portuguese pão since it was the Portuguese who introduced bread in the 16th century. See here for a brief history of bread in Japan.

Today, bakeries are everywhere in Japan and the variety of bread products is mouth-watering. The system is help-yourself; on entering a bread shop you pick up a tray and a pair of tongs and pick out what you want. You then take the tray over to the cash register (reji =レジ) and they will put your selections into separate bags and total them up. In the UK it's more common to point out what you want to the shopkeeper who will then bag up your requests. Interestingly, there are some in hygiene-conscious who dislike the fact that everything is open to customer's whims (and their coughs and sneezes - just like oden) but most people don't seem to mind.

Tsubu-an doughnuts: all sold out

Two of my Japanese bakery favourites are an-pan (red bean paste or anko bread) and kare-pan (curry bread). The former is made from azuki beans (小豆) and comes in two kinds: tsubu-an (containing lumps - tsubu  or 粒 is the counter for small round objects) and koshi-an (smooth). Japanese tend to fall into one camp or the other and there is much argument over which is better. Different breads also appear in different seasons: because now is cherry blossom time, sakura (cherry) an-pan are on sale. As the picture shows, these have a real salt-pickled (shio-zuke =塩漬け) edible cherry petal on top and the bread has a pink tinge. Anpanman is also the name of one of Japan's most popular characters with a full bakery cast that includes Karepanman, Shokupanman, Melonpanna, Creampanda, and many more!

My second favourite bread is kare-pan, deep-fried pirozhki-style bread with curry sauce inside which first appeared in 1972. Sometimes they contain extra fillings as well as curry such as the ones pictured which have a soft-boiled coddled egg (hanjuku-tamago =半熟卵) inside. Delicious!

As a Brit, I was interested to discover the special kind of bread known as igirisu-pan  or "English bread" when I first arrived. This is basically a plain white "mountain-shaped" (yama-gata =山型) loaf which is usually sold not as a whole loaf but in packs of six or eight slices. This is distinguished from the cheaper shoku-pan (食パン) often sold in convenience stores which is less airy and more dense (kime ga araku =キメが粗く) and often contains butter and sugar (pictured). But despite "English bread" being a staple in both Japan and the UK, the types of sandwiches eaten are not always the same; Japanese are usually shocked by the traditional British chip "butty" (fried potato sandwich) while this Brit may has never got used to yaki-soba (fried noodle) pan and the stomach-churning Japanese fruit and whipped cream sandwich (pictured). Vive la difference!

Flying Visit to the Old Capital: Kyoto Travel Tips (Part 2)

Main sanctuary at Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto

Once you've arrived in Kyoto, found a place to stay, and rented a kimono, you're all set to begin sightseeing. If you rented kimono at the place I recommended in part 1 then you're well placed to walk to Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) a Shinto shrine famous for its thousands of bright vermillion torii gates (sen bon dorii =千本鳥居) - and also featured in the film Memoirs of a Geisha. Keen followers of this blog may remember that the Goddess Inari is one of the main kami of Shinto: look out for all the (very stylised) foxes, especially in pairs, said to be the messengers of the Goddess. At night (it's open 24 hours) you may even encounter a real fox! The torii gates lead you on various trails heading upwards through forest, passing small shrines. Interestingly, the gates themselves get smaller as you progress up the mountain - while the crowds only seem to get bigger!

If you did rent kimono, your zōri-clad feet will no doubt be killing you after the tough climb at Fushimi Inari Shrine, so why not experience a unique Japanese-style Starbucks? This is found at Ninenzaka (map here) a beautiful thoroughfare of traditional Japanese houses, restaurants, and shops between Yasaka (Gion) Shrine and the world heritage Kiyomizu Temple. The Starbucks is officially called Ninenzaka Yasaka Chaya (二年坂ヤサカ茶屋) with chaya meaning "tea house" and has tatami flooring, shōji paper sliding doors, and even a little Japanese garden.

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If you have any energy left (I did say it was a flying visit!) a final recommendation would be the gold-leaf coated Kinkakuji (金閣寺=Golden Temple/Pavilion), though it is a lot further out and requires a thirty to forty-minute bus-ride from Kyoto Station. The temple was actually burned down in 1950 by a young monk and this incident is the basis of the story for Yukio Mishima's 1956 novel named after the temple (the monk was obsessed by its beauty in the book). The story is also included in the classic 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters co-written and directed by Paul Schrader with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas as executive producers. Mishima's central theme was the dichotomy between traditional Japanese values and the spiritual barrenness of contemporary life. See here for a fascinating interview with Mishima in English which covers a range of topics - including ritual suicide (seppuku) which was the cause of his death in 1970.