Day 80 – Japan day 3 – Kyoto

This morning we woke up and headed straight for the train station to grab a Shinkansen to Kyoto for the day. All of us have heard nothing but good things about Kyoto so we really wanted to check it out even though we didn’t get to do everything that we wanted to in Tokyo. First order of business was to find a place to stay for the night. Now I’ve came to the conclusion that looking at a Lonely Planet book at the last second to figure out where to stay isn’t the best idea, but I guess some of the guys that I’m with haven’t figured that out yet. So we search the city for a good hour trying to find this place the book suggests to us. Once we finally find it they tell us that they’re out of rooms. Trying not to repeat our mistakes from yesterday of walking around a city looking for a place to stay while carrying our backpacks, we headed back to the train station to put our bags into a locker for the time being. While we were there we found this tourist information center hidden away on the top floor that had a ton of suggestions for where we could stay as well as things that we could do for our day in Kyoto. It was great. We should have stopped here to figure things out right away. It would have saved us over an hour. Anyway, they gave us a ton of useful information and pointed us in the direction that we wanted to go to experience Kyoto. Our final conclusion was that if we don’t find a place to stay for cheap tonight then we would stay at an Internet Café for the night. I know all of you are thinking that that’s just weird, but apparently a lot of people do it in Japan. It’s not an internet café like you would think of in the states. Everyone has their own cubicle type thing with a really comfortable chair, tv, and computer . Then you just pay them for however many hours you want to stay there. Some of the more expensive plans include a couch and blankets to sleep with. It’ll be an experience that’s for sure!

Next stop was lunch, since we were all starving. By the way, our group of 6 that we started with is now down to 4. David and Garret wanted to stay in Tokyo for the day so they could catch a big soccer game that was happening tonight. We’ve had pretty good luck picking out restaurants by just walking around and looking inside then at a menu before sitting down. We ran into the same luck today. Possibly one of the best meals we’ve had on this trip so far. It’s kind of hard to describe but basically we sat at this table with an iron hot plate in the middle. Then when our food comes they just put it on the hot plate to continue cooking and keep the food hot. I had some noodle and chicken combination that was amazing. I would have to say that so far Japan has had the best food of any country we’ve been to. With the exception of Peking Duck in Beijing, this could have been one of the best meals I’ve ever had. I officially love Japanese food.

On our quest to conquer every mode of transportation available in Japan, we took a city bus the the main part of the city. Kyoto is a very busy place. There were tons of younger Japanese people everywhere in the area that we were at. All dressed up in their crazy clothes and wild hair. I could easily get a sense that the young population in Japan is very fashionable. Soon after getting off of the bus it started sprinkling/raining off and on. This could continue throughout the night.

Even though it was raining we still wanted to check out this Buddhist temple nearby. I can’t remember the name of it but it was relatively close and is known for how lit up it is at night. As we got there the rain picked up a bit so we all had to buy umbrella’s to walk through this beautiful garden/shrine area. The area was relatively big and took an hour or so to get through it all. Very cool nonetheless.

Chris and Jim are pretty big sushi fans and they’ve been really wanting to have some sushi while in Japan so our next stop was at a random sushi place that the tourist information desk at the train station recommended to us. Like I’ve said before, I’ve never been a big fan of sushi but at the same time I’ve never had good sushi. This place served great sushi and may have turned me into a sushi fan in general. I’m not really sure what I ordered (seems to be a pattern here) but Chris gave me some suggestions that turned out great. The place was cheap as well, so double plus.

The rain seems to have put a damper on the liveliness of the area of Kyoto that we’re in. When we first got here it was happenin but ever since it started raining and night came there’s a lot less people in the streets. This could also be because it’s a Sunday night, oh well. While we were walking around we found this place that sold stuffed crepes. Randi had told me about how awesome this place was and just by looking at one we all instantly knew that we wanted one. It’s basically the same thing as a regular crepe, except it’s stuffed with goodness like ice cream and fruit. They had a variety of different things to put into the crepes, but most of it was desert-oriented. I got one filled with strawberry and vanilla ice cream with real strawberries, bananas, and pears. This thing was so good. They closed shortly after we got one otherwise I might have gotten two.

Arcades seem to be a big thing around Japan so we decided to check one out. This isn’t anything like your stereotypical mall arcade, and there’s a ton of them everywhere so we just picked one. We wanted to just chill and play some pool but they had some ridiculous prices and we’re all broke at this point. They wanted to charge us per person and per table. So we couldn’t rent out one pool table for an hour and just rotate between the 4 of us, we would each have to pay separately. Pretty bogus if you ask me. Anyway, Jim and Kev decided to play a few games while Chris and I checked out the rest of this huge arcade. They had bowling on the top two floors and about every game you could think of on the rest of the floors. After a few hours here we headed to the internet café to turn in for the night. I was on the internet for so long before I decided to go to sleep that I ran out of things to do. Granted I would have had more to do if I was on my own computer. Sad, I know. Being deprived of the internet for 3.5 months when you’re used to spending all day on it isn’t easy! Haha, anyway I got some sleep so we could wake up early to catch an early train to Hiroshima. Sleeping here also saved us each a nice chunk of money so that’s always a plus. All in all, Kyoto is a pretty awesome place to visit. Too bad we don’t have more time in Japan because there’s a ton to do here that we weren’t able to do.