A Day in Kyoto (big trip part 3)

So, a lot of pictures today (and a few videos too).  Kyoto is definitely a very photogenic city.

On August 7th Mikey and I planned to take the train from Himeji to Kyoto (via Shin-Osaka station) but we ended up running late.  When I woke up I was feeling nauseous (probably due to the heat and humidity).  We decided to take the bus from near the hostel to the shinkansen station but even with that we missed the train.  So we waited in line to ask the shinkansen people what we should do and they told us we could get onto the next train but I'd have to sit in the non-reservation car while Mikey could still sit in the reserved section since he had a JR pass therefore we wouldn't be able to sit together.  As we waited for the train Mikey grabbed me a carbonated drink which helped my stomach somewhat.  But on the first leg of the trip from Himeji to Shin-Osaka I was still feeling quite ill.

At Shin-Osaka we had to wait a few minutes for the next train and at that point I definitely felt like I was going to puke and was looking around for a bathroom (unfortunately those tend to be in the passages beneath the train platforms so it was a bit too far away).  As a side note, in Japan trashcans and recycling bins are kind of rare in both public places and even in train stations where one has already paid to be there.  Strangely there is not that much litter around compared to some US cities I know where there are trash cans everywhere.  Basically in Japan there is a huge social pressure to not be a litterbug so people usually carry their trash with them and throw it out when they can.  Thus I've gotten into the habit of carrying plastic grocery bags with me to use as trash bags and it was very lucky that I had one when I was feeling like I was going to vomit.  You can probably imagine what I used it for (in a somewhat out-of-the-way corner of the station so that I wouldn't give foreigners such a bad name).  And, a few minutes later I found a real, live trashcan so I was even able to dispose of my trash bag.  Afterwards Mikey and I wondered if there was security camera footage of the incident that some Japanese security person had had to watch... awkward.  I still wasn't feeling that great and since we'd had a later start than we had planned we decided to explore some of Kyoto in the afternoon after resting for a few hours and to save the monkeys for the following morning.

Luckily I was able to rest at the hostel (in the wonderful AC) even though it wasn't technically time for check-in yet.  We ate some peanut butter sandwiches (with real American peanut butter- have you even noticed how peanut butter tastes so different depending on what country you're in?).  We also watched a movie on my laptop (Batman Begins that Mikey brought with him from the US).  And I made sure to slowly drink fluids during our break as well.  By around 3:30 I was feeling much better so we decided to go to one of the local shrines.

 

 On the way to Kyoto Station we passed by the Kyoto Tower (which is not as popular as the Tokyo Tower or the new Sky Tree)

As I was trying to figure out how to get to the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine on the Kyoto train map a friendly local came over and she showed us where it was and even wrote down the kanji for me (伏見稲荷大社).  This particular shrine is located on a hill and contains thousands of torii.  

 Here are two trails leading up the mountain, each partially enclosed by hundreds of red torii.  They look a bit like tunnels from this angle but the torii are not connected to each other nor do they support a roof (in fact you can see the sunlight streaming through in between the torii beams).

It was a pretty long hike up (for me since I'm out of shape and had to take breaks pretty often but then again I had been sick earlier in the day too).  Mikey didn't have a problem though.

There were also thousands of stairs...

It took us over an hour to climb up.  On the way we saw preparations for the Gozan no Okuribi festival scheduled for August 16th (too bad we were only in Kyoto for the one day).

We made it to the top of the mountain!  Apparently it's 233 meters (765 feet) tall.

At the summit there's a very old section of the shrine (with stone torii) where people can make offerings and pray for certain things (like to have a child).  FYI, there was not a view of the city since there were too many trees.

There were a bunch of interesting statues of foxes and dogs.  This dog (yes, it really is a dog) has a toy ball.

After our adventures at the shrine we headed back to the hostel.  There were fliers posted on the walls saying that there was a Tanabata festival that evening between the 5th bridge and 7th bridge (I believe) at the river.  We thought that it would be an excellent opportunity to wear our summer festival happi (which I mentioned packing in part 1).

The sign says "Kyou no Tanabata" ("the capital's Tanabata" since Kyoto was the old capital city of Japan).  Underneath are a bunch of candles.

It was pretty crowded and maybe 30% of the other people were dressed for the occasion (though yukata seemed to be more popular than happi).

During Tanabata festivals people write down their wishes and hang them on special trees (or bamboo).

As we walked back from the festival later we encountered the mother of all flies loitering outside of a subway station (the hand in the picture is Mikey's).  After taking this picture, as I was putting away my camera the fly decided to attack me/land on my shorts, which scared me half to death and we ended up running away from the monster fly.

The next morning we caught the train toward the Arashiyama Monkey Park (see their English website here) which is home to about 130 Japanese macaque monkeys.  There was another hike up a mountain to see the monkeys (though luckily much shorter than that of the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine).

This part was difficult on the way up but fun on the way down.  Too bad the whole mountain isn't set up like this (just the section near the kids' playground).

At the monkey-viewing area there was a view of Kyoto, humans, and monkeys.  If you visit in the summer I recommend coming when it's cooler (in the morning) around 9:30 (which I believe is their feeding time).

A mother monkey with her cute baby!

Next to the viewing area is the gift shop and monkey-feeding area.  For 100 yen you can buy a bag of treats to give to the monkeys through the fence.  You aren't allowed to feed the monkeys when you're outside the gift shop area.  Pictured is Mikey giving out some peanuts.

Don't stare at the monkeys in the eye (they find that aggressive and will respond accordingly), just respectfully hand them food while avoiding eye-contact!

At the top the sign it says "Chuui" (Caution)... why is that translated into the much less-serious-sounding "notes"?  Also, I had a hard time following note #3 as I didn't have a bottle, haha.

To beat the heat a bunch of the monkeys were taking a dip in the small pond next to the gift shop.  They were very good swimmers!

 This monkey was drying off in the sun after his dip.

After spending the morning with the monkeys Mikey and I had a truly excellent lunch at a pasta/sandwich restaurant down the road before we caught the train back to Kyoto Station (and then Osaka).

A Day in Himeji (big trip part 2)

I hate you Blogger!
Why do you warn that things won't be saved but then save them anyway?

Anyway, after Blogger messed up my notes for this post on Monday, I was too angry to write.  But now I'm back and will attempt to tell you about August 6th.  Wow, that was already over two months ago.  I really need to type faster...

Mikey and I were a bit tired from our journey to Hiroshima the day before so we decided to hang around Himeji, explore, and take it easy.  It was another brutally humid day so we started out by going to an air-conditioned restaurant to have some brunch.  There I introduced Mikey to the amazing substance known as Japanese-style curry.  It's quite nice, in fact it's one of my favorite Japanese foods (though originally from India it tastes pretty different from Indian curry and often comes with pickled vegetables that you can eat to cut the spice).

We looked at the map that had been given to us at the hostel (one of the owners had circled some of the more interesting places and restaurants for us).  We decided to skip the nearby village where a portion of "the Last Samurai" movie had been shot since neither of us had seen the movie- and instead to try to go to the local aquarium (since they are cool and would definitely have AC)...  We stopped by the tourist information center next to the shinkansen station to find out which bus we would have to take and a very nice lady (with excellent English) listed several possible buses for us.  We got on the proper bus but of course we missed our stop and got off at the next one with the intent of walking back.  The map told us that we were at the Himeji Tegarayamachuo Amusement Park.  We looked inside the gates and saw that it apparently had a water park, the Himeji-shimin Pool, as well!

Mikey loves water parks and I think they can be pleasant, especially on hot days.  So... we decided to go in and check it out!  The water park section was absolutely packed with people and had a couple of slides and one of those lazy rivers that you can float around in.  We walked through the amusement park section too which mostly just had rides for younger kids (and all of them required additional tickets as well- which weren't cheap).  We decided to go back to the hostel to get our bathing suits and then to hang out at the water park.  As we were leaving I asked one of the admission-ladies if we'd be able to leave the park and come back in later.  She said it wasn't allowed so I told her that I had forgotten my bathing suit (well actually I said mizu-fuku "water clothes" since I didn't know the right word).  She got the idea and gave Mikey and me a special tag to show when we got back.  As it turns out I wasn't that far off when I guessed the word for bathing suit - the real word is mizu-gi (gi is just a different word for clothes, just like the gi that practitioners wear for karate).

We went back to the hostel as quickly as possible and we were ready to swim about an hour later.  We spent most of the time floating around the river and chatting and I've gotta say the water felt very refreshing.  There were tons of kids swimming around though so Mikey and I had our fair share of getting bumped and splashed.  I was glad I had my sunglasses since it prevented most of the water from getting in my eyes at least.  Around four o'clock we decided to go back into town and see what movies were playing at the local theater.  The Amazing Spider-Man was still there and it had a 6:30 showing- there was certainly enough time to have an early dinner beforehand.  Mikey thought that one of the restaurants from the map sounded good so we headed there but we had a hard time finding it.

 I ended up asking an old lady working at a Japanese-sweets shop where the restaurant was and she explained that it was located in the same building as that very shop but it was closed for the day.  She asked us where we were from and so I ended up having a short conversation with her, I was surprised to hear that she knew of Massachusetts since one of her friend's daughter lived there.  Mikey was impressed that I was able to understand much of what the old lady said but I could tell that I definitely did not understand one of her questions since after I answered she gave me kind of a puzzled look (which I'm kind of used to seeing at this point).  [Mikey said he noticed that expression too.]  But as we were about to leave the old lady told us to wait and then went and got us a couple of mochi to take with us (what a nice lady!).  She told us that it would be best to eat them soon (since it was closing time for the shop I think that they were destined to be thrown away in the near future).

We went to a different curry place for dinner (what can I say, curry is great!) and then continued to the movie.  I liked it the second time around as well (I guess it was a three or four-month movie for me after all) though Mikey fell asleep during part of it.  Well, it was nice with the dim lights and AC and the poor boy was still getting over his jet-lag and we had just spent several hours swimming in the sun, so I couldn't really blame him. 

You've probably noticed that Mikey and I spent a lot of the time looking for ways to keep cool...  My hair is a bit long at the moment so I ended up just keeping it in a tight braid for the beginning part of the trip to keep it out of my way and to prevent it from sticking to my face.  Many people in Japan carry around small... sweat towels I guess you'd call them... so they can easily pat their faces and necks dry.  I carried around a towel for that purpose (and lent one to Mikey who actually seemed to really get into the practice so I ended up giving him a towel to take back).  In Japan there is a special word for that feeling you get in the summer where you feel tired and gross (and maybe even get a fever or feel ill) - natsubate, where natsu means "summer" and bate comes from the verb bateru which means "to be exhausted."  I'm definitely a sufferer of natsubate which is why summer is my least favorite season.  Oftentimes on hot and humid days I feel very worn out and I can barely eat anything without feeling nauseous - definitely natsubate.

The next day (August 7th) we planned to wake up early and go to Kyoto to see monkeys and other cool things.  All I can say is that I really was feeling OK (though hot and tired) before I fell asleep that night...