Garrett's parents were kind enough to give us their timeshare in Kyoto so we had a place to call home for 5 nights, lucky us! Kyoto is spritual and sourrounded by mounains and notoriously colder than Osaka and Tokyo and we feel all these things right as we step off the train! Kyoto is like Kokobunji in the sense that is is quiet, clean and orderly; but different in it's homey small-town vibe, despite being a large city. In our fancy hotel, we quickly get settled and review a city map. Kyoto is littered with castles, temples and all sorts of other interesting things to see!
Day 1 starts out pretty late, but I blame it on the incredibly comfortable beds. After sleeping on all sorts of uncomfortable floors, buses, planes, hostel beds, and benches even, my body jumps at the opportunity to enjoy deep sleep in the comfort of a real bed, ahhh! We decide to checkout the monkey forest and an assortment of temples. With the help of a wrong turn led by me, we found ourselves crossing a long highway bridge that we were definitely not supposed to be on; there were no signs saying this specifically, but the faces of the passing Japanese motorists read it loud and clear. It was all good though, soon we arrived at the river which signified our proximity to the monkey forest.
As I near the peak of the monkey forest hill, I began to hear a familiar classical tune of which the name escapes me. I coulnd't imgaine why or where the music was coming from, but my mind bred enough curiosity to make me sprint to top and find out. As my eyes fixed on the flat summit, I saw a young, bundled up Japanese man feeding 50ish red-face monkeys! The beautiful, serene view of Kyoto that the summit provided was a stark contrast to the the feediing frenzy I was witnessing. Chaos is the only way to describe the scene; monekys fighting, chasing, climbing and screaming evreywhere! One minute you would think the monkeys were actuallly going to kill eachother, but the next minute they would act like nothing ever happened!
From the monkey forest we ventured to about 5 temples. I would describe them all but there isnt enough time in the day to do that, I will let the following pictures do the talking for me, all I can say is that they were incredible.
The following day we headed into the downtown area to see what it was all about. The frigid streets were bustling with tons of Japanese and a tourist here and there. We cruised down many of the small back alleys that you find all over Japan. But they aren't like the back alleys at home, these alleys are littered with all sorts of shops and bars. All of a sudden it hit me that the Chargers were playing in the 2nd round of playoffs today. We hunted down the only English bar in town and ended up watching the American Football game, in an English Pub in Japan...gotta love globalization! Even though it was a disappointing game, it was still a cool feeling watching my home team battle it out all the way across the world.
The next day it snowed pretty much all day which was cool, so we ended up staying indoors and watching sumo wrestling. On day 4 though we decided to rent bicycles for a change. We discovered our map reading skills were not as good as we thought as we got ourselves good and lost for the 1st hour or so. We finally made it to a temple though and just as we parked our bikes it began to snow! Being from Southern California this is a very rare occurance for the both of us so we hurried to snap some photos to capture the rare moment. I dont remember much about that temple in particular but I do remember the next one distinctly. The following temple was made of pure gold and sat directly next to a perfectly still lake. We caught it as the sun was beginning to set, creating a maginicent reflection upon the lake.
Snow from our hotel wındow....a special treat for us Cali boys!
Our final day in Kyoto started off at the castle in the heart of the city. This thing was absolutely massive! I would guess it covered a good 8-10 square blocks of real estate. It was here that we met our pseudo tour guide for the day. Her name is Loraine and she works for JAL (Japanese Airlines). She has been in Japan for a few years and ended up giving us a lot of good insight into the culture. She told us we had to go to check out a temple that overlooked the city on the otherside of town before it closed. So she showed us to the bus stop and told us which line to take and where to get off like the angel she is and that was that. As we climbed the hill to the temple, some Saki sets caught my eye in 1 of the shops. Garrett and I both ended up buying Saki sets which I cant wait to use when I get home!
Our tour guıde Loraıne
Loraine was right when she said we HAD to see this temple, it was definitely my favorite of all that I visited in Japan. It overlooked the entire city, and how fitting that we were catching the sunset over this magnificent city on our last night in Japan. It was a race against the sun to get as many photos as we could, and as we dashed around the place, we couldn't stop discussing how cool of a party we could throw there “OK so I think that the hillside shrine right over there would be perfect for the DJ booth because it overlooks the whole temple.” “YA YA and undrneath that platform would be perfect for lasers and discoballs and all that. Oh shit the GO-GOs! I'd have 1 dancing on that pylon, like 3 on that roof, of course at least 1 on that balcony, and then 1 in that corner, that corner, that corner, that balcony, that corner, that corner, that balcony...”
Ratings & Reactions for Japan [1-10:Terrible-Terrific]
Language Barrier: 9...so hard to communicate
Locals: Outlandishly kınd and stylish- 8
Women: HOT HOT HOT- 9
Food: AMAZING- 8.5
Nightlife: Too much hip hop and hard hard trance- 7
Top 3 highlights:
1)Karaoke
2)Being surprısed by our great friends from home, Todd & Matt
3)Running around downtown Tokyo on NYE dressed as Pikachu
Unique Things to Japan:
1)Toilet seat heaters
2)Vendıng machine beer and cup noodles
3)Being treated lıke a celebrity when you dress-up like gıant yellow cartoon character
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1 comment:
Bradon, Great pictures to go with your commentary. Glad the bed got you guys going again- sounds like it was overdue.
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