Japan, Day 5
It's not as fun to wander around a foreign country by yourself, so I met back up with B and E on Thursday. Rather than try to find each other without the benefit of cell phones or solid landmarks, we simply took the same train and reserved adjacent seats.
Our destination was Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. We successfully met on the train, and the first matter of business was to drop our luggage off at the hotel. Due to how late I booked my trip, I wasn't able to get the same hotel as my friends - rooms which were available as I began the booking process actually disappeared before I finished. Their hotel was a little pricey, so it wasn't a huge loss, but I was having a hard time finding other close, cheap alternatives. Then I tried looking under other categories on the travel sites, and quickly found the Chita Guest Inn listed under hostels.
Finding it online was much easier than finding it in the real world, mostly because I forgot to print a map and my written directions weren't detailed enough. I had to wander around while my friends waited, and had no luck asking random people for directions. Finally I got luck and found a big map; most of it was in Japanese but the Chita Guest Inn was in English. Lucky!
My friends dropped off their stuff, and we went to Fushimi Inari shrine, dedicated to the Shinto god of rice. Before we explored the shrine, we grabbed lunch and got kitsune udon - kitsune are thought to be messengers of Inari, and are said to favor a fried tofu dish called aburaage, so it was udon with fried tofu. Better than I expected, and a bit sweet.
Fushimi Inari is known for its orange torii (the color balance of my camera was off and captured them as red), and boy were there a lot of them. Even though we were outside, some sections of the path were so dense with gates that they were effectively hallways, with almost no space between successive torii. Each gate was inscribed with what looked like a year (probably of construction) on the right and a message on the left.
Although there was a longer hike with more gates to see, we didn't go further than the lake due to time constraints. Our next stop was Kiyomizudera, which we got to shortly before closing time. There were a bunch of visually impressive artifacts, but the temple didn't seem to have much in English, so I was left feeling that I was missing out on a lot of stuff.
Our last tourist stop for the day was the Gion district, where we got some ice cream. Gion looked like what I imagine a Disney-ish recreation of an old Japanese town would look like - narrow streets, short buildings, lit by many small lights at night. We actually missed the ice cream place when we passed it because it looked nothing like an ice cream shop, it seemed more like a hotel. This place had fresh ice cream in traditional Japanese flavors like roast soybean, green tea, and mugwort. To be honest, I'm not convinced they work in ice cream, I'm not sure it was worth the trip.
Dinner was beef bowls at Sukiya, an inexpensive chain restaurant recommended by V. Unfortunately, E was feeling very sick and didn't feel up to eating, so B and I chowed down quickly and they went back to their hotel to rest. It turned out E was suffering from heat exhaustion, and simply taking a shower perked him up. Travel tip of the day: Stay hydrated and cool! I was easily going through two or three liters of water per day.
Our destination was Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. We successfully met on the train, and the first matter of business was to drop our luggage off at the hotel. Due to how late I booked my trip, I wasn't able to get the same hotel as my friends - rooms which were available as I began the booking process actually disappeared before I finished. Their hotel was a little pricey, so it wasn't a huge loss, but I was having a hard time finding other close, cheap alternatives. Then I tried looking under other categories on the travel sites, and quickly found the Chita Guest Inn listed under hostels.
Finding it online was much easier than finding it in the real world, mostly because I forgot to print a map and my written directions weren't detailed enough. I had to wander around while my friends waited, and had no luck asking random people for directions. Finally I got luck and found a big map; most of it was in Japanese but the Chita Guest Inn was in English. Lucky!
My friends dropped off their stuff, and we went to Fushimi Inari shrine, dedicated to the Shinto god of rice. Before we explored the shrine, we grabbed lunch and got kitsune udon - kitsune are thought to be messengers of Inari, and are said to favor a fried tofu dish called aburaage, so it was udon with fried tofu. Better than I expected, and a bit sweet.
Fushimi Inari is known for its orange torii (the color balance of my camera was off and captured them as red), and boy were there a lot of them. Even though we were outside, some sections of the path were so dense with gates that they were effectively hallways, with almost no space between successive torii. Each gate was inscribed with what looked like a year (probably of construction) on the right and a message on the left.
Although there was a longer hike with more gates to see, we didn't go further than the lake due to time constraints. Our next stop was Kiyomizudera, which we got to shortly before closing time. There were a bunch of visually impressive artifacts, but the temple didn't seem to have much in English, so I was left feeling that I was missing out on a lot of stuff.
Our last tourist stop for the day was the Gion district, where we got some ice cream. Gion looked like what I imagine a Disney-ish recreation of an old Japanese town would look like - narrow streets, short buildings, lit by many small lights at night. We actually missed the ice cream place when we passed it because it looked nothing like an ice cream shop, it seemed more like a hotel. This place had fresh ice cream in traditional Japanese flavors like roast soybean, green tea, and mugwort. To be honest, I'm not convinced they work in ice cream, I'm not sure it was worth the trip.
Dinner was beef bowls at Sukiya, an inexpensive chain restaurant recommended by V. Unfortunately, E was feeling very sick and didn't feel up to eating, so B and I chowed down quickly and they went back to their hotel to rest. It turned out E was suffering from heat exhaustion, and simply taking a shower perked him up. Travel tip of the day: Stay hydrated and cool! I was easily going through two or three liters of water per day.