Lost In Japan

Excited about being in a new place, Ricky and I rise early without much sleep and head out with our map in hand to see a pile of sights. Ricky is very hungry and puts his foot down that we need to eat breakfast first up. We leave the hotel, cross the road and come to a place called Holly’s Cafe. That will do won’t it? We enter the cafe and can’t really find a picture menu of breakfast items and we stand in front of the counter feeling a bit stupid. Under pressure, Ricky points to something that looks coffee-ish and says to me ‘we’ll get breakfast somewhere else’ which is probably lucky because he’s just pointed at coffee Jelly with Coffee flavoured soft serve on top. Tasty as it was, it wasn’t really breakfast and soon we find ourselves in a little passtiserie in the subway station underneath ordering what ends up being a meat filled corssaint, a hot dog roll thing and a strange pastry filled with potato.

First up on our to do list today is heading to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. When we arrive we discover you actually have to go to an office on the site and apply to enter and have a look around and Ricky and I decide we can’t really be stuffed. We walk around the rest of the gardens, taking photos like the tourists we are until we find ourselves at Maratamachi Station. We jump on a train and head to the Nijo Castle site but Ricky is a bit disorientated and I’m not concentrating. We get off at the right stop but Ricky thinks it the wrong one so we run across the platform and we’re on another train before I can even tell whats going on. As soon as we leave I realise that was our station and so it’s back to Maratamachi Station again and then back onto another train back to Nijijo. Finally we make it to the castle and it is while I am purchaing our admissions two giggling school girls come and ask Ricky for a photo with him. Ricky’s not sure why but the whole way around the castle when I’m not near him people stop and ask for a photo with him. We conclude it’s porbably his aviator sunnies.

The castle itself is very different to others we have seen. Less flambouyant and more of a solid wood construction with artworks painted on the walls and ceilings. I read a sign on the wall that tells us the reason why the floors are so squeaky (they are really squeaky!) is so that people would hear if intruders were trying to sneak their way in. Amazing to think when this building was constructed in 16c and completed by 1626. The gardens surrounding are very spacious and Ricky and I have a stroll before we sit down and enjoy a drink of peach soft drink. A school teacher walks past and says ‘hello to Ricky’ to which Ricky responds ‘hello, genki deska?’ and the school teacher pretends to fall over in shock because he doesn’t know what to say. Ricky and I find this hilarious.

Soon we are on a bus to the Golden Temple (Kinkakuji Temple) but I mistake or bus stop exit and we have to walk the rest of the way. When we arrive we see a Giesha dressed up posing in photos which kind of annoys me. I would much prefer for there to be 10x less touristy stuff at these places like that.. but then again, it’s a tourist spot. The temple is pretty amazing, and indeed it is very gold. It sits on the edge of a huge chinese water garden which winds around the temple. At the exit Japanese school students keep asking for photos with us or interview us as part of school assignments. It is absolutley hilarious and we feel like we are on display as much as the temple itself.

Next up we walk to what we think will be a train station but it ends up being a very old tram system station. We catch it to the end of the line so we can go and see the famous Kyoto bridge Togetsukyo. We have planned it so we can go there at sunset and we arrive just in time. There is a crazy Japanese man playing guitar and singing hooked up to a small amp and he sings for the whole hour we are there. The shops are closing so I go and have a look at some stuff and miss the main part of the sun down. What an idiot. Ricky has filmed the whole thing though so at least I can look at it on camera.

We leave Arashiyama and head back to our hotel room. At the station we accidently purchase 2 tickets to the foot spa instead of tram tickets and we are wondering why we have been given some towels to catch the tram with. The tram terminates at a brand new station called Randen Tenjingawa station and we cross the road to get to the subway passing a bike parking lot which we think is so stranglely hilarious. We catch the train straight back to our hotel, realising that it’s getting quite late so soon we are out the door again. We go to Kyoto station for a feed and to pick up some batteries and a computer lead from nearby.

We catch the train back to our hotel station and head to Seven Eleven for some midnight snacks. We also discover a cool bookshop which Ricky buys a Japanese photography book from and leaves his bag of computers leads and batteries there by accident. We arrive back to the hotel and Ricky realises so it’s back to the shop for him. They have it behind the counter which is lucky for him.

Kyoto is awesome.