Day 11

18th October 2008

Cycling around Kyoto day 2

Day 11

Hired a bike again. Went to the Silver Pavilion today, but it is under reconstruction. It isn't silver either. The only bit that's a bit silver looking was the scaffolding around the whole thing, see right. The gardens around it though were gorgeous and really peaceful. I cycled up a path called the Philosophers Path to get to it. Didn't feel that enlightened though after I rode it.

Went to Kyoto Municipal Art Museum too and the lady on the front desk let me in for free! Nice lady. There was a huge orange and black gate there too, which looked pretty fantastic!

I ate 3 ice creams today and felt a bit sick afterwards.

Also got talking to the worlds most boring man. Well I don't mean to be rude but he just randomly started talking to me about some English girl traveller who was killed by a Japanese man and now do all English people think Japan is full of killers so they don't visit anymore. What do you answer to that? He asked me if English people think bad of Japanese people and all these weird questions so I tried to answer but in the end said I had to get my bike back, which I did and with my track record of getting lost it was better to go sooner rather than later.

Anyway, off on the night bus again tonight. Only I got lost trying to find the boarding place and had to phone up the bus company, but it just turned out I was there that early that even the bus staff weren't there yet and that's why I couldn't see them.

Bye Kyoto!

Day 10

17th October 2008

Cycling through Kyoto

Day 10

Hired a bike today and cycled to the Golden Pavilion. It was nice.

Then cycled to Nijo castle. I paid the 16-18 years old entrance fee, although the woman at the ticket desk obviously knew I am over 18 by the expression on her face. Went into the old living quarters of the Shogun and it was gorgeous! I was amazed and ended up walking around twice. Not allowed to take photos in there though.

Finished my cycling trip by visiting Kyoto Manga Museum (pic to the right). It was more like a library really. Took some pictures and when I left saw a sign saying do not take pictures. Whoops. Back to the hostel after. One more night in Kyoto then off to Tokyo again.

Hired a bike again for tomorrow. Forgot how much fun cycling is!

Day 9, Kyoto

16th October 2008

Getting lost in Keage

Day 9

Got up bright and early at 6:30am! Not meeting Helen until 1pm so walked to Kyoto station to visit their tourist information desk and get some info. Walked there (30 mins), got maps and started walking back. Hey, hey guess what - I got lost. Again. How - I don't know, seeing as I'd just walked that way to get to the station. It was crap. Usual thing - my feet were hirting and I didn't know where I was. It took me over 1 hour and 30 mins to get back to the hostel. God knows where I went.

Anyway I met Helen at 1pm and we got a train to Keage to go and see some sort of traditional dancing show that was due on at 2pm at a temple in Keage. She knows less Japanese than me (wow) and we are equally confused by the train/subway system and were quite chuffed when we managed to get to Keage all by ourselves! All we had to do was find the temple the event was at. Needless to say we got lost.

This time it was a good kind of lost though. Ended up walking up a hill, no shrine or temple with traditional dancing but instead a graveyard with a Japanese man burning wood and shouting something at us (even with our almost non-existant knowledge of the Japanese language we got the hint that we were not meant to be up there). So we trecked back down the hill and saw this, ew-

We got to a drinks machine and bought a drink each that turned out to be a jelly drink. Weird. Helen and I knew we'd missed the show but weren't that bothered and went trecking up another hill. The scenery was awesome and the pictures don't do it justice.

It was quite random.

After our little adventure we decided to visit the Imperial Palace (see right) in Kyoto, which was nice. It was so chilled and peaceful.

On our way back, we got a train to Shijo station near to our hostel, but apparently there are 2 Shijo stations in the area (i.e. we got lost) and had to walk back to the hostel for quite a bit (feet really hurting now). Ended up walking back through a food market, which was nice!

Day 8, last day in Osaka

15th October 2008

Osaka tower

Day 8

Well it`s my lasy day in Osaka. Eli and I went up Osaka tower today. Nice views. It was pretty cool as from the tower we could see in the distance Osaka castle that we had been to the day before.

On the t-shirt spotting front, I saw an old Japanese man with the words 'Captain Santa' across his jumper.

We had a pic on a bench and asked an old Japanese lady to take a pic of us. As she was takingit the camera was pointing in the wrong direction. It was funny, we posed anyway and the picture that came out didn't even have us on it.

Then we came across a shop that sold t-shirts with English writing on them. I found some good ones, but Eli found this-

Hilarious! The funniest thing I had seen in ages. Needless to say we bought one each!

It was my last day in Osaka today so we headed back to the stadium and I got my bag. We chatted for a while and I left to get the train to Kyoto. It was so sad! I felt like I was saying bye to one of my best friends! We had so much fun and went to so many places. Eli taught me some Japanese, which I thought I was really good at but Eli said not (still can't pronounce Tsurugoaka - the place name where we stayed) and I taught Eli how to talk with a British accent, which he thought he was good at, but wasn't (in our own heads we sounded perfect!)

Anyways I don't tend to make friends that easily so got a little emotional on my way to the train station on my own.

Got the train to Kyoto and was in the hostel there by 8pm. Found the hostel quite easily (it was right next to the station!). I checked in and they said there was a pub crawl on at 8:30pm so I went along. Didn't drink too much but it was good to meet so many people.

Walked back to the hostel about 1am ish with a girl called Helen, who is from London. We planned to go to a shrine the next day as there is some sort of traditional dancing thing on there at 2pm that I saw advertised on the hostel notice board.

Osaka was fab! Now for Kyoto...