GROWING UP GLUED
to episodes
of aníme TV series
Voltes V,
I spent
much of my childhood obsessing over
Japanese design and dreaming of one
day traveling to the Land of the Rising
Sun. But when my mind wandered
to thoughts of Japan, it didn’t fly to a
city of sleek skyscrapers terrorized by
Godzilla, but rather to Old Japan, where
I could hear the sound of bells echoing
in vibrant Shinto shrines. Images of
tranquil Zen Buddhist temples framed
by cherry blossom trees, traditional tea
ceremony rooms graced by geisha and
cavernous halls thick with tension as
Sumo wrestlers collide, all contributed
to my need to visit. On days when I’d
gotten especially carried away, I would
visualize a mystical land where ninja
tiptoe in the shadows then disappear
K
Y
O
T
O
among the trees, and where heavily
armored samurai on horses thunder
across the landscape in full pageantry
—
images straight out of an Akira
Kurosawa movie.
Many years later, I finally found the
time and resources to prepare a visit.
I don’t recall planning for any trip
as much as I did for Japan. When it
came to my dream destination, the
amount of information I had gathered
was threatening to bury me under a
messy heap of maps, documents,
dictionaries and all kinds of notions of
what the Japanese are like, on top of
prescriptions on how to overcome the
info overload. Kyoto in central Japan,
with its imperial past, I was told, makes
the most poetic introduction to a country
I’d been waiting a lifetime to visit.
Japanophile Ryan Dayrit finally makes the trip
to his dream destination and discovers vivid
imaginings of Old Japan coming to life
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