Domo Arigato [day 4/5]

We started our morning in Kyoto by changing our clothes and “freshening up” (as best you can in a grody stall) in the subway. Since it was still early, before anything was open, we just walked around the streets a bit. We had some sort of cheese toast for breakfast at some sort of Elton John-themed café (apparently?), and then found a bookstore, where I bought a Japanese fashion magazine (little knowing that they would become my new obsession). We went to the hotel where we were meeting our tour group, and tried to find them. It was a bit of an ordeal, they were NOT well organized like Gray Line (who, other than getting names completely wrong do really well). This fact became abundantly clear when everyone was piling onto the bus, and it comes to us (last in line, natch), and they tell us “Sorry. No room.”

EXCUSE ME? We paid like 6 trillion yen for this tour. There better be some damn room. Once they shuffled around the baby in the stroller, the old man in the wheelchair, and the fat lady in the wheelchair, they found us some seats. We get on and start heading toward the back of the buSMASH. Whacked my head SO hard on this weird outcropping of bus ceiling. Some old ladies laugh at me. I swear at them under my breath. We head off to our first stop, with our new tour guide Cookie leading the way. She tells us about Kyoto, which used to be the capital of Japan, and is one of the worlds leading producers of Sake. I guess producing a bunch of drunks is something to be proud about. We get to Nijo Castle, and disembarSMASH. Oh yeah. I forgot to duck. Again. Old ladies laugh. I continue to not enjoy Kyoto.

We’re not allowed to take pictures at the castle, because it’s mostly made of paper. The best part of the castle is that it is NINJA PROOF!!!! I swear. I can’t think of a cooler thing to have done to someone’s living place. The floors have a special thing called nightingale flooring, and you can’t walk on it without it squeaking. In each of the rooms where the Shogun (who lived there) or the Emperor (who visited) might have been, there were secret panels and hidden rooms, where the good guys could hide, and bust out and kill the bad guys, if need be.

Out next stop, the Golden Pavilion, got me to thinking (it hurt ^^). What is must be like to be a monk. You vow to a life of poverty, and then BUILD A BUILDING MADE OF GOLD. Not only that, but then they charge people an admission fee to see it. And once there in, there are these pots where people just throw money. You don’t make a wish. You don’t get a prize. You just biff your money in. If I can’t be a shogun and live in a ninja-proof palace, living in anything made of gold would be ok.

Our next stop, the Kyoto Imperial Palace, was the home of the Emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo in 1867. The security here is pretty intense. We had to line up and they counted us on the way in and out. The palace is so big, and has so many separate buildings, that there is no point in a year when one of the buildings is not being renovated. It is actually pretty amazing, it has some huge, beautiful gates, and everything everywhere has 16-petaled-Chrysanthemums all over, the Imperial symbol.



After here, we go to the handicraft center for lunch (ALL YOU CAN EAT holla). It was sort of disappointing, since all-you-can-eat is a favorite phrase of both Bree Teacher, and me but we were too rushed to really work the buffet. Plus it was just sort of lame. So we hightailed it out ahead of our tour and went to shop the handicrafts downstairs from the restaurant. I was thisclose to buying an amazing Samurai sword, only you can’t take them on a plane (clearly), and we weren’t checking anything. Bree teacher bought TWO kimonos. AND won a prize from doing same.

We went to the lobby to meet the afternoon tour, which is some of the morning people, and some new people. The new people including. NOOOOOOOOO. My nemeses, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum (newly christened). WHY GOD WHY, did they follow us 8 hours to Kyoto. Probably to fiddle with my gingerale. As long as our bus seats aren’t near theiSMASH. Crap. The afternoon is not starting well. Our drive to Nara was an hour or so away, and while I was genuinely interested in what Cookie was telling us, I fell asleep for the last bit of the drive, until we arrived at—

Todaiji Temple and Deer Park is perhaps one of the strangest collections of weirdness I’ve ever encountered. Let me break it down:

World’s largest wooden building

World’s largest Buddha

1100 “tame” deer (I say time because some of them, hilariously, attack Japanese school children)

Buddha’s guardians. For some of them, they ran out of money, so there are just some heads and arms lying around.

This guy...


The Buddha, they say, can hold 20 people in the palm of his hand. They also say that if you can pass through Buddha’s nostril that your wish will come true, and have a tree carved with a tunnel the size of Buddha’s nostril. So who would want to try, who else in the world, but my nemesis’ sidekick. So he gets down on the ground and crawls through Buddha’s nostril. Thanks. Way to give a good name to us Westerners. The Japanese all think you’re a freak.

[Now that I think about it, though, I did almost steal from a monk. It wasn’t my fault though. Bree Teach told me that the 5yen pieces were 50 yen pieces, so I used them as she told me. How was I to know the difference?]

The Kasuga Shrine, our last stop, is the most famous Shrine in Nara. It has 3000 antique stone and bronze lanterns, and it makes for quite a sight, even though they weren’t lit up. Shinto seems like a pretty awesome religion too. There’s no founder, no text, and it has 8 million Gods. Can’t find one you like? Just make a new one. Where there are 8 million, what’s one more!?

On our drive home, Cookie told us all about Nara, Kyoto, Geishas, and anything else that interested her. Man, this lady could TALK. We wanted to see the Geishas, but we were too far away, so we asked her about shopping instead. She told us a few places, and we checked them out as we waited for our bus to take us back to Tokyo. We found a few weird mall-type structures that were pretty cool, but before long, the bus came, and we were back in the cramp, for our (somehow 2 hours longer) return trip.

Our last day was fairly uneventful.

We got off our 9 hour bus ride in Tokyo, and pretty much got right on the 75 minute subway ride to the airport. Here we had lunch (the world’s most expensive sushi, I think), and then got on our 2.5 hour flight. When we got back in Korea, we had a 90 minute bus ride back to Seoul. Needless to say, I was glad to be standing up when I got off that bus. On the whole, though, Japan is definitely a winner.