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Day 3 - Kyoto Bound
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Caught the Shinkansen from Osaka to Kyoto station. Stupid amounts of people at both stations, but the train ride was insanely short, so that made up for it. It was easily 30 degrees which was a bit of a shock to the system coming from the Australian winter, and in amongst the thousands of people was not fun, but we eventually made it. Train staff have been very helpful so far, even when they are up to their eyeballs in people.
Once we caught the subway we found the hotel with no problems. We checked in with no worries, and checked our baggage, because it was midday and we couldn't access the room until 1pm. So we got ready to go for a walk, and Charlotte decided to create a distraction by diving off a chair head first into a fire extinguisher. Shes a smart girl but geez i wonder sometimes. Because of this little incident our minds where elsewhere, and we left the hotel with our passports sitting on the counter (because you need to show them by law now when checking into a Japanese hotel).
So we went over to M's Cafe across the road from the hotel (which is on the main drag of Kyoto). Got some weird but good coffees, and free internet, and what was actually our first chance of the entire trip to just sit and relax. If ever you get the chance to have a "jelly iced coffee", skip it. Trust me on this.
It was about at this point that we realised that we were passportless. Being Japan we weren't too concerned, because we remembered where we left them so we knew they would be there when we got back to the hotel, but it was still a relief when the desk clerk handed them back.
We went up to the room, and it is a really nice hotel room. Big corner room, very clean and in typical Japanese style the toilet comes with several different options for blasting a disconcerting luke-warm stream of water up your bottom (as well as other options that Im not game to try). Although after the heat and humidity outside i was looking for the iced water option, but alas luke warm is your only choice.
While on the subject i have to mention that Angela refuses to go to the toilet, because it noisily fills with water when you sit down, and scares the hell out of her, causing her to jump up and run out of the room. She then calms down and returns to the bathroom and the cycle repeats.
The girls all had a sleep while i played around with the eeepc and the stupidly fast free internet in the rooom. Then i decided to go for a walk around Kyoto, and do the typical tourist thing. A little rain came down, but nothing too bad.
The number of bicycles around here is just insane, but it is probably just as quick as cars around this part of town. So when i got back the girls woke up and we decided to all go for a walk, which is when it really started bucketing down. Im sure Kyoto hasn't suffered this level of deluge since WWII, so we decided to cut the trip short and go to a little 24 hour Japanese restaurant near the hotel. Greeted by the chef who obviously didn't speak a word of English he showed us to a table, and about 15 minutes later he returned and said to us akfjas dkfjkasdfljkad hsfafas hgftdssavfd ticketu mas. Veronica tried to catch what he was saying, but he was talking very quickly. When Veronica told him we didn't understand, he repeated it, word for word, at the same speed, just louder. We're foreign, not deaf. But a nice waitress type girl came and tried to talk to us, before showing me to a couple of vending machines at the front of the shop. Ahhhh. Buttons with pictures of food on them. This I can do. I put in the money, chose our meals and out came some little pieces of paper, which appeared to make our chef guy happy, cause he ran away with them. Minutes later (i kid you not) our meals appeared, hot fresh and very very good. Turns out i pressed the wrong button, but whatever the hell it was that i ate was excellent.
After dinner the rain had stopped, so we went for a walk to tire the girls out and to let me stock up on pocari sweat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat). I love the stuff. I havent been game enough to try Calpis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calpis) yet, but i will before i leave.
That brings you up to speed with right now. We are scheduled to do some temples tomorrow, which is what Im going to plan now.
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| 4. | Day 3 - Kyoto Bound - Kyoto, Japan Aug 23, 2008 (  5 ) |
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