Teenage Mutant Ninja Travellers
Trip Start
May 26, 2004
1
11
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Kyoto,
Japan
Thursday, June 24, 2004
The first port of call was the local Kyoto Castle
01-Average Japanese House
. It was more of a palace than a castle as it was a single storey building as opposed to the large castle in Osaka. We had a wander around and it was pretty cool but I guess I have said enough about castles at this stage so you get the idea. On our way back from there we passed through a park and saw a big group of kids playing baseball. It was weird they were all kitted out and baseball is a big deal out here!! We were on our way to another palace when I noticed a small samurai sword shop out of the corner of my eye. So off we went for a look. It has always been a plan of mine to get a sword while I was over here so I was excited. When I went in there was an American guy with his wife and kids buying a sword and I suddenly got less excited. He was organising to send home a sword he had just spent over 5000 euros on. Then I noticed a few really old and in some cases dilapidated swords. The most expensive of which was 2.4 million yen (Almost 200,000 Euro). I thought I had come into an antique shop but then I saw some that were in our price range, i.e. cheap as a bird on Pernod and black in Coppers. So I relaxed and had a look around while I waited for the shop owner to finish with the other guy. Now in the meantime Fi had gotten this look in her eye which I have come to know well!! It's the 'you are getting something cool I want one too' look. We both had a look around and I picked out a nice sword and of all the other swords in the shop she decides she want's the same one as me!!! Anyway by the time we were done here we had missed the closing times of the other things that we had come to so we headed back to the hostel
02-Castle entrance
. By this stage we had pretty much given up on eating out due to the language difficulties!! If there wasn't a McDonalds in view we were in trouble. Now the hostel obviously had a kitchen but buying food to cook was even more scary that finding a restaurant!! So the main staple of our diet was noodles, sandwiches and vending machine beer!! We did go out around the place and there was plenty to see. We went looing for the local zoo and we had problems finding it. We had a map but couldn't find the damn thing. We stopped to ask a local for directions. Obviously they didn't speak English so Fiona used the global language of mime!! Using her arm as a trunk she mimed an elephant. The look that the guy gave her was absolutely brilliant. So in between fits of laughter I pointed at the word Zoo in the map and we were on our way. One of the funniest things I have ever seen!! We got there eventually and we went inside. Now we have been to several zoo's before and since this one but this was hands down the worse we have ever seen. Some of the cages were so cramped and it was really badly designed. It wasn't all bad. Some animals seemed to have plenty of room. They had a baby Hippo that we didn't realise was a baby until the mother walked out beside it. They had the usual suspects, elephants, lions tigers. They had some minging little monkeys and an agro gibbon which didn't like us much
03-Kyoto castle
. But we were totally put off by the bears which barely had enough room to tun around!! We didn't stay too long after that. On our way back to the hostel we passed TV Land. This is a TV studio you can tour and see all of the most popular characters. We were about to go in when we realised we had absolutely no idea who any of the characters were so we headed off for a beer. We stopped in an art gallery on the way. Not much of an art gallery man myself but there was some interesting crap in there. I preferred outside where they had a large koi pond. Some of those fish had amazing colouring and they were big!! On our way walking around we got caught in a very heavy rainstorm. We took shelter in a local temple/shrine. While we were in there we had a look around and it was a lovely little place. There were loads of turtles in the pond and some cool little buildings so it wasn't the worst place to see out the shower.
After our long day we found a nice little pub to have a quick beer. Once inside we were asked did we want a small or large beer. Of course I went for the large one. Fi opted for the small. They brought out the first beer and it was about the size of a pint so I took that one thinking it was mine. Then they brought out the actual large beer. It was a thing of beauty!! It was so big Fiona needed two hands to lift it. Suffice to say the next order was for 2 big beers, and the next one. We left the place in markedly higher spirits than when we entered. We headed off for a look around the city centre half pissed. We came across this building which was probably another shrine. We went inside and it was full of dozens of Japanese lanterns. They were everywhere. They also had a few mannequins all dressed up as old warriors. So we had a nice last night in Kyoto. We headed back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep and prepare for our trip to Tokyo.
