Full Colors through the Prism of Japan

Kyoto's Sakura season, greenery, water colors, neon lights, and paper cranes

On the first warm and sunny day in Kyoto I went on a run, finding myself at Shimogamo Shrine. The oranges, pinks, and greens at Shimogamo was my first look into the colors of Sakura season.

Kyoto has transformed since the time I last wrote to you. My daily walks over the Kamo River were icy cold, but now the sun smiles down and cherry blossoms bloom back in gratitude. In the warmth of Sakura season, the colors of Japan are no longer restricted to the oranges of temples and the neons of the Teramachi shopping center. For all the color in Japan, Kyoto is the prism, revealing the secrets of this fast-paced culture through slower daily life, giving me witness to each shade of this country’s light.

The river is now lined with pink, red, and white blossoms alike, making sense of all the anticipation around this season. Kyoto is in celebration nowadays, rejoicing with picnics and games alongside the river at all times.

Enjoying the Greenery

On March 26, our study abroad group attended a tea ceremony, wearing kimonos. The varying kimonos in our group completed a pastel rainbow. In the ceremony, we learned the traditional way of making matcha. At home, I have never been much of a matcha drinker, as it tastes like grass. The green bubbles of my hand whisked matcha winked at me as I stared into a bowl of bad-tasting memories. I tasted it and was surprised. Matcha in Japan is delicious! The flavor is as rich as the color, with a delicious earthiness. 

Our study abroad group was divided in half for tea ceremonies. The instructor of our group had spent three years studying tea ceremonies. During her time in training she spent six hours a day sitting on her knees, a true wonder, as I was standing up to stretch after 20 minutes on mine.

In Japan, greenery can be found beyond a bowl of matcha. On a day off from school, I hiked Mount Kurama, an hour train ride up from Kyoto. The temple of Mount Kurama was painted orange, the color of luck, like temples here so often are. Yet, somehow more vibrant, was the green of the trees. I returned to that vibrant green at the meditative hike of Minoh Falls, in Osaka. Like Mount Kurama, this hike was all uphill, but I had no complaints. When I arrived at the blue-green waterfall, I was transfixed by its beauty, writing a poem.

The train station at Mount Kurama at a large Tengu Statue, a super nature being of Japanese folklore

Minor Falls, the most beautiful site I have seen in Japan.

Out of breath after stairs, the top of Mount Kurama took my little left breath away.

Poem Written at Minoh Falls

Roots, leave, unidentifiable foliage sweep down the rock’s surface alongside the waterfall.

The Greenery the same as water, different only in its ability to turn sun to mass

Me the same as the greenery and water as I too would fall down the rock

My difference in the ability to turn sun to thought

My difference the inability to cling to the rock.

For while the plants sweep down, they hold fast

And while the Minoh water falls down, it rises again, the mist clings to the rock.

The plants are water cemented by sun

I am plant set loose by thought

Are my thoughts the cause for unrest, my inability to cling to a stable rock?

The greenery whispers an answer to me through the wind, teasing my bangs with the ruffling truth.

.

Water Colors and Neon Lights

Unlike most of the temples and shrines in their bright oranges, the Golden Pavilion temple, as the name suggests, is gold. I visited this temple on a rainy day, making the gold and the surrounding shine with rain. The gold of the Golden Pavilion will always be a color of Kyoto to me.

The Golden Pavilion Temple shines in even in rain.

Claude Monet's waterlilies cool the mind through their blues, purples, and greens.

A Kyoto sports car competes with downtown's lights.

Additionally, at the Kyoto Museum of Art, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies became a color of Kyoto. The museum currently has a Monet exhibit, with paintings that contain the full range of cool to warm tones, my favorite being the ones that blended the two, creating a look of madness.

Speaking of madness, Kyoto’s seven story arcade, Round One, had my head spinning. The neon lights of the arcade were mesmerizing. After a night at the arcade, my roommate and I saw a couple of decked out sports cars parked in front. The purple, red, and green lights gave it an evil looking personality. It is by far the moodiest car I have seen in Japan. 

For all the bright and flashing lights Japan reflects, there are dark colors in the country’s near past.

Paper Cranes

Our study abroad group took a day excursion to Hiroshima, visiting the Peace Park, Peace Memorial Museum, and the island of Itsukushima. The building that survived the atomic bombing stood in colors of brown and gray, jagged edges of metal and brick cutting into the blue sky. The colors mirrored the emotion, until the memorial for the Children's Peace Monument. Thousands of paper cranes in all colors were displayed in glass boxes. Like children, each paper crane’s color brought a cheerfulness found nowhere else in the park’s grief. History lessons did not teach me properly the devastation America is responsible for. In the museum, learning through the pictures, testimonials, and salvaged items from the bombings was heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. As I fought to stay fully present, despite brewing shame in America, I felt an echoing sorrow inside me, stopped only by a greater respect and admiration for the strength of Japan.

The Children's Peace Monument at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima

Kyoto continues to offer experience on top of experience, each as colorful and enriching as the last. Japan’s details would be missed if it were not for this heaven on earth, as Kyoto breaks down the speeding lights into singular colors for comprehension: green matcha, gold temples, blue waterfalls, and rainbow paper cranes— all memories to last my lifetime.