Absorbing the station

Today I left the capsule hotel. I completely forgot to take a picture of my box! Ahhh! A shame. ):

Since I had to check out at 10am, and couldn't check into my new hotel until 3pm, I had to waste time. I didn't want to wander around shrines and temples and whatnots carrying my luggage, after all. I chose to find a coffee shop and sit and read for a while! It was fantastic. (Partly because I was exhausted from heavy sightseeing the day prior. I tire easily. What can I say.)

I found a Mister Donut/Cafe du... Monde? I dunno. Some little combo shop at the JR Kyoto station. I devoured a couple donuts and sipped an ice coffee while reading some Discworld.

You can never go wrong with Discworld. Never.

Pulled out my PSP for a bit, too, to continue my ever so slow exploration of the latest dungeon in Grandia. Having rested, recuperated, and otherwise re'd, I decided it was time to head to my new hotel. I'd read enough Discworld and played enough Grandia and eaten enough donuts and drank enough orange juice for the day.

Caught the subway. Got off at the appropriate stop: Shijo station. It's here that I kind of... turned Gomer Pile again. But it wasn't all me, this time!

I wasn't sure where to go, so I walked to a nearby police station and asked for directions. I forgot to write down the address for this hotel, just like the last one, but I was hoping they'd be more helpful than a Family Mart clerk! One of the officers recognized the name and showed it to me on a map. Not far!

I left, and suddenly recalled reading on the website that there were TWO hotels by that name in Kyoto, and so I grew a tad worried. I called Matt hoping he'd be at home and not busy, but he didn't answer. But wait! I can... access the internet on my phone, can't I? Hm. Yeah! I can! Oh.

So getting the address was easy after my revelation. I walked back to make sure it was the same address, and something went terribly wrong.

I don't think the officer knew what she was talking about. She told me to go to Shijo station, and said I'd have to take the subway. But... I came out of Shijo station to get where I was - at the police station. I tried to explain this, but I don't think she understood. After a few more failed attempts at explaining/questioning, I gave up. The one good thing that came out of the encounter: thanks to her calling the hotel, I learned the hotel was near Takashimaya, a big department store.

I interrogated the natives around the area until I found Takashimaya and from there found my hotel with ease.

Boo boo booooo I arrived! A tad early, apparently. The automatic doors wouldn't open. I guess when they say "check in at 3pm" they mean 3:00, and not 2:53. Tch.

I wandered the next-door clothing store to waste time and am happy to report that, yes, I could not find a single shirt or pair of pants that would fit me. ]:

LATER THAT NIGHT

Due to massive communication failures on my part (noticing a trend with failure and me, yet?), I did not have anyone with whom I would see MOUNTAINS ON FIRE. Go me.

It's cool, though. I ended up spending literally two hours just walking around a quiet Kyoto suburb. And by suburb I mean a neighborhood on the other side of a very active street.

It was remarkably quiet, and I saw very few people for what was soon to be a night of MOUNTAINS ON FIRE. Turns out I was just not wandering far enough, as eventually I discovered what was, apparently, the "best" viewing spot? Didn't look so hot to me. I'd found a much better spot to see the mountain's large 大 kanji. In fact, you can see it during the day, even when it's not on fire. My spot was just in the middle of the suburbs on some street.

After walking around in circles for a while, I noticed others congregating near my spot. Time to hunker down, baby.

As I expected, it wasn't a particularly exciting event, like, say, fireworks. Even the Japanese, not exactly known for holding back, didn't express much awe. It was kind of bizarre. There was a little boy who kept singing and marching back and forth across the street. It was adorable, aww.

It was neat, overall, despite the lack of celebration. I got a buuunch of crappy quality pictures. Such is life.

Back at the hotel, my tummy made noises, and my nose led me to McD's. The tamago double mac looked scrumptious.

It was scrumptious.

Daaaamn it was scrumptious.