Eric's Wacky Tales

Kyoto madness

Phew, I finally found an Internet cafe and am now munching on my 500 yen cheescake as i type this.

So, last i left things, i was in Oosaka. I still had 2 days left on my rail pass, so i went off to Hikone on a whim cuz the guide didnt say to much about it. There isnt too much out in Hikone, however the guide lady was pretty friendly and the castle here wasnt too bad either. It was another "original" and also included some nice garden within the castle walls. There was also a spiffy Okinawan dance even some school kids were putting on that made for some nice afternoon entertainment. Otherwise, not too much else except another one of those Traditional quarters, however now that ive been through Kyotos Gion district im not sure why people would go to all these other place to see "traditional" neighborhoods. After Hikone, i stoped in Otsu which is about 10 min. outside of Kyoto. Again, not too much here although i may return as theyre supposed to have a festival on the 7th and 8th. Otsu bascially offers some pretty good views of Lake Biwa which is Japans largest freshwater body of water. There also sport the worlds longest fountain which is built out in the lake and turns on in the evening. Its computer controlled, changing everyso often together with different lighting effects. I also tried a Japanese omlet (I dont know what these things are called in Japanese) which ive seen everywhere. Its basically just an omlet with mostly rice and a little meat inside, and them a dollop of souce on the outside. Not bad, but not worth the 900 yen it cost!

Oh yeah, dont think i mentioned this yet, but for the first 4 days in Kyoto ive been staying in this place called Jhoppers which is pretty cheap at 2500/yen per night. I met a few other travlers there, a couple of them being from Utah. It turned out the guy (they were husband and wife) was from Walnut Creek...weird how i keep running into these folks.

More interesting, I move to this other place called "Uno House" part because jhoppers was booked out for a couple days and part because this place is dirt cheap at 1650 yen/night. Well....the place definitely looks what its worth. Even compred to the drty place in Hiroshima (that place however was a pricey 3500 yen), this place is TINY and dirty. Its a HUGE backpacker place too. None of the other places ive stayed at even compares. I guess its a combination of being the first entry in the guide, the cheapest place, and also being located in Kyoto. So the first night i was there, I met a Canadian whose been in Seoul for a year and now wants to teach in Japan, a girl from SF who is doing a 6 month jaunt through asia (but seemed a little clueless about asian culture...claiming to have had the best Gyoza in Japan because the guide said it was, and that the chinese got potstickers from the japanese), a Swiss guy who likes to drink, a Japanese couple who are part of a japanese language club (and who ever knew a few words of Taiwanese), and 3 kiwis (New Zealanders) two of which are teaching english in yamaguchi and the 3rd of which plays bass and drums (who unfortunately drank a bit one night and ended up losing his passport and everything else important....somewhere IN the hostel. yikes!)
So on top of the interesting people, the place itself is a little interesting having signs like "No roasting cockroaches, 5000 yen fine", and "No peeking in shower, 5000 yen fine" scattered around.

Ok, so back to events. The next day was the last day my rail pass was valid, i so decided to give my feet a little rest and took a little day trip to Shinagawa shich is the first new Shinkansen station Japan has opened in many years. I didnt quite realize how close it was to Tokyo. In fact, its basically a district of Tokyo. So 2.5 hours out there, i looked around Shinagawa station (yup, its pretty brand spanking new!) and the city area (some canals..lots of office buildings, some shopping), and then went to Shibuya to have some Ramen (My first and favorite ramen place). After that, I took hopped on the non-reserved Shinkansen line thinking "how full could it be, being only 1 station away from the starting point". Well, it was PACKED. Luckily, i only ended up standing for 30 min, before i deftly dove for a seat before a high schooler could reach it.

That night i went out to dinner with the kiwis. We spun around in circles a few times, but ended up making it to this Lebanese place. It was more or less Meditteranean food, not bad, but a bit pricey. 800 yen, the cheapest on the menu , got me this small pita thing stuffed with chicken, a drink, and some potato chips.

That night, a huge gang went out to go drinking (amamzingly, i declined) and i hung out with the Japanese couple and 2 new French dudes. The Japanese crew were itneresting as they told me more about their language club..basically, they get native speakers to read a story and the club members listen to it all the time and even memorize it. Its a fixed story so they know basically whats going on, but they dont stuffy the grammar and dont stufy individual words, the threory being that just by listening to it and having some sort of context, you'll learn it through osmosis or something. So i sat there listening as the Japanese guy went off in reciting the passages in Chinese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Korean, Russian and arabic! Its made a little funny cuz the name of heir club is called hippo. and the passage dos something like "Im a hippo. Youre a hippo. Were ALL hippos!".

Didnt speak much much to the french people but they seemed nice enough. One of them was actually Haitian, but was adopted at an early age and grew up in Lyon and now wants to become a Japanese teacher (to other French).

Ok, gotta run and see if i can squeeze a shower in. The showers at this place are setup really weird (not so much privacy...i was half expecting one of the new french guys to walk in on the chick taking a shower). And people also all seem to want to take a shower at the same time. I pre-paid for a week (I thought it was suspicious when the receptionist asked "are you sure you want to do that? If you leave early we no refund...", but i think after that ill return to Jhoppers. 850 more yen, but way cleaner and cosier and overall still cheap!

Oh yeah, forgot todays events. Went to Nijo castles which was unique because it's keep is gone, however it stil has its palace (none of the other castles still had theirs) which was the palace of the former shogun so it makes it a litle extra special. Afterwards, i wanderd through the downtown area to Gion which is the traditional ward and where Geishas are reputed to be walking around. I think i saw 2 Maikos(?), geishas in training. There was also 1 big shrine, multiple temples which i didnt bother going in (maybe later....), and many gardens. Very nice. Lots and lots of shrines, some right smack in the middle of the shopping districts.

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Oh, response to liz:
okokok, not all the guys are UGLY. I think they just stick out more...ever see an asian guy with a 6 inch afro?? The things they go through...the school guys are going through the baggy pants phase. Actually, now that i think about it, there were some rickshaw pullers who seemed to be doing pretty good with the female clientele....

Posted by eric at October 4, 2003 01:32 AM