Day 4 in Japan: The Giant salamanders of Kyoto Aquarium

We left Osaka for Kyoto after eating breakfast. We could not find free seats on the train, so we stood behind the driver’s cab and watched the magic of Japan’s railway system happen. There were two men behind the glass separating passengers and crew. The younger of the pair was sitting down and apparently receiving instructions from the older one, who stood by and joked around, occasionally pointing outside the window and explaining things. The young driver had a screen to his right displaying the times the train was supposed to arrive at each station down to the very second, but neither man seemed particularly bothered by the train’s being two minutes late.

After leaving our things at the hotel reception, we headed out. The forecast said it would rain all day, and rain it did. From the moment we woke up until around four o’clock, it rained almost without pause, sometimes lightly but sometimes pounding so hard that we had to hide under a roof for a few seconds despite carrying umbrellas. We figured that on a day like this, we ought to visit attractions a little farther away from our hotel and the city centre so as not to waste time on public transport when the weather turned for the better. We also reasoned that there would be fewer people at decidedly outdoor attractions like the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.

This latter idea made a lot of sense to us at the time but was completely debunked when we arrived at the final station and joined a continuous stream of tourists that flowed towards the forest and along the path leading through it without a moment’s respite. Sometimes, people stopped on the path to take pictures, but the only way to successfully do that without others mercilessly walking into the shots was by standing to the side and snapping a selfie with the stalks rather than by trying to take a shot in the middle of the path itself. The experience was not entirely pleasant, so Ciaran and I soon turned back and walked to the station without hanging around too long waiting for a break in our bad luck.

Knowing what a horribly chaotic and inscrutable place Kyoto Station is, we only took the train to the station before it and walked to the Nishi-Hongan-ji, a Buddhist Temple dating to the 14^th century. The temple is mainly known for its ornate gates, one of which was dismantled and brought over from Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s own castle by the Tokugawa dynasty. We then walked south to eat lunch and to visit a Shingon Buddhist Temple from 796, named To-ji. Its almost 55-metre-tall pagoda is the tallest wooden tower in Japan and was rebuilt a number of times. It was also one of only three Buddhist temples in Kyoto when it became the capital of Japan.

With the rain still pouring relentlessly, we decided it would be a good idea to do an indoor activity somewhere in our neighbourhood. For some reason, I had taken it in my head that Kyoto Aquarium had whale sharks, which had been a good enough reason to visit it until we found ourselves halfway through the aquarium and realised that the venue had no such thing. Instead, the highlight of our visit – or of my visit, at any rate – were the Japanese giant salamanders pressing their fat bodies debauchedly against the glass of the first exhibit, only interrupting their lazy existence to float up for a gulp of air before letting themselves slowly fall back to the ground. Across from their tank were tiny aquaria with salamanders of a much younger age (Japanese giant salamanders can live up to seventy years), who swam around in an incongruous frenzy.

Kyoto Aquarium, we found, is mostly dedicated to animals from the waters of Japan, including some of its freshwater bodies and cultivated areas. Besides the salamanders, it is known for its detailed jellyfish exhibit, where successive tanks show one species of live jellyfish at various stages of their growth, from a few days to several months. A few years ago, the internet also fell in love with a chart displayed at Kyoto Aquarium that mapped the relationships between all the penguins and their keepers, showing their offspring, previous partnerships, friendships, and unexplained antagonisms towards certain employees.

With most sites in Kyoto closing at six o’clock, our last stop for the day was the Fushimi Inari-taisha, a Shinto shrine dedicated to Inari, the spirit (or kami) of rice and agriculture, but also of business. The shrine is famous for its tunnels made of ten thousand torii – the double-roofed red gates that are such an iconic symbol of Japan all over the world – each of which was given to the temple by a local business seeking Inari’s favour. When Ciaran and I arrived at the temple, it was beset by hordes of tourists. We walked through the torii tunnels for what seemed like ages until the sun set and it started to get dark, and yet we were still unable to catch a moment to take a picture of the gates alone. We decided there and then to wake up early the following morning and visit the temple again.