I am just full of stupid, aren't I!

Here I am, last day in Kyoto before I head Kobe-wards, and what have I done? Why, lots!

And by lots, I of course mean more sightseeing, which I'm sure long ago grew dreadfully dull to read about. Perhaps before I started.

I'll be damned if that's going to stop me.

Of particular interest to me, temple-wise, is the Zen Rock Garden. I won't pretend I'm any sort of deep or spiritual human being. Probably quite the opposite, in fact. I'm shallow. I only like the zen rock gardens 'cause they look neat.

I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

Well, today I went to a temple. Ryoanji. (Ji - 寺 - is temple! Some people on the internet persist in referring to the place as Ryoan-ji Temple, but gadgarmit, that's redundant!) It certainly had a nice rock garden! And other nice things.

Unfortunately, my entire experience was ruined by the visual cacophony that is construction-at-work! All that scaffolding!

Side note: I almost died at the temple. I peeked under some scaffolding and around the corner to get a larger look at the Rocks, and felt something on my hair. I backed out and looked up and realized my hair had almost swallowed a spiderweb WITH A SPIDER ON IT.

I surprised myself because I remained perfectly calm and didn't freak out at all.

I swear.

Outside the temple, near the bus stop, there was this area that looked to be a quarry where they carved all those awesome stone lanterns and whatnots found all about the place in Japan. I almost wandered in there, but it sort of looked like I wasn't supposed to. And then I saw someone else (who appeared to be a worker) inside. Basically I chickened out. But man, there were a ton of statues in there. The pictures I took failed to capture the magnitude. Ahhhh well.

And then! I went to the Golden Temple! Forgot all about this place when making sightseeing plans! As in: I didn't even make any plans to go, I just went because I saw it on the map and it was nearby! Goes to show you that making plans ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Only my camera died mid-trip.

Oops.

Decent day, though! Next up: Himeji Castle and Kobe!

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.

All I'm sayin' is it's a little hot, okay.

Phew.

At first I did a great job of following the schedule I'd laid out for myself (and by that I mean stolen from some blog somewhere recommending sights to see).

The day began with a trip to Yasaka Shrine. The first item on my list! I arrived, and entered a world of street-side vendors displaying their goods to the passersby. Jesus would've been proud.

It was somehow worse than Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo (and I don't necessarily mean worse in a negative way), because in Asakusa the countless stores have an air of permanence around them, as if they've been around since the dawn of time. (I'll conveniently ignore the last stretch of shops, which generally sell food, and are taken down at the end of each day.) Asakusa stores also form a sort of path leading up to the shrine. At Yasaka, all of the shops look to be constructed anew each morning, and more openly invade the grounds, as it were - creeping along several paths leading inward.

All things come to an end, though, and so did the shops. Deeper in the shrine, more familiar sights could be found. The color orange! Prayers! And on the other side of the shrine, a park, wherein I discovered: an ancient automobile, kept in excellent condition; a weeping cherry tree, looking to be half dead; and a group of Falun Dafa practitioners doin' their thang beneath a sign that read, simply, "Falun Dafa is Good!"

Too at an end was my visit to Yasaka Shrine; I moved on.

It is at this point that I got lost looking for Ishibe-Koji lane! Amidst my confusion, I later realized, I actually walked along it multiple times. I spotted a few geisha, but didn't get any quality pictures of them. Also, I'm not sure if they were "real" geisha or not. I've read that real geisha do not pose for pictures (which makes sense - they have a job to do!), but these geisha did. I didn't see any geisha who didn't. Also, they may have been apprentice geisha (i.e., maiko, as I learned only last week)! On the offchance that they were "real", I did not ask for pictures. I'm not an ass! Also I fear people.

Oh, speaking of geisha, as I was leaving the area to go eat lunch, I spied with my little eye some foreigner following these two geisha. He asked for a picture, and they posed. But then! He followed them for like five minutes. This was on the other side of the street from me, so I was able to see the whole thing. He commented on how hard it must be to walk in those shoes, among other things. It was pretty great!

Next up: Kodai-Ji. Only I took a slight detour and followed a large crowd of Japanese people up a hill. When I reached the top, I suddenly felt awkward and out of place. In front of me lay the largest Japanese graveyard I'd ever seen. I knew this weekend was Obon, and so many families had likely come to Kyoto to tend to their family's graves, as is tradition. So I hear. It was uncomfortable, intruding on these people paying respect to their ancestors. I took one picture of the graveyard before leaving. Had it been any time other than Obon, maybe I would have wandered in and gotten a closer look, but... I didn't want to be That Guy. You know.

So back to my original plan: Kodai-Ji. Therein I found the emptiest Japanese graveyard I've ever seen. So much open space! More grass than grave stones! This being a tourist attraction, I felt no awkwardness at all and got as close as was allowed. Of course! Also of note: paintings of demons of every sort, a zen rock garden, lots of green stuff, and the distant view of my next destination...

Ryozen Kannon. Kyoto's Big Buddha. It was big, there's no denying that! Lower to the ground, off to the side, there was a large golden ball. I watched in bewilderment as several Japanese people dropped some money in a container and touched the ball in prayer. Just one of those things, I guess.

Yasaka Pagoda was next in line! Somewhere, I lost my way, again (read: I couldn't find it). So I gave up and followed this rather large Japanese-style building down an alley-way. I'd been catching glimpses of it all day today and yesterday, and it piqued my interest.

I followed the road and found myself on Sannenzaka Slope. The destination after Yasaka Pagoda. How'd that happen? I dunno.

The Slope is a shopping center of sorts. Tanuki statues, Obon lanterns, and other such decorations line the streets. Here it was more crowded than anywhere else I'd been. Whether it was due to the time of day or the location, I can't say.

At the top of the Slope was Kiyomizudera - not on my agenda, but since I was there, anyway... The temple was larger than the others I'd visited and also on the side of a short mountain. Lots of ground to explore. Great views of Kyoto.

Now exhausted from a day of sightseeing (traveling alone wears me out so fast!), I headed back to Amenity Hotel and crawled into my box.

Here I lay, once again, hijacking the power from the TV to keep my laptop charged. Now I sleep once again. Tomorrow is a new day, and I will go to a new hotel! With a real bed. D:

My first day in Kyoto!

The Shinkansen was an uneventful but delightfully swift experience. I did manage to snag a few shots of the quaint Japanese rurals and rice fields here and there. Most of it will turn out rather lacking in grandeur - of this I have no doubt - but the subject matter was interesting enough to me, nonetheless!

Perhaps more interesting to the casual observer: I partook in a couple Gomer Pile (hah wow has it been a long time since I heard that or what) moments after arriving.

First, I rode the bus. I knew it was the right bus, but when it arrived at my stop, I... uh... I didn't get off. The directions I'd read to the hotel prior to leaving for Kyoto said "get off at the Kiyomizu-do" stop. Up came "Kiyomizu-michi" and then I didn't get off 'cause it wasn't the same name. Oops.

Back at Kyoto Station...

This time I decided to hunt down a bus route map, to be sure. It worked; this time I exited the bus at the proper location.

THEN I looked at the map I'd drawn from-bus-stop-to-hotel. After looking around, I realized my map wasn't going to work so well. I don't know why I thought it would work. It was hastily drawn, and I had absolutely no bearings or landmarks to go by... It also looked to be a considerably longer walk than "one minute from the bus stop."

After interrogating a Family Mart clerk (who, despite his best efforts, was unable to help my stupid ass), I came to the conclusion that the map I'd drawn was for the walk from the TRAIN station and not, in fact, from the bus stop. Oops again.

Luckily, Amenity Hotel turned out to be just a little down the road. A minute, indeed.

I decided not to do any sight-seeing tonight, and instead opted to just wander up and down the street a bit - get the lay of the land, as it were. For dinner, I ate a rather large bentou consisting of fried rice, chicken, uh... other stuff? It was delicious, if that helps?

P.S., I am writing this using hijacked power from the TV in the little corner of the box in which I will later sleep! O:

Leavin' for Kyoto

It's two hours before I leave to get my ass to Kyoto, and I'm still doing some last-minute planning.

I hope my first hotel has internet. I kind of doubt it will, since it's a capsule hotel (!!).

Not much to say, really. I will be traveling a great distance by myself and maybe meeting some people there but also maybe not. I am just happy I'll make it before the mountain gets lit on FIRE. I don't expect it to be the most amazing thing in the world, but I want to see it anyway! And maybe I'll spy some families putting those floating lanterns in the river. I hope so. I'm sure it will be very crowded, though. D:

Other than that, I will surely visit Hiroshima, Kobe, and Nara at least one day each, and Himeji castle, and... some temples and stuff. You know, the usual.

It will be fun!

For now, though, I must return to packing and planning.