Japan: Day Two, Kyoto

We woke up nice and early again, excited about visiting Kyoto. We made our way to the hotel restaurant where we were to have a free "American Breakfast." It consisted of teriyaki meatballs, some sort of fried fish cakes, an assortment of unidentifiable vegetables, a dinner roll, and some chicken/turnip stew. Thankfully, it also came with coffee and grapefruit juice. American breakfasts are a little different from how I remember them.

After breakfast, we went straight to Osaka Station to catch a train to Kyoto. We ended up on a local line that stopped everywhere and eventually just plain stopped, well before Kyoto. No problem, though, as we just hopped on the next train that came by and it sped us nicely into town.

Kyoto is a terrible place, horribly ugly and quite smelly. Clearly, I am lying as Kyoto could very well be the most attractive city I have ever visited. We started our wander through Kyoto in the Gion district, famous for its Geishas. We were quite pleased to even get to see a Geisha being taxied somewhere in a rickshaw (Laura got pictures of this, and basically all the other things I've mentioned so far and will mention later, so keep an eye on her blog as I'm sure she'll get some pictures up there).

After Gion, we went for a long walk past numerous old temples and shrines and such, ending up at an udon shop for lunch. This was the best udon ever. We had buckwheat udon, each getting a different flavour (beef, chicken, shrimp) and it was all so immensely tasty. Japanese food rocks.

After lunch, we went to Nanzen-ji, a very old shrine, and then to Heian-ji. These are the two places featured in "Lost in Translation" when Charlotte goes to Kyoto. The highlight was the garden at Heian-ji. It was breathtakinglly beautiful. I don't think I can even begin to describe it. Watch the movie and wait for the part where she's walking across some stepping stones in a pond for an idea, and that's only part of it. On a side note, the ponds have fish that swam up to us when we approached the pool, clearly looking for some sort of meal. They were rather insistent and actually a little creepy, but not enough to make me feel bad about the place at all

After a day of wandering Kyoto and being awestruck, we were exhausted, yet still wanting to do more so we looked into a shopping area. The highlight of this was eating. Automatic sushi, which I mentioned in the last post, is the best way to eat ever invented. Brilliant. They certainly aren't a new thing (I've had it in Calgary, in fact), but that doesn't detract from the joy I got of it. I ended up with a rather large stack of plates and a nicely full belly.

Well, following food and some rather fruitless shoppping (well, Laura did get a rather cool table-covering thing with apples and elephants on it that says something about "cram cream," whatever that it), we went back to Osaka where we headed directly for the Giant Ferris Wheel, or as the sign proclaimed, "World's Largest Giant Wheel," down by the harbour. It was big, 112.5m high, and pretty cool. You could see quite a bit of Osaka bay, and the city at night is rather pretty.

After that, Laura again was exhausted but Jon and I decided to go out for a beer. We decided to try the Kita district as it looked rather promising. The quest, while technically successful, was greatly disappointing. We went to a foreigner bar called Canopy after trying in vain to find the Pig and Whistle. The Asahi they had on tap paled in comparison to the places we went to the day before (they must have some sort of 'foreigner bar' setting or something) and the bar itself lacked in most regards. I must learn not to go to places the Lonely Planet lists as being "foreigner hangouts." They tend to greatly disappoint me.

Well, that sums up day two pretty well. Sadly, only one more in Japan. It's a stunning country, and I must return to explore it more thoroughly at some point.

Guy