July 21-23 Kyoto

We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto the following morning. It only took 2 hours, and traveled several hundred kilometres. We arrived into the busiest train station I have ever seen, not completely wall to wall, but thousands of people walking very quickly to their destinations. Outside the station, the weather was at its hottest it would be the whole week, easily pushing +40. We had to take a bus to our Ryokan (Japanese style inn), and that proved to a little challenging, as nothing was in English, and neither the driver nor the attendant spoke any English. However, after a tense 45 minutes of being slightly unsure what the hell we were doing, we found ourselves being greeted by a very excited and happy Japanese family who were the owners and managers of the Yamizaki Ryokan. Our room had a wonderful view of the garden just outside of our sliding paper doors. The stereotype I had of Japan was embodied in this inn. Zen garden, traditional rooms, Yukata robes, you name it. We rested a little and decided not to do anything on the first day. We were hampered from sleep however by an unbelievably noisy insect that was in the trees surrounding our building. The cicada is a strange bug, living under the ground for over 7 years, and coming out for only one week to find a mate, and then dying. Its call can reach nearly 90dB. Other than that they are very benign creatures, with no bite or sting.

The next day, we prepared ourselves for a long, hot day of sightseeing by indulging in the Japanese breakfast through the ryokan, with some cigarette-like tea (i'm told it's oolong), a square of egg, baked fish, rice (of course), and miso soup. After that we hopped on the bus to Arishiyama, and the nearest temple, the Nanji-jingu, and then onward to the Tenryu-ji temple, a beautiful temple with an even more beautiful garden. Nearby there was a forest of bamboo, and it was stunning in its beauty. Words and pictures can not portray the ancient wonder of these buildings (even though neither are that old in age, just in form). The heat was a little overbearing at times, and there were multiple times I felt that I might actually melt. Our last stop in Arishiyama was monkey mountain, where Japanese monkeys run around free of cages in a protected area. We reached the top of the mountain just in time for feeding, and honestly it was a little frightening at first, as they are very quick moving and loud, and I wasn't yet sure if they were dangerous. But they were playful and friendly, and although we couldn't pet them or hold them, they were not shy, and you could feed them if you went in to your cage (which Kat did). After that we went home for a break, revelling in the air-conditioning. In the evening we wandered into the bar district called Hanamachi with lots of seedy looking places, and lots of interesting ones as well, built out of wood in a traditional style, even the streets in places were made of wood. A little foolishly, we delayed too long in the a small bar we found to catch the bus back to the Ryokan, so after nearly 40 minutes of waiting, we decided to try the subway. We luckily caught the last train to connect with the last train of another subway line and connect with the last train of the JR Line, putting us within a couple km of our Ryokan. We were lucky, otherwise we would have been stuck 19km from our accommodations. The next day we explored the touristy area of Kyoto, more so than Arishiyama, it was called Harashiyama. This was a district filled with shops, shrines, parks, gardens, and Geisha. A wonderful experience, if you ever get a chance to get to Kyoto, this should be high on the list. And no trip would be complete to Japan without running into Geisha.

Our trip to Kyoto was much too short, and I felt a little dismayed to leave, but we had things to do and people to meet in Osaka, so we went back to Kyoto station where we had stowed our bags in the morning and caught a 45 minute train to Osaka, which was so close to Kyoto, there is basically no where to tell where one ends and the other begins.