Right...
So the first ever post on this here blog mentioned me being on the shinkansen from Tokyo down to Kyoto. Back to that! It was really neat seeing the landscape change from the tightly knit concrete grids of the city to the classic Japanese mountain landscapes and miles and miles of rice patties. I've made the photo sizes larger after realizing how tiny and nondescript they've been. Sorry!
rolling through tokyo
!! imagine THIS being on your commute to work
I got to Kyoto station sometime around 8 pm. According to the directions on the hostel website, the next mode of transport was a bus. I asked the station master who, to my misfortune, didn't speak a word of English but managed to tell me that the "basu" no longer stopped at that station and that the hostel was about an hour's walk away. By this point, it was night-dark out and seeing as I was a total stranger to this quiet Kyoto suburb, I didn't exactly feel good about wandering. I walked into the local convenience store and struck out again - though the elderly man behind the counter was sweet and as helpful as can be, he also only spoke Japanese.
This was the first time I panicked; my thoughts a blizzard of expletives.
Finally, I mustered up the guts to walk into the local beauty salon to ask for directions. I say guts because I looked absolutely abysmal and the kids working in the salon looked absolutely pristine and shiny. I managed to "sumimasen" my way into their hearts and they called me a cab.
The hostel, as it turned out, was in the middle of nowhere and had the look and feel of a celebrity rehab facility. Here's what I rolled up to:
Through the glass windows, there was what appeared to be a studio with several people doing ballet. That's right. Ballet. I checked in with the same feeling of feeling like the ultimate ugly duckling trekking mud all over this pretty establishment. Not actual mud, of course. That's disgusting. The inside of the hostel was even more impressive than the outside if you can believe that. I threw my things into the corner of my bunk and got lost trying to find the bathroom.
I hung out in the lobby (see above photo) afterward, feeling the need for some sort of social interaction and a hug companion:
I found both! I struck up conversation with a group of 8th graders from Alaska who were on a school sponsored exchange program. I thought that was really cool (despite the fact they were 8th graders). After talking to them for a while about how Japanese food can be sometimes scary and other times amazing, I went back to my room where I met my bunk mate: a student from SAIC! I love art school, sometimes. We chatted it up about things to do in the area and went to bed. She left me a nice note with all her contact info. I should email her...
The next morning, out for a breath of fresh air in the hostel's COURT YARD, I started talking to a guy.
Rob was from Liverpool, which I gathered from the fact that he spoke like a member of the Beatles (you know... that band). He had been traveling all throughout Asia, mostly throughout the south-east. Having no plans for the day, I decided to join him on a day trip up to the orange gates of the Inari Shrines (the inspiration for the similarly colored (but dissimilarly ugly) gates in Central Park all those years back). Neither of us were prepared for the stairs. They were endless...
cat
hi!
We got back to the hostel at around 4 pm where I promptly packed my bags and started off again. I had just gotten off the bus a mere ten minutes before and the bus driver picking me up from the hostel happened to be the same one who dropped me off. He recognized me, and I recognized his dry, monotone beehive drone voice. He would make a really fantastic film character, I think.
My next destination was the neighboring city of Nara - a little day trip taking about an hour and a half to my next home where the rickshaw drivers roam; where the deer and the [japanese school children] play.
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