Archive for Kyoto

Day 11/Kyoto/Osaka Festival

{ August 1, 2007 @ 2:13 pm } · { Festival, Kyoto, Osaka }
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• Today was a very full day and thus I’m going to try to touch on everything, but it’ll be hard… today was the first day I felt annoyed at something in japan…the first time I’d saw a bamboo forest…and the first time that I really wished I was at Brandeis right now (well… complicated, impossible to explain).
• Kyoto
o I traveled to Kyoto today to see the temples… in fact I only ended up seeing a few temples, but they were all beautiful and there was no need to see any more. I arrived in Kyoto around 12:00…. (on the ride I gave up my seat to a girl and her friend… this comes up later in my entry) because I was getting off soon. I arrived in Kyoto and realized that we were getting out at the same time, but no regrets. When you get out of the train station in the countryside of Kyoto you feel as if you’re back 100 years… there are temples everywhere and even rickshaws. Sure, you see cars… trains… but you don’t notice them… it’s so peaceful.
o The first temple I saw was the temple of the dragon or some majestic name like that. What I liked the most about this temple was the covered walkways that lead inside and out of the temple… through a garden… and the beautiful scenery that could be viewed. It was breathtaking, calming, and a nice breath of fresh air from Osaka. I explored the temple next door… and a few more and they were all so serene. I walked in the garden behind the first temple… and I really felt at peace… it’s something about the air… the birds singing… the feeling that you’re the one person there. It’s indescribable.
o After a jaunt in the bamboo forest, my stomach was starting to feel decidedly empty… I wanted to go to the nearest restaurant, but there was none in sight… so I got lost for half an hour until I found one. I had a simple lunch of ramen, rice, and water… not bad. The ramen was great, the rice was good as always, and I think I drank 7 cups of water… Kyoto was hot!! After lunch I ran into the two girls who I’d given my seat back on the train and surprisingly enough the remembered me. It was so simple, just a wave, and a smile, but it was rejuvenating. Simple kindness… is always underrated… that’s what has amazed me about japan, far more than anything else. If you want attractive girls, good food, and great sights… I have no doubt there are other places you can go in the world… but if you want nice people… japan is hard to beat.
• Back to Osaka
o I headed back to Osaka and met two girls on the train as we stared amused at a girl who had managed to curl up on two seats and fall asleep… we were completely amused and through this we struck up a conversation. When the girl finally woke up… I did an impression of stretching my arms above my head and said “koko wa doko”… “where am I” basically… they both laughed so much… they had to cover up their laughter. Great way to travel. I got back to Osaka and it turned out that there was a fireworks festival, so I decided to go. It was a quick 45 minute trip to the area in Osaka where the fireworks were going off and it was def worth the trip. Going to a festival alone is a bit lonely… I amend that… going to a festival alone is very lonely. Being single sucks haha… it really does. Seeing the fireworks was a bit tricky. I managed to solve this problem in my usual way… the police officer turned his head one way… I jump a rope… climb a fence… onto a cement wall… onto a small roof… perfect view. This did alleviate my loneliness a bit. The fireworks went on for a while… managed to get some nice long exposure shots my camera… managed to amuse a few kids who saw me get onto the roof. Though, getting back was the tricky part. I had to get through the crowds to a different part of the train station because of way the police had roped off the place. I went all the way around and accidentally crossed over the tracks to where I had been…. I told the police officer that I had just gone around… and he said “sorry”… I was rather pissed… it had taken ten minutes to get around… and then he said “no special”… clearly no special treatment… “fuck you” I thought… I don’t want special treatment… I want to walk 5 steps to my train. Another officer was fine with me crossing, but he clearly wasn’t in charge. Though, this was easily solved when they both had to deal with other people crossing and I managed to sneak across… yeah, I’m a law unto myself… shit happens. I managed to board a train… finally.
• Evening
o I’m off to upload all my pictures… get in a bit of reading, and probably go online.. relax… sleep… tomorrow is my last day in Osaka… time goes by rather fast…

Day 10/Hair/Kyoto bumming

{ July 31, 2007 @ 2:03 pm } · { Kyoto, Uncategorized }
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• Haircut
o When I first starting buying expensive things I never imagined I would sink to buying pants that had previously cost $150… I never thought I would buy belts worth $100… and I sure as hell never thought I’d get my hair done for a price around $100… and yet all of that has happened now… granted only the hair happened in japan though. The story of my haircut today is rather amazing. It shows how everyone in japan is kind… how much money I’ll spend on something as trivial as hair… and just how wonderful japan is.
o I arrived at Hair Boutique 24 at around 11:30 in the morning… I don’t think I left till after 2:30 in the afternoon… it was a long morning of hair. I walked into the salon with a picture of the cut that I wanted done… and asked “ikura desuka… how much is this?” the response was “30,000 yen… $300 “… I kinda laughed and asked how much the cut and coloring was… and his response was a nice reasonable 6000 yen or about $60. Ofcourse, I knew this wouldn’t look as good, so I was a bit disappointed, but I thought… ok, this’ll do. The hair salon was very nice and I started to get my hair cut… about 45 minutes into the cut… the guy cutting my hairs turns to the guy next to him and says something about straightening. The other guy manages to convey to me that the cut really won’t work if my hair isn’t straight… I look at the picture of the cut I want… and have to agree.. Then, before my eyes, the other guy asks “how much can you pay”… I don’t want to be overly cheap since clearly they were giving me an insane deal so I said $100… or it’s yen equivalent. Then, surprisingly me completely, the man agrees. As it turns out, the guy who knew a bit of English was the father of the guy cutting my hair. The father, his wife, and their son own the shop and they all cut hair. I was completely thrown though that he would give me such a great cut for 1/3 of the price. Now… here comes the most amazing part… as I’m getting my hair straightened… the son comes out with a typed of piece of paper… he wasn’t confident with his spoken English, but he was confident he could type what he wanted to say. He wrote basically “I’m worried about this price… are you sure it’s ok with you to spend this much for the cut, the coloring, and the straightening… I want to make sure you will still have enough money left over to have fun in japan.” I hurriedly said the equivalent of don’t worry about… and thanks so much to him, but this really touched me. Most hairdressers don’t care what’ll happen to the customer after they leave their shop… the important part is to do the cut as quickly as possible and to get the money. This just amazed me… of all the kind people in Japan, the man who cut my hair clearly takes the gold metal. The haircut took a long time… straightening a few times, coloring, and cutting… so there was a small tv and a huge list of movies… I watched the bourne identity and managed to get through the entire movie… and then start on the transporter. About 2/3 of the way through the cut… I was asked if I wanted anything to drink… coffee… etc… milk tea he asked? I said sure that would be fine, and they brought me a glass of tea, milk in a little cup, and some suger w/ it. I really don’t get their kindness… it amazes me. I took many lots of pictures with everyone at the hair place and they were so kind about it. I’m too amazed… I really am
• The rest of the day
o By the time my haircut was finished, a large portion of the day had dwindled passsed… as I wanted to return to the hotel after and drop off my ipod… get a drink… and check a few emails. I decided to head to Kyoto at around 5 to check out what they had to offer in the dinner department and then see what the shopping was like. I found a small place with had some great edamame… I had this along with miso soup and some skewered chicken… simple, cheap, tasty…. Excellent. I wandered around Kyoto afterwards and came across a beautiful temple (Kyoto has a few of them), so I took a few pictures. I browsed the shops at the train station, but after my hair cut decided to wait till Tokyo to make any further purchases… I feel as though I’ve been on trains for too much of today, so I plan to walk a lot tomorrow. I’m back at the hotel now looking over my pictures… time to take a bit of a rest.

Day 8/Kyoto/festival

{ July 29, 2007 @ 12:09 am } · { Festival, Food, Kyoto }
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• Morning time
o I woke up this morning and I think I’m still a little bit drunk….just a little. The shower helped a lot to clear my head, but I plan to wait an hour or so before doing any activities. I love the free tea that we get in the lobby, and it’s slowly helping to wake me up. No adventures for a bit this morning, so I might go back upstairs and take a little nap.
• Kyoto
o At around 11 I decided to head to Kyoto, I grabbed my umbrella and my map of Kyoto and walked to the train station. Unfortunately, I forgot my rail pass so I headed back to the hotel and grabbed my pass. I was about to head out when I ran into some friends of mine I’d met at the hotel who were heading to Kyoto as well. I decided to wait a half an hour and then we all headed out to Kyoto. We shared stories and talked and had a nice time on the trip to Kyoto, which wasn’t that long… probably 40 minutes. When we arrived, we stopped at their hotel where they dropped off their bags and then we decided to look around for a place to eat. We went to a restaurant named Sato that had Shabu Shabu. For those of you that don’t know… Shabu Shabu is an amazing dish. It consists of a large pot of water, which sits in the middle of the table and starts boiling. Then… you get a large plate of vegetables, which you toss into the boiling water to add flavor. Third, you have a plate of raw thin strips of meat. Finally, you get a few sauces. You then slowly drop pieces of meat into the water and watch it cook instantly. Using the sauces and the vegetables and the meat you make yourself an amazing meal. It was wonderful.
o After the meal we decided to walk around a bit and just hang out in Kyoto… we walked along the river and bought some fireworks and just hung out. Kyoto is very quiet in the daytime and I felt as though we were the only people there. There were many cars on the streets, but in general other than the few bicyclists I saw no one else on the street. As it turned out there was a festival that night at around 8. It took us a while to get to where the festival was taking place, but we just followed the many girls and guys wearing yukatas and that soon led us to the festival. There was one girl wearing a kimono and a power ranger mask….wtf? The fireworks were breathtaking though. They were quite possibly the best fireworks I’ve ever seen. Almost right after the fireworks stopped it started to rain lightly… luckily I had my umbrella. Since the station was so crowed we took a brief train to Nara and attempted to find a restaurant… it took a few minutes but we found this 24-hour place, which had great food for very cheap. After dinner I headed back to catch the last train to Osaka.
o We all exchanged numbers before I left and since they’re going to Tokyo, we plan to meet up and possibly climb mount fuji if things work out according to plan. Life is good.