April 25, 2008
Day 5: Monday, March 24th
near Kyoto
And now I come to an important point I’ve thus far neglected to mention: Hedy thinks Asian guys are cute. It was one of the reasons she wanted to come to Japan. While Jenny and I were fussing over maps and temples and directions, Hedy would calmly admire the “scenery.” Occasionally, she would point it out to us.
“Look over there,” Hedy would say. “That guy.”
“Eh, he’s not that cute,” Jenny would say.
“Yes. He’s cute,” Hedy would insist.
“Where?” I would say, turning my head back and forth.
Hedy had a simple goal: she wanted to take a picture of a cute guy. Sometimes she would point out a guy and take out the camera. (Incidentally, it was usually my camera since Hedy didn’t have a camera of her own.) But then she’d hesitate. Sometimes she’d get embarrassed. Other times she’d try to get a good angle. Whatever the reason, she would wait too long and the guy would turn his head or pass by or something would happen. And so she never got a good picture.
Jenny and I were becoming impatient.
“You’re too slow,” I told Hedy on the train to Uji. She had thought the conductor was cute, but after three minutes of angling all she had gotten was a blurred photo. “Just take out the camera and take the picture.”
“But I’m afraid they’ll see me. They’ll get mad at me and tell me to delete the picture,” Hedy said.
“They won’t get mad at you,” I said. “If anything, they’ll be flattered.”
“Besides, it’s not like you’ll see them again,” Jenny said. “We’re in a foreign country. You have to be bold.”
We got off at Uji City, a fifteen-minute train ride from Kyoto. We had gone there that afternoon to see Byodoin, the famous Phoenix Temple. But the city itself was very pleasant.
Uji described itself as “The City of the Tale of Genji.” As if to offer proof, it had erected small stone statues of Lady Murasaki, the author, and Genji and his love. It was also famous for its bridges—there were three and at least one was the site of a famous battle. It had a shrine that was a World Heritage Site, although our Lonely Planet guidebook decried it as boring. Still, what probably caught our attention more than anything was the fact that it was a small town. The streets weren’t crowded with people. There were grocery shops instead of souvenir stands.
We came to the bridge first and enjoyed the wind and the sight of water rushing by. We walked to the temple. It was a nice temple, large and wooden. The beams underneath it made it seem like it was floating and there were a couple of rooster-looking phoenixes on the top. We strolled around the building and went to the museum.
Once, Hedy tried to take a picture of a cute guy in a gray shirt, but it failed and she was disappointed.
We sat down to rest. I was taking pictures, when Hedy suddenly said, “Look, there he is again.”
“Who?”
“The cute guy in the gray shirt.”
I saw him standing near the temple. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take a picture of him.”
I looked at him through my camera, trying to get him in my shot. But just as the picture clicked, he looked at me. I stood absolutely still and took more pictures, feigning that I was taking pictures of the scenery. Behind me Hedy and Jenny were giggling.
“There,” I said. “I took it. Let’s go.”
But they were still giggling and it made me embarrassed.
“He looked right at you,” Jenny said. “He knew you were taking a picture of him.”
“It didn’t help that you two were laughing,” I said, grumpy.
Afterwards, we looked at the picture. “It’s actually a good shot,” Jenny said. “I like the temple in the background. It’s like a contrast between old and new. It’s almost like an ad.”
That made me proud. “Are you happy with it Hedy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, eyes shining.
We talked of my heroic deed as we walked to the shrine. Hedy gave me the full account of what was going on while I was taking the picture, how Jenny had noticed my camera turning and kept saying, “Oh my gosh, he knows, he knows.” Jenny was proud of her role, saying if she hadn’t been talking, he wouldn’t have looked straight into the camera like that and we wouldn’t have gotten such a good shot.
Uji Shrine was a small, old shrine, with a thatch roof that was growing moldy. To wash your hands, you had to go into a small building with an open door. There was a stone plank to stand on, but the rest of the floor was dark water. The shrine was small and quiet and ancient. It was mysterious. It was interesting.
But before we came into the shrine, Hedy took Jenny’s camera and took pictures of her being silly. Jenny said she wanted a group shot of us in front of the shrine and she asked some guys. The guys were cute. We took a group shot.
Later, looking through the pictures, the shots of Jenny being silly were only half focused on her. In the background were cute guys—the same guys that had taken our picture.
“I’m glad you got a picture of them,” I said. “Those guys were cute. And nice. Good job, Hedy.”
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