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Labor Day (Japanese Style)

12.09.09 | 9:02 AM ET

“Let’s enjoy delicious autumn,” proclaimed the wording on a counter in the Takashimaya food hall, and crowds of Saturday night shoppers queued to heed its message. Upstairs, the three young women behind the information counter bowed cloche-hatted heads to departing customers.

My friend Bill and I had arrived in Kyoto that morning, unaware that it was the start of a three-day weekend (Monday being the day when the Japanese give thanks for their jobs). Our ryokan was not far from the department store, tucked away on a side street and possessing the now familiar playhouse feel: steep stairs, low ceilings, tight corridors. Just down Kawaramachi sat the Sugarhill bar and restaurant where the tone of sophistication—exquisite food, muted lighting, jazz standards—extended to the elegant lettering on the door of the toilet identifying the place as the Pipi Room.

Sunday we took the train to the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, famous for its 10,000 torii, or sacred gates. Parents took pictures of children in traditional dress, while a more modern young man sported a jacket that entreated: “Enjoy my casualty lifestyle.”

Bill, a translator of classical Japanese literature, went over the omamori (amulets) with me. “This one will lengthen your life,” he said. “This one you put in your car—it will bring you safety in traffic. This one will bring you good luck in business.”

At 1 p.m. we went for tea with a priest Bill had befriended on an earlier visit. In his blue and white robe, he led us down a corridor and out to a garden few visitors see. Standing at the edge of the pond, he clapped his hands softly and a cluster of orange and white carp gathered expectantly at his feet.

Monday I left the ryokan early (Bill had decided to take the day off) and headed east down quiet streets. Two geishas emerged from a doorway as if into a dream, walking in quick, mincing steps on their raised sandals. That they were going in the same direction seemed a good sign. As the street rose, more people appeared, and tightly-shut houses gave way to open-air shops—that tasteful gauntlet of delicacies and souvenirs that heralds a famous temple. And Bill had told me that Kiyomizu was the “ne plus ultra” of temples.

I joined an orderly flow. If you have to be in a crowd, a Japanese crowd is the one to be in: compact, polite, unboisterous. Groups of young people split off toward the Jishu Shrine, home of the god of love and matchmaking. A brochure in English carried a picture of a man in clerical garb. “The chief priest of the shrine,” read the caption, “International Rotary Club Member.”

People admired the view of the city spread out below, and then descended on winding paths through muted foliage. (Though it was the next-to-last Monday in November, leaves were just beginning to fall.) Below the temple, pedestrians clogged the streets. I took one north, passing an alley where Japanese posed for pictures with geishas.

I asked a young woman for directions to Yasaka-jinja Shrine, and she kindly offered to walk me there. We were in that part of Kyoto where you glide effortlessly from temple to shrine and the city of concrete seems far away. (Though it sits just down the hill.) Sakuya worked for a film distribution company in Tokyo and was visiting the city with her boyfriend, who was conveniently off shooting somewhere.

In the courtyard of the shrine, we took our place in one of two lines. Sakuya, prim in her pretty black shoes and long black scarf, explained the procedure: when we reached the front I should throw a few coins over the wall into an unseen box, pull the thick rope to ring the bell (thereby getting the attention of the gods), bow, then clap my hands twice (to further grab the gods’ attention), pray for what I desired, and then bow again before moving on.

We did it all in unison. Afterwards, she led me up to Maruyama Park where an American in a ponytail sang “Country Roads.” Families strolled in the soft November sun and, after Sakuya said goodbye, I wandered up past man-made streams and small, well-placed trees. The leaves lacked the brilliance of a New England fall, but the thin branches gave them a feathery quality. The ethereal added to the ephemeral. Everything—the scenery, the weather, the crowds—was touched with an otherworldly delicacy. I seemed not so much to walk but to float.

Two middle-aged women asked if I could take their picture. They were happy to practice their English, which is what they taught in Tokyo. When I told them I was writing about their country, they insisted on giving me their e-mail addresses. Both had taken “American” names. “Becky,” the younger one wrote on the back of a business card, “in neverland.”

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Photos Courtesy:  REUTERS  |  iStockPhoto  |  flickr  

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