On a bit of a whim I decided to head out to Mt Takao or Takaosan today. Takaosan is a smallish mountain only 2,000ft or so, but it's location only an hour from central tokyo makes it a popular destination for people looking to escape the concrete jungle and tourists. The mountain features a few temples and food stands at the summit, even a beer garden.
Takaosan has been on my to-do list for awhile and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to see some good foliage so I broke up my usual hung-over stay in bed Sunday routine.
For those intimidated by the all of 2.5 mile hike, you could take either a chairlift or a rail car up to the summit although I'm pretty sure you can hike up quicker then the wait in the line for either of those two options.
In addition to the lines at the entrence to the mountain there was also this guy doing some routine on the stage.
The benefit of having the chairlift option was that while the base and summit were very crowded the actual trails up were quite peaceful.
All over the mountain there are shrines, and statues.
At the top there is a major complex with a bunch of larger temples. I have to say, that as a tourist spot it didn't disappoint. The term tourist has developed a kind of negative connotation, usually associated with the commercialization, commodification, a sterilization of culture. (How bout that trio of adjectives, you just know I'ma gonna break this down for ya intellectually- next two paragraphs IYI only) Tourism is juxtaposed against a more authentic and genuine understanding of the society in which you are a visitor. And of course no one enjoys the experience of feeling like cattle in a crowd.
But I think these criticisms while valid (particularly the bit about the crowds) I think they miss the point of what makes a tourist site a good one. The experience of visiting a landmark is most importantly a visceral visual experience. Good tourist attractions provide those experiences in ways that can't fully be communicated by a photograph. Things can wow us with this scale, or draw us in to observe their details. In my opinion the essential ingredient to a good tourist site is how they provide us this visual stimulation and make us more conscious of our surroundings. I think part of the reason people feel compelled to take photographs, when clearly superior ones exist done by people with far more skill, is that they are trying to make that experience less fleeting.
So on that criteria I think Takaosan succeeds, albit with a big assist from mother nature on the color palet.
Angels?
All of the temples featured this incredibly intricate wood work.
You also had this incense and slow deep drums going to round out the sensory experience.
I should probably do this get out of bed on a Sunday thing more often.
No comments:
Post a Comment