Kyoto, one of Japan’s ancient capitals, is perhaps in the whole country my favorite city out of those I’ve visited. Anyone I’ve asked who’s been there, Japanese or otherwise, has always agreed it has a generally more relaxed, friendly, and culturally rich atmosphere than anywhere else. Tokyo’s the bustling, cosmopolitan blow-your-mind city-in-the-stratosphere, New York of the East. Osaka’s the charmingly southern, second-largest Japanese city with great, friendly people.

Kyoto is… well, it’s an adjective in itself. It’s where, on beautiful out-of-the-way street corners, you find things like this:

(They’re fishing, if you can’t tell… and they look pretty stuffed from eating so much. HA! Man I’m good.)

I’ve spent a bit of time in Kyoto quite a few times this and last year and last and thought it’d be a great spot to spend Halloween with a couple friends. The night life there is, though they have a few famous clubs, much more relaxed than anywhere else I’ve experienced. Several nightlife districts lie along beautiful little rivers, and at night fill up with people of all ages who fill up the tiny park benches and river edges, seeming to always have a great time. There’s more to be said about why in Japan, public life seems much more friendly, but that’s a different and more academic discussion.

We five booked a hostel for Friday and headed toward a spot like that where a Japanese friend said we could find some nice hangouts. We were quickly met by friendly characters like that guy from scream and good ole’ M.J., back from the dead;

We continued on through some back alleys which in Kyoto, like most places I’ve been around Kansai, are generally well lit and not creepy at all.

In their urban messiness, they’re sometimes like works of art while still being delightfully Japanese;

Around any given bend you can find anyone out late having some delicious takoyaki at one of the ubiquitous stands where it’s sold…

…takoyaki being a tasty fried dumpling with chunks of octopus inside. It’s like Japanese festival/fair food, and it’s really good.

Like most bars I’ve known, those here are privately owned, but the vast majority have a seating capacity of roughly 8-20. Space in Japanese cities is so limited that neighborhood, business, and entertainment districts have no distinct boundaries. Go for a night out drinking or generally hanging out here and you’re just as likely to end up next to someone’s house, a post office, a park, a river, as next to a Shinto shrine;

Here, in Korea Town (the Momodani neighborhood of the Tsuruhashi district of Osaka [also, from several weeks ago – not on Halloween]), this guy’s chilling out, probably after a hard day at work (as is the ritual here just as in the US), with some buddies at a neighborhood bar.

A few steps away from that takoyaki stand I took a shot of some bartenders in costumes from an action TV show. But as I peered through the window, they were instantly ready to pose. That happens a lot here. 95% of the time a Japanese person has been aware that I’m taking a picture of them, they’ve immediately thrown up a peace sign, but I’m glad these guys didn’t…

Instead I got a pretty sweet thumbs-up.

Friday and Saturday as much as any day reinforced my belief in the overall friendliness of Japanese people, including those we encountered in Arashiyama the next day. Arashiyama is an amazingly beautiful mountainous area of northwestern Kyoto, and yet another topic in itself.

As always, I’ve still got a few thousand more photos to go through but I hope, of course, to post again soon. There are TONS more photos on my flickr page you can browse, of course. Feel free to also check out my visual anthropology blog.

Please, comment on this, my other blog, and on my flickr pages and let me know what you think :3

Sayoonara!