The friend who went with me on the trip to Kyoto was really shocked by my post so I thought I would share it here. In sum, she found the shrines spectacular, and despite the fact that the city was full of ugly modern architecture, she thought what I was saying was similar to saying that the "Coliseum is minimized by the hellhole slum its in."

My response was that perhaps I was exaggerating a bit for effect, but I do believe that the temples sit almost apologetically amongst the concrete and I am outraged that 40,000 wooden structures were bulldozed in the last decade alone and it's not stopping. Paris, London, Rome are (even with a bit of scum) beautiful, enjoyable cities. I did think the temples were very, very beautiful, I am thrilled to have seen them. Maybe the slum that surrounds them "shouldn’t" take away from that, but it makes me mad that I have to ignore the scum and focus and the itty bitty bit of beauty when Kyoto could have been so beautiful. It makes me more mad that the Japanese don’t care, they continue to bulldoze and concrete everything. No relic is safe. It is Western groups that are doing anything to try to preserve that city.

In sum, maybe if a few more tourists get outraged it will (for economic reasons: tourist $) drive the Japanese to do something about preserving their city.

Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons book articulates far better than I ever could. If you are at all interested in modern Japan please read this book.

The completely unrelated photo of the day is school girls sleeping on the subway. One instant messages on her cell phone.