Rat Pack Attract Small Schoolgirl Attack
Trip Start
Oct 03, 2008
1
6
18
Trip End
Oct 19, 2008
Kyoto,
Kinki,
Japan
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Last night was spent in the hostel bar and lounge (regretably) listening to the Ting Tings and (awesomely) drinking sake. It wasn't a big night and was fairly uneventful apart from a trip to the 24 hour supermarket for crazy food, meeting a completely wasted American called AJ (who'd have guessed?) and holding a 'design a T-shirt' forum.
We spent today doing the Lonely Planet walking tour of Kyoto's south side and we saw three of the major temples. The first of which was the absolutely stunning Kiyomizu-dera. It had awe-inspiring views and amazing shrine areas. We also went into 'the belly of the Bhudda' which was a completely pitch black, winding corridor with a lit up stone at the end. Sounds worse on paper but was so fun in reality. It was kind of like the end of Silence of the Lambs but without the night vision goggles. Or the cross-dressing serial killer, although it was literally pitch black so you never know.
Next in the Kiyomizu-dera temple was the fountain with healing qualities. As we approached the fountain we were stopped by a group of young Japanese schools asking for us to take a photo. After a brief moment of me trying to take a photo of them together it became rapidly apparent that they wanted their friend to take a picture of them, with us! We can only assume they mistook us for the Rat Pack and that they thought Frank, Dean and Sammy Jr were in town for a comeback tour! In an unintentional act of retaliation however, Kirill did nearly push one of them in the healing pool. Still, I guess they would have been okay in the long run.
Next up was Kodai-ji which was home to our first zen garden. It was genuinely relaxing as well. Strange how raked stones can ease the soul, really. We then arrived at Choin-in which is home to the largest gate in Japan. 'Gate' doesn't really do it justice though - the pictures speak for themselves.
Last but not least was Shoren-in which was my personal favourite as it seemed the most homely. I can genuinely imagine living there and being the happiest man alive. It made my flat look like the London Dungeon. However, my camera didn't work by this point so I spent the whole time keeping time and pointing out good camera angles for the other two. Gutting.
After returning we headed out to Kyoto station's food court for an amazing banquet of fried food. We also won free raffle tickets which led to the ultimate victory of a 500 yen shopping voucher because a green ball came out instead of a white one. We did also won seven packs of tissues for the other seven white balls that came out. We used them as coasters.
We spent tonight in the hostel lounge with a multicultural group of people we met here, drinking beer and Korean sake. Good fun and we hope to meet up with them all tomorrow for a night out. Going to the ancient town of Nara tomorrow and will report in soon.
Comments
Battery power notification
If this is only the first time you have suffered from battery power failure you are a lucky man. Is there a camera around I wonder that gives you warning more than one photo before it dies? The trick is to always carry a spare battery i.e. contingency planning!