The Centre of Japan from the 7th Century
Trip Start
Aug 30, 2010
1
5
16
Trip End
Sep 14, 2010
Kyoto, Kinki, Japan
Friday, September 3, 2010
I think Em' was the only one who has a good night's sleep. The 'beds' were okay, but I think Lau & I are a bit soft for this type of sleeping....
Breakfast was a very traditional affair. All sat on the floor with raised trays. The food was nice, but not we'd normally expect to eat for breakfast. They made a concession to us westerners. Our eggs were scrambled, where as everyone else cracked a raw egg over their rice and tucked in. The coffee was fantastic though. Again a consistent reoccurrence in Japan.
We checked out of the hotel and had a steady stroll through the town, back down to the bus depot.
As per last evening it was fantastic to stroll around without any tourists. Shirakawa-go is a really special place that is improved with diminishing numbers of people. We probably should have took a little while longer to head down to the bus depot as we were a little early. Not to worry though, this gave us a great opportunity to do some people watching as bus loads of Japanese tourists were bussed in, had their picture taken and marched up to the village. Some were back before we'd caught our bus!
The target for today was to make our way leisurely to Kyoto. This involved the bus back to Takayama. The train back to Nagoya and then a short hop on the Bullet (Shinkansen) to Kyoto. We had a nice light lunch in Takayama en route, but on the whole the journey suffered no interruptions and we made good time in to Kyoto and then on to our hotel.
Kyoto was once the capital of Japan, from the 7th Century right up to the early 1800's. We are here to get a feel Japan's 'cultural center' with a vast array of Buddhist Temples and Shinto Shrines, as well as multitude of other sights and sounds to take in.
After we got to the hotel and chilled out for a bit, we went for a quick wonder and ended up in a late night covered market. Not too unusual, but there was a great mix of shops, people bustling home from work, and people heading out for the night. We stopped in a supermarket which was stocked full of ASDA branded Japanese goods. Must be how Wallmart is branded out here. It was here that we ran into the most ardent fan of Emily's Japanese fan club. A genuinely lovely woman was swooning over Em' babbling away in Japanese and broken English before kneeling down and stroking her hair and saying 'bootiful brond hair' and 'ahhh, brue eyes'. It wasn't as weird as it sounded, but we did have to excuse ourselves to get away. We think that Em' thought it was a bit weird too, but as ever she shrugged it off.
We grabbed some fantastic fast food from one of the stalls in the market and headed back to the hotel for 'picnic in our room'. Em' love it.
Tonight we are just relaxing and catching up from today's traveling. Tomorrow is going to start whenever we roll out of bed. After some breakfast we'll be heading to Kyoto's principal market followed by a wander over to Gion where we hope to see some Geisha's and then probably back past some temples &/or shrines. Looking forward to it!
Some more observations on Japan before closing this evening.....
- We have not seen one cow or sheep (or any livestock) since being here. NONE!
- There are no public bins anywhere. You are expected to take your rubbish home with you. There is NO litter anywhere.
- Westerners are very very rare. We have only really seen any when we have been traveling on the buses/trains or when looking in the mirror.
- Language is an issue, but not a problem. Everyone is so genuinely friendly and everyone wants to help.
We're having one of the best holidays we've ever had! Japan is amazing on so many levels!
Talk to you soon....
