Down to Business- Kyoto.

Oct 22nd, 23rd, & 24th

Despite our troubles the day before we were determined to get in lots of sight seeing on Thursday. Our day began very early, Regina had taken a sleeper bus and met us at our Hostel at 6am. She greeted us with gifts to welcome us to Japan including instant Miso soup, Roman, and three flavors of Kit Kat bars (she‘s the best!).

The three of us snoozed for another hour than got up and were ready to see the city. We stated our morning at the Sanjusangendo Temple which has 1001statues of the Buddhist Diety Kannon, each statue was lined up in perfect rows.

After walking toward the next temple we were all pretty hungry so we decided to stop and grab some breakfast. I ordered the only thing that was recognizable to me, ham and toast. I was expecting this to be a ham steak with a piece or two of toast, when it was it was actually a ham sandwich with mayo, cucumber and lettuce (even weirder was the fact that the sandwich was cut into 3 pieces- long strips). It wasn’t what I was expecting but it was tasty. We continued to walk and explore the city. Like I mentioned before we really are walking miles and miles a day. After witnessing and running around I thought I’d be in good shape, but I’m surprised to discover that each day my body is sore and I can tell my muscles are getting stronger. Throughout the day we saw many temples and shines which all seem to blend together now. I was shocked to find out how many temples and shines Kyoto has, it’s literally filled with them. I think its so funny that a shine can simply be in a residential neighborhood- sometime’s we’d think that we were so lost walking around peoples houses, then our of nowhere this amazing shine/temple just appears. We visited the Kiyomizu Temple which is a steep hike up a big mountain with views of the whole city.

The foliage is just starting to change color and the leaves were really pretty. Everyone keeps telling us how lucky we are that we are here during the foliage, I admit it is beautiful, but nothing can beat the fall foliage in New England.
Regina has been a great travel partner in Kyoto, it has been a blessing having her with us- I’m so glad she was able to take time off of work and come down to be with us. Regina and I met while we were on Semester at Sea together in Spring 2007. We were in the same Intro to World Music class and quickly bonded over our hate for the class. We were supposed to travel to Tokyo together on SAS but I got really sick with a kidney infection and wasn’t allowed to leave the boat. Regina moved to Japan just over a year ago to teach English with the JET program. She lives about 5 hours away from Kyoto in a small rural village. She is nearly fluent in Japanese and had been to Kyoto several times. She quickly became our personal tour guide and translator. It was so so so helpful to have someone who speaks the language with us. She is very familiar with the culture (this is her second time that she has living in Japan), she had a good understanding of the culture and the country. We asked her tons of numerous questions and I was shocked with all of the detailed answers she gave us. Regina was also great at buying lots of foods and drinks and having us try it. I’m so lucky to have such a great friend who would do all of this for us! Thanks Regina for everything! She really made our time in Kyoto wonderful.
After the Kiyomizu Temple we walked to the center of Kyoto where we saw the Jidai Matsuri parade. There were hundreds of Japanese people each representing a different era of Japanese history all in traditional dress. It was fun to see them march through the town, we got some great pictures! We then headed to the Path of Philosophy and saw even more shrines and temples. We stopped along the way and had pizza for lunch. The pizza I ordered was supposed to be “chicken pizza” but I tasted like a hot dog to me- very strange. The pizza is Japan also comes with potatoes and corn, a weird combo to be on pizza in my opinion but I ate it anyways. After lunch we check out some more temples and shines. By this point we were all exhausted and decided to head back to the hostel for a nap. It felt great to relax and rest for a bit. After showering and changing we headed to dinner. Our French roommate David decided join us.

 
I had chicken on a stick, sweet potatoes with cheese stuffed inside (random but delicious), and a dish with corn and ham that was delicious. After dinner I got to try pachinko which is the Japanese form of legalized gamboling. There are pachinko places everywhere in Japan, they are very loud and smoke filled, but the Japanese seem to love them. I still cannot understand how to the play the game and the $10 I decided to play with when quickly. When you win, you are given small balls. Each ball seems to have some value that you can use to cash into a prize. The Japanese then take these prizes to special stores and buildings and trade them in for money. It’s a very interesting system run by the Japanese Mafia.
After pachinko we decided to do a bit of karaoke. In Japan there are huge karaoke studios everywhere. The one that we went to was $2400 yen (just under$30 per person) for 2 hours including all you can drink alcoholic drinks. We had a blast singing all sorts of American songs in our own private room. David was very funny and started us off with Disney‘s Lion Kings “A Kuna Matatta”

The karaoke studio that we went to had 5 floors each with about 20 private rooms. We were impressed with the technology in the room, we had a giant remote that made it easy to look up a song by the title, artist or category. Each room had a phone as well so we could call and order more drinks when we wanted. It was a blast and the 2 hours flew by!
At this point were it was just after midnight and we were all exhausted. We had a long walk home and made it to bed by 1am.
On Friday we decided to sleep in a bit, and got up shortly after 9am. We got ready and packed our bags and checked out of the hostel. We needed to take the bus to the temples that we were going to see so we grabbed a quick breakfast in Kyoto station. We went to “Mister Donut” which is a local donut chain here. I tried a honey glazed and a chocolate with cream inside. They were good, much better than the mystery breakfasts that I have been eating all week, but they had nothing on Dunkins. It took us nearly an hour by bus but we finally arrive at the Golden Temple called Kinkakuji Temple, it was beautiful!

The whole thing is made out of gold and sits right next to a pond which shines with the reflection of the temple. From there we walked a mile and a half and got to the Ryoanji Temple which is where they have the famous rock garden.

It is amazing now quite and peaceful it can be just looking at rocks. Everything here is Japan is so Zen.
From there we hopped a bus back to the hostel to grab our back packs. We said our goodbyes to Regina and jumped on a train for a 3 hour ride to Tokyo. We then check into our capsule hotel which wasn’t as glamorous as the one we stayed in at the beginning of our stay. We had dinner at a conveyer belt sushi- this place charged different prices so each color plate was a separate price. Jess and I walked around for a bit and said our last goodbyes to Japan. We went back to the hostel and asked the guy at the front desk how to get to the airport. Just our luck it costs nearly $30 per person by subway- way more than we expected. Since they don’t take credit cards we ended up having to go back out and take money out of the ATM. We then attempted to shower, but found out they only have a skuzzy looking public bath, so we decided against that.

We then attempted to use the computer and internet to upload our blogs and pictures, and that too didn’t work. I guess it just wasn’t our night. We decided to get to bed earl since we have a 10:30am flight and it takes over an hour to get to the airport. Goodbye Japan… Hello China!
Love,
Katie