Introduction
I begin the travel log. We’ll see how long it lasts. I’m no influencer, though — you’re getting my internal reactions, and I’ll be light on recommendations. Honestly, if you’re reading this site, you should have seen that coming.
I’m going to start with Japan. I’ve always wanted to go there, partly from a fascination with the culture, and partly because, as you’ll find out, I’ve read a ton about their history as well. I finally bit the bullet and planned out a trip where I got an excellent deal on airfare — for May of 2020.
Sadness. But if Covid taught us everything, it’s that we should go now. We can’t always rely on the world to stay open and reachable to us. So the earliest time I could find to rebook it pragmatically, I did. I ended up there over Thanksgiving and early December in 2023. It turned out to be an excellent time to go to central Japan — it was neither cold nor warm, and saw clear skies and colorful trees.
I decided to do the trip in terms of a historical theme, that got stuck in my head as the five capitals. Japan actually had innumerable capitals, many before Tokyo was even a village. They’re literally innumerable: we don’t truly know how many there have been. “Capital” was mostly defined as wherever the emperor of the day was living.
The Japanese imperial clan is as timeless and permanent a human institution as exists anywhere. Their line is unbroken for over a hundred generations, albeit with some twists and turns along the way. The dynasty even lacks a surname, since only the one family has held the title. There’s no need to distinguish Tudors from Windsors from Plantagenets — there’s only one line, and their only name is “emperor”.
Legend says the Imperial line sprang from the sun goddess, but the more skeptical historians think those early emperors were likely firsts among equals, warlords who’d won an extra war. The throne was not just about power, however; like most monarchies, it surrounded itself with rites and spiritualism, to strengthen its claimed divine heritage. The emperor became the agent to secure the favor of the gods for his subjects. His consequent need for purity was why the palace kept moving — an old emperor’s death polluted his home, so a new clean palace was made for his heir.
That limitation became politically handy. A capital city attracts power, and not all of it is held by the ruler himself. Local lords became more important, and influential. They marry into the imperial line, and make sure future heirs were their own relatives, and come to exert control over the court to the exclusion of the ruler. So new emperors who wanted independence would often build their new palace in a different town, someplace the local lords were more friendly to him. Boom, new capital! The court hopped around like that for nearly 300 years. We don’t know exactly how many towns, or years, or even emperors, because in our records of those days, the line between legends and reality is soft.
I Nara
By the seventh century, though, Tang Dynasty Chinese culture was all the rage. The Tang government was built along centralized, controlling lines, emanating from an enormous and decidedly permanent capital, named the Chang’an [which means Eternal Peace, which would prove a tragic misnomer] which was built in a precise grid pattern believed to be rational, harmonious and ritually pure. The Japanese court decided to follow the fashion — and the idea of building an entirely new city free altogether of established local lords and powers sounded handy, too.
And so they built Nara, in the southern Yamato plain, at the edge of the mountains. And to build a deeper moat against local noble interference, much of the land around Nara was instead given to temples and monasteries, for another new Chinese import: Buddhism. And so the Seven Great Temples were made. The temples remain today, vast sprawling complexes of bells, wooden arches and towards, nestled in the forests above the main city.
There’s two train companies that serve Nara, but you want the Kintetsu line; the station is much handier. March east immediately: there’s not much city between you and the temple lands. You’ll find yourself among a thick crowd if you do this at a sane hour; just let the tide guide you. A fair few of the crowd will peel off to take selfies with the deer that inhabit a large, flat park between the town and the temples. The deer are a symbol of the temples, because they are native to the area and the forests around it, and therefore protected as holy figures. The upshot is you can buy a few crackers and feed them. I skipped that part; I can’t help but think of deer as road hazards instead of sacred animals, no matter the local opinion otherwise. The deer seemed in good health, at least, though the grass in the park was rather thin and dusty thanks to their hooves, or the tourists’.
Keep going east, and start to climb uphill. Most of the crowd that stays with you now peels off see and selfie the Todaji Daibutsu, which is the largest statue in the word of the Vairocana Buddha. I can’t begin to decipher the many schools of Buddhism and their corresponding Buddhas and related figures. To my faithblind eyes, the Vairocana Buddha is recognizable as “the skinny one.” But the stone statue is as massive as the crowds going to see it. I took a look, but did not linger.
My real target was the Kasuga Grand Shrine, which isn’t Buddhist at all, but Shinto. In English, generally, “shrine” means Shinto buildings, while Buddhist ones are “temples”. In Japanese, you have Shinto jinja and Buddhist ji. But as religions go, they mostly play well with each other, and few would describe themselves as a “shinto follower” to the exclusion of Buddhism, or vice-versa. Buddhist temples usually have a little shrine to the local Shinto kami tucked away somewhere, often the cute little fox spirits of the god Inari. This shrine was built for the powerful Fujiwara family, and it features hundreds of bronze bells and torii gates in the forest hills.
The shrine itself is grand, and its botanical gardens as well, but for me the real appeal was to walk past it into the Kasugayama Primeval Forest, a preserve where logging has been banned since 841. Its ancient trees sneer at Yellowstone as nouveau riche. And after the crowds of selfie-hunters at the Daibutsu and the deer park, you find a silence more suited to temples here. The people you do see will tend to appreciate it too. You share a silent nod before parting around another bend. There were some places where you can poke through the canopy to a great view of the town behind you, too. If you take your walk to the far northeastern edge, there’s a nice little waterfall too, which can drown out all the ambient noise you could ask for.
I descended a different way aiming for the Naramachi district — the old merchant’s town with tiny streets packed with tiny old houses in a simulation of what a bygone era was like. The effect is ruined by the curiously unfinished feel of most Asian cities — instead of the bloodless Historical Preservation rules of an old town in Europe or America, here electric wires, air conditioning units and satellite dishes are as often slapped to the front of a building as tucked behind a screen or on the roof. You can’t forget what century it is here, except maybe at night when the HVAC units blend into the dark. But you can at least appreciate the patterns of the past hiding behind the needs of the present.
I had a delicious okonomiyaki for a late lunch at Omitsu. Okonomiyaki is a street food, closest in concept to a frittata, with tempura flakes, eggs, and various veggies slammed together into a patty with the meat if your choice and cooked on the griddle. Omitsu, like many Japanese eateries, is the size of a larger American closet, with a tiny menu. But all six choices are tempting, and you can only have one. The chef speaks some English, and makes up for any linguistic failings with his boundless friendliness. He seems to be thrilled he gets to serve you his food. I was thrilled in turn that I got to eat it.