Post #8 - October 19, 2012 - Kyoto, Japan

Hi! It's me, Patty writing.

We got into Kyoto this morning at around 8:30am after a long overnight bus trip. The seats were pretty sweet actually, they were more like lazy boy recliners than bus seats. They went as far back as most recliners, and the leg part came up too. They also had these things that were in the shape of bonnets or visors that came down from the top of the seat to block the light from your face. We managed to save a lot of money on accommodations by doing this so that was part of the reason we did it. 

We both slept most of the way, so the ride really wasn't too bad. Don't get me wrong, the night felt like one long nap, but at least the ride was quick. The worst part of the trip was the last hour where we didn't know where on god's green earth we were supposed to get off. So we stayed up half asleep and tried to focus on when to get off, but both of us kept dozing off til the last 20 mins when we knew our stop had to be coming up. 

Once we got off the bus in Kyoto, we were both exhausted but happy to be somewhere different. Just as got off we spotted a McDonalds at the Kyoto Station across the street and headed there to buy some coffees with hopes of finding a place to sit down and plan our route to the hostel. The Japanese love their Mc Donalds, so as it turned out there were no seats left in the place whatsoever... Kyoto Station is enormous! It has 11 floors of visible escalators in one direction, 4 flights of stairs and escalators in the other. Japanese signs are everywhere with packs of people coming at you from every direction. So... picture us walking through this madhouse for about 10 mins trying to find a place to sit while carrying every single one of our belongings; our massive backpacks, our day packs and waterbottle, and sweaters along with our coffees and maps, completely exhausted and still not really all that awake after our night long bus ride. You'd think this would be a situation that could put someone over the edge... well it kind of did. Nobody got hurt, but it was one of those moments in life when you think about pinching yourself cause hey, it could all just be a bad dream. But no, it was real and it was annoying.  I hope I'm painting a picture for you so that perhaps you can somewhat grasp the stress and frustration flooding through us on this particular morning. Well... fast forward through 15 minutes of flashes of red. We have finished our coffees and now have an idea of where we're headed. The clouds part, the sun shines through and some very nice young Japanese guy sees our hostel map and says "hey I'm going there too, come with me. I'll ask how to get there." He ends up escorting us all the way to our hostel. We had a nice chat with him and his friend on our way there. And afterwards, we vowed to only have 3 bags on us at all times while travelling long distances.

Once we got settled at our hostel, we spent some time trying to plan the rest of our trip in Japan. We booked our hostel in Nara and we're now contemplating doing a pilgrimage hike through southern Japan before heading to Hiroshima. We'll have to make a final decision about that tomorrow, but at least Nara is now booked.

We followed Emma's advice and got ourselves all day bus passes which were a great deal, and a pretty convenient mode of transport once we got the hang of how it use the system. We grabbed a quick lunch which consisted of a soup with Tempura and Kyoto's unique Udon Noodles (way better than Tokyo's in our opinion). We shared it and it was very good and quite cheap - 850Yen which is about $10 bucks give or take a bit. 

First stop of the day was Sanjusangendo Temple which is one of the stops Emma and Ivan recommended. It's a pretty amazing temple that has 1001 statues of the Buddhist god Kannon and one huge statue of Kannon in the middle. Unfortunately they were very strict about not taking pictures in there so we didn't get any, but at our next stop Ginkakuji Temple also known as the Silver Pavilion, we more than managed to make up for lost time and took plenty of pictures. Here are some highlights:

Ginkakuji was incredible. It was originally the home of a shogun in the 1400's with several buildings and a huge garden with little bridges and streams all through it, and a vast forest in the far outskirts of the estate. The Japanese really know how to make a place feel peaceful and look beautiful. My favourite part of this place was the forest in the back as shown in the 2nd last pic above. If this place impressed us as the Silver Pavilion I can't wait to see what the Gold Pavilion looks like. We're heading there tomorrow.

Today, we were hoping to also see the Nijojo Castle, but we ran out of time sadly. 

When we got back, we both took some much needed showers and headed to dinner. We had a really nice meal at this random place Jeff picked. I really wish I could remember the name of this type of dish cause it was awesome, but here are some pics of the meal:

So, tomorrow we head to our next hotel for two nights before hitting up Nara. I'm off to bed as it's already 12:42am here. Hope the weather's good for us tomorrow. We're hoping to see 3 more big highlights in Kyoto tomorrow.

Good night :)