From Bladerunner to Roadrunner we have made the journey from Toyko to Kyoto with style, comfort and speed. Our hitch-hiking went amazingly well, ending with us being dropped outside the hostel by a very kind couple at precisely the earliest moment we were allowed to book in. This was especially good of them seeing as they wer'nt even going to Kyoto, and brilliant for us as we were dog-tired after a late night at Mochan's with his friends.
Our first experience of Kyoto, bastion of Japanese culture and history, was to attend a free Hawaiian hula concert in the train station, which I though was typcal of us. No doubt when we get to Beijing we shall see a Highland Fling.
The evening was spent doing some intial exploring, and of course some sampling of the local fayre at a delicious restaurant on the edge of downtown that was mostly vegetarian and which presented Ellen and I with 7 sumptuous courses of bite-sized deliciousness. We walked it off by tracking down Pontocho, an old 1-street district famed for its geishas and tea houses and which has been of great interest to Ellen as the noren that she has had for many years depicts a geisha from that very area. All in all a top way to break ourselves in to the cultural capital of Japan.
Sunday morning, and a study of the guide book presented an overwhelming number of fantastic things to visit, way too many to complete in our time here and with no way of discriminating we decide to head off in a random direction and stumble over temples and shrines on the way. Ellen has the notion to hire bicycles, and this idea is a real winner: 3 quid for the day gets us easily the best form of transport for this place - it is very slow going by car or bus, the underground is very expensive, and everything is quite spread out making walking unrealistic for the further away places. On the bikes we found that it was normal to go on road or pavement, whichever was most convenient at the time, that road signals did not seem to apply to cyclists, and that both cars and pedestrians accomodate cyclists very well. Heaven, as we sped through alleys and main roads alike going from temple to garden to cafe yesterday and today, taking in some truly magnificent sites. Major destinations covered so far include the huge 7th century Kiyomizu-dera temple complex complete with magickal waterfall, and Nijo Castle built by the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo period; and of course the main food market which contained wonderous and odd things. I saw a cafe menu offering a Humberger Steak and wondered (those of you who have read Lolita may be able to help me here) whether this was a typo or whether the item in question was in fact veal.
Tomorrow we hope to go to the nearby Nara for the day, the first capital of Japan and reputedly very beautiful indeed with treasures set into great wooded parks. We have also extended our stay in Kyoto by 1 day becuase the Korea ferry was fully booked, meaning that we now depart Japan on 17th September. I seem to never want to leave any of the places we have been to (except Poland of course), but thankfully can always rely on my fickleness to make the next place 'the best ever'! I love to get under the skin of the places we go to, which of course takes time but is so much more rewarding than skimming the surface. I am sure that years must be spent in Japan to do this and we will get virtually nowhere in 1 month, but what a fantastic month it is proving to be anyway! If you are going to skim the surface this is a fairly ideal place to do it in.