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| Shinkansen *Note* This photo was taken from Google |
The directions to K's House were fairly clear except at one point towards the beginning. I knew I could walk there, but I didn't want to wander around an unfamiliar city with my backpack. I took a cab. The cab driver kept telling me I was a lucky guy because he spoke English and because he agreed to take me to the hostel and because he had an ipad and could look up directions. Here is a transcript of my conversation with the taxi driver:
Driver: Where you go?
Me: (Give address)
Driver: I don't know that place. Do you have a phone number?
Me: No. Sorry.
Driver: How will I find it?
Me: Do you have Internet? (I could see his iPhone)
Driver: (Pulls out iPad) You are lucky guy.
Me: I know. Thank you.
Driver: This is close! You could walk!
Me: Yes, but I don't know where it is.
Driver: (Shaking his head) This is so close. You are lucky guy. Most taxi drivers will not take you this close. I've been waiting over one hour here.
Me: Sorry. Thank you.
Driver: It's no problem. Where you from?
Me: Washington state. Seattle. (If I just say Washington, everyone thinks of D.C.)
Driver: Far from home! You are lucky guy. Most Japanese don't speak English.
Me: I know. Thank you.
Driver: Before you take a taxi in Japan, look at the driver. Young drivers are OK. You don't want old drivers. They are grumpy and don't speak English.
Me: OK (odd he would say this, though, because he was about fifty years old)
Driver: Mafia. Japanese taxi drivers over sixty-five are from the mafia. Be careful. You are lucky guy.
Me: OK. Thank you.
We arrived at K's House. I could have walked there from the station in ten minutes or less.
I could tell right away that K's House would be a good place. I booked three nights, but was going to have to switch rooms after two nights. The receptionist was very friendly-- all the staff were super friendly. My room was on the 4th floor. Remember how I said hostels which have won awards are usually the best place to meet people? I was totally right. Enter Gilbert.
Gilbert is awesome. He's French-Canadian and tells great jokes. He quickly became my best friend in Japan. Gilbert had been teaching English in Tokyo for six months, then after his teaching gig was up spent two months in Thailand and Laos. Now he was visiting Kyoto for a bit. Gilbert and I shared a room and I woke him up when I arrived and turned on the light. I told him, "Sorry, I didn't expect anyone to be sleeping at five o'clock in the afternoon." That's when I found out there's a much more economical option than Shinkansen to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto (the bus). It takes about eight hours, though. Gilbert took an overnight bus from Tokyo and was recovering in bed. Damn. I wish I'd known about the bus. I guess that's what I get for not knowing Japanese-- I just have to rely on the information people choose to reveal.
Gilbert was hungry. If I may digress for just a moment... Gilbert, I later learned, is always hungry; which is why I most affectionately call him "Gilbert the Goat." He wanted "Gilbert the Beast," but I am a fan of alliteration. Gilbert then requested "Gilbert the Great," but as we all know, one cannot simply choose his or her nickname. We (I) compromised and I call him "Gilbert the Great Goat." Now my beastly buddy (see? I've got no problem using "beast" if it works) will be referred to as GGG. OK, digression is over. I invited another guy from our room, Christian (Danish), to come eat with us, but he had already suppered. We decided to grab a drink with him later.
Because GGG and I had just arrived to Kyoto, neither of us was familiar with the place, so we started to follow a couple from our hostel whom I had overheard ask for a sushi recommendation. For the record, we followed them in a non-creepy way. It didn't matter, though, because we got held up by an old Japanese man. GGG and I were just walking down the street and this man missing half of his teeth jumped out of nowhere, threw his hands out to the side and said, "Welcome to Japan!" I instantly fell in love with Kyoto. The man asked us where we were from and informed us that he lived in the US for seven years and Canada for three years. He knew one phrase in French. Then he pulled out of his pocket a piece of paper that looked like he'd had for about a decade. He said he wanted to practice his English. He read from the paper, "...he lifted his massive- massive means big- massive body..." The paper was a mix between handwritten Japanese katikana and English words. It seemed like he had slowly been translating the note. Neither GGG nor I were sure if he was asking us a question or if he just wanted to speak English. Then the wise old sage said, "OK! Thank you! Enjoy Japan!" and he folded up his paper, replaced it in his pocket, and continued walking down the street with a broad grin across his wrinkled face. I couldn't make up a story like that if I tried. We lost our "guide," but it was worth it. We settled for a restaurant in the shopping mall part of Kyoto Station. We had noodles and some other stuff. It was tasty.
When we got back to the hostel, GGG, Christian, and I went to the Gion district of Kyoto to grab a drink. We found a bar called "Moon Light." There was a ¥420 cover, then all drinks were ¥210. There were probably over a hundred different drink choices. They were small and very weak, but it was still fun to order drinks called "Adult Cat" or "Ninja Turtle" or "Heaven and Hell." After the drinks we went back to the hostel and went to bed.
The next day there was a parade in Kyoto. GGG and I wanted to check it out because we knew there would be some interesting traditional costumes. Unfortunately we left the hostel a little too late and only caught the very end of it. There were so many people on the streets to watch the parade that when we got there, we were pushed into the throng of people. I don't think I was moving my feet, but I was progressing along from the sheer force of the crowd. We knew it would only get worse the farther along the parade route we went, so we just scrapped the idea of catching it and went to the Imperial Palace. It would have been nice to see some of the Geishas in the parade, but as my brother Paul so matter-of-factly once said, "I don't like parades. They're just a bunch of people walkin' by." He hit the nail on the head with that one. My general opinion of parades is that of elephant ears: they only come along once in a while, so when I get a chance to see a parade or eat an elephant ear, I get excited. But then after ten minutes watching a parade or a couple bites of an elephant ear I remember that I don't like either of them. So onto the Imperial Palace GGG and I went.
We walked along in the park for a while, but didn't go in the palace beacause there are only two tours a day and we weren't at the right time. It was really hot that day, so we sat down in the shade to look at the map and figure out what we wanted to do next. That's when GGG pulled out a passion fruit & banana flavored Kit-Kat from his backpack and offered me half. It was at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit that day (approximately 27 degrees Celsius). The Kit-Kat was melted and it had been for quite a while. I appreciated GGG's kindness, but I was not a fan of the passion fruit and banana flavor. GGG told informed me that Japan has all sorts of flavors of Kit-Kats. Apparently "kit kat" sounds similar to "good luck" in Japanese, so it is a very popular candy to give as gifts before exams, job interviews, etc. The only flavors I've seen are milk chocolate, dark chocolate, green tea, passion fruit & banana, strawberry cheesecake, and either coffee or a chocolate wafer. However, there are at least a dozen more. GGG's Japanese pasttime was to check nearly every convenience store for a flavor he had yet to try.
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| Various Japanese Kit Kat flavors. *Note* This picture was taken from Reddit. |
After our little break we wandered around the park for a bit longer. We walked over a bridge and saw a dead raven- well, half of a dead raven- in the water being attacked by turtles. Yes, you read that correctly. We were looking at some turtles about the size of dinner plates swimming in the water when we noticed they were congregating around something black floating in the water. Turns out, it was the head and wings of a raven and the turtles were tearing it apart. We don't know how the bird got there in the first place, but we were fairly certain not much would be there come nightfall. If you ask GGG what his favorite things in Kyoto were, this event will likely be in the top three. I had some photos of this, but lost them with my camera. GGG has got some. Once we had seen enough of the murderous turtles we crossed the bridge and went to Shu Sui Tei. We were curious what the little building was and we also wanted a break from the sun. For ¥100 we learned it was a tea ceremony room of the Kujo Family, an aristocrat, and was built about 200 years ago.
From the Imperial Palace park we went to Chionji Temple to check out the monthly market held in front. When we arrived at the market we saw lots of people drinking iced juice in a bag, so we set out to try and find them. We meandered our way through all the little stands and failed to find the juice-in-a-bag. We settled for some colored soda drink. I just blindly chose the white one, but GGG wanted to know what the specific flavors were. Pish, no sense of adventure, that one (only kidding!). The drinks we had were basically Japanese Italian sodas. They really hit the spot. We checked out the temple, then left the market. On our way out we stopped for a bite to eat at a popular vendor selling pastries and the like. Turns out the juice-in-a-bag was for sale at this stand we walked by when we entered the market, so we got some of those as well. GGG does have a sense of adventure, by the way, because he selected a bun without knowing what, if any, was the filling. He got a big bite of curry.
By this time GGG and I had walked a lot in the sun and were starting to feel the effects, so we caught a bus back to K's House. Christian was back from his outing as well and had good things to say of the Arashiyama Monkey Park and Kinkaku (Golden Pavillion). We all rested in the room for a bit, then decided to grab some dinner and head to an onsen (hot bath). For dinner we had Coco Curry. Coco Curry is a Japanese chain with food that looks awful, but tastes delicious. Japanese curry is different than other curries. I'm sorry I don't know how to explain it, but it is good. The bath house we went to was called Funaoka Onsen- one of the oldest in Kyoto.
To get to Funaoka we took a bus. From the bus stop we weren't sure exactly where to go. OK, I say "we" like I was involved in the navigating. GGG and Christian weren't exactly sure where to go. I didn't have a clue where to go. We stopped in a convenience store and one of the clerks looked it up on his phone. We needed to walk a few blocks, then around the park to get there. We found the park and started to walk through it. If we had been in any country other than Japan I would have been worried walking through an unfamiliar, unlit park at night, but this was Japan. Eventually we figured this wasn't the best way and we edged around the park instead. A clerk from another convenience store (convenience stores are everywhere, by the way) took us right to the onsen. Seriously, it's great how many people will drop what they are doing and take you to where you need to go rather than give you directions they know you won't understand!
We got to Funaoka and agreed to meet back in the lobby in forty-five minutes (men and women were separated). The onsen was set up a little bit like a public swimming pool in that there is a locker room with showers before entering the baths. At most public pools one just needs to rinse off, but at the onsens one must shower and thoroughly clean oneself before emerging in the baths. This is similar to Japanese homes. Please forgive me, I am going to digress for a moment again and tell of GGG's favorite culture-clash stories I've shared with him...
In Japanese homes there is usually a shower located right next to a bath. The bath is often kept full of water and at a constant temperature (like a hot tub without jets). The floors in Japanese bathrooms have a drain and the toilets are usually in a different room. As far as I can tell, when the Japanese clean themselves, they don't just shower- they shower, then soak in a tub. But they make sure to get totally clean in the shower so as not to soil the bath water. If you ask me this makes much more sense than cleaning oneself in the bath tub only, and thus literally soaking in one's own filth. As I've mentioned, my family has hosted many Japanese exchange students over the years. One time my mother went into the bathroom after they had showered and everything-- the floor, the counter, the toilet, everything!- was soaked. My mom could not figure out what happened. The next time she hosted Japanese girls she had my sister put on a bathing suit and physically get in the shower, close the curtain, and show them how ot use the shower. Now that I've been to Japan I realize that the girls (who were only fourteen- kids really) were using my mom's handicap shower like a traditional Japanese shower. They probably stood outside the tub, cleaned themselves, then soaked in the tub. The drain in the Japanese floor isn't always visible, so it is not like they knew it was different from what they were used to. GGG thinks that story is hilarious. OK, end of digression...
The onsen was pretty cool. Well, hot, really (oh man, I crack myself up). After the locker room and showering, I went into another room that had multiple hot baths. There were other women there, but with the exception of one old woman everyone spent the entire time I was in the onsen scrubbing themselves clean. There was one bamboo lined bath that I didn't try, but GGG and Christian said it was nice. The baths I sampled were an extra hot one, a "normal" one (most similar to American hot tubs), and an electric one. The electric one was bizarre, but kind of neat, too. We were all super relaxed after the onsen and in some catatonic state got back to the hostel and fell asleep.
Christian had to check out in the morning, but we all had breakfast together before he left. GGG and I planned to rent some bicycles and ride over to the monkey park. There aren't quite as many people riding bikes as in Amsterdam, but a lot of people do pedal around in Japan. At breakfast we met Sean, another Canadian. We invited Sean to visit the monkey park with us. After breakfast GGG asked the nice receptionists about a Japanese sweet only available in Kyoto. They marked on the map a place near the monkey park where we could find them. We set out for the monkey park in the wrong direction. After a few minutes we (GGG and Sean) consulted a map and it was I (yes! I!) who realized which way we really needed to go. From there I pretty much let the boys do the directing. I say when I travel I tend to end up hanging out with guys more than girls because women don't usually travel alone and aren't as willing to meet someone new, but really I hang out with men because they are generally better with directions.
The ride to the monkey park was a bit longer than it looked on the map, but thankfully Kyoto is flat. After riding for a while we stopped to check the map. This guy on a motorcycle drove up on the sidewalk and asked us where we needed to go. He was clad in some crazy plaid pants and had an Elmo keychain/bag hanging from his belt loop with a pen to mark our map. We were heading in the proper direction. A little later on we paused at a supermarket for some fruit and to look for Kit-Kats (no new flavors). GGG got some green tea ice cream that he shared with Sean and me.
When we got to the monkey park area we parked our bikes on the edge of a bamboo forest and walked around the little shops. There were a bunch of temples in that area, but we just wanted to get some yatsuhashi (the Kyoto treats) and GGG got some dango, too. We rode a little farther down the road and found the monkey park!
There are four rules for the monkey park:
- Don't stare at the monkeys in the eye.
- Don't touch the monkeys.
- Don't feed them outside.
- Don't take a picture on the way.
The monkey park was my favorite part of Kyoto. I got a lot of photos with my lost camera, and thankfully I also got some with my phone. To feed the monkeys we had to go inside a room- kind of like a cage- and they would climb up the outside and stick their little hands inside to take the apples or peanuts. GGG and I did an experiment to see if they preferred apples or peanuts. He held a peanut and I held a piece of an apple. The monkey took the apple first, then the peanut. I think it was because he liked me better, though, because later GGG held an apple piece and a peanut in his hand and a different (smarter) monkey took them both at the same time.
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| Apple vs. Peanut Experiment |
When we got back to K's House we went to our rooms (GGG and I had to change rooms and weren't together anymore) and met back in the common room later to swap yatsuhashi. I kept forgetting what these treats were called, so I call them "puppy dog ears" because that's kind of what they look like. They are triangle shaped and filled with bean paste. The pastry part is made of rice flour. We tried black sesame, green tea, and cinnamon. We had the unbaked kind. I liked them OK. They were different. The cinnamon was everyone's favorite. We shared some of the "puppy dog ears" with the people at the front desk on our way out the door to the Moon Light.
The next day GGG, Sean, and I went by bus to Fushimi Inari Shrine. Sean ditched GGG and me at the shrine. There were a ton of orange arcs and lots of steps. GGG and I had dressed for cooler weather like the day before, but it was hot again, so the steps were rough. I'd like to say that Sean ditched us because we smelled bad, but it was before we started hiking. After a while GGG and I were tired of orange and Japanese writing we didn't understand and turned around. There were also a lot of little fox statues around. We didn't know where Sean was and had no way of contacting him, so we just caught a bus to the Golden Pavilion.
The Golden Pavilion is a Buddhist hall containing relics of Buddha. We weren't allowed inside, but we saw the outside. It was gold (you'd think this would be obvious, but the Silver Pavilion is not silver). There were a lot of school children on field trips. This is where I had my first experience of kids taking my photo. These two boys about twelve years old came up to GGG and asked if they could take a photo. I hung back at first, but apparently they wanted me in the picture, too. So somewhere in Japan there is a picture of me, GGG, and two Japanese boys all giving the peace sign. I didn't think to ask them to take a photo with my camera as well, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The Golden Pavilion was neat, but it was really crowded and really hot. We got some ice cream (I had a green tea soft serve and GGG had a green tea-mochi shaved ice). I liked GGG's better.
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| Green Tea-Mochi Shaved Ice |
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| Golden Pavilion |
Okonamiyaki is essentially a seafood (or meat) pancake and it is famous in Kyoto. The restaurant was recommended to us by the hostel staff. There was a problem with our order and we waited for about forty minutes before we called a server over to ask for more water. We didn't want to be annoying and ask if they forgot about our food (turns out they did). When I asked for water the server (a different server than who took our order originally) tried to bring us menus. When we told him we already ordered he got confused and ran off. Eventually they pulled a cook out of the kitchen and he came to our table and apologized and re-took our order. We're pretty sure he spoke the best English out of all the workers at the restaurant. We got our food after about an hour-and-a-half and it was so delicious.
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| Okonomiyaki...Yum! |
I got back to the hostel really late. Most of us had to check out the next day. That was a rough day for the majority of us.
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