'lo,
I know it hasn't been long since my last post but I'm off on the road again, and thought an update couldn't do any harm.
So...Kyoto was really nice. The evening after my last post was spent with a German couple and two unrelated Taiwanese people at the hostel. We were all in the lounge/my bedroom, knocking back complimentary sake (at least the first pitcher was complimentary, and then we sort of helped ourselves) and dressing up in the kimono that was enigmatically present. The following morning I relocated to another hostel with an actual bed available for the next three nights.
The two Taiwaneans (?) – Tasha and Ferri – invited me to go to Nara with them for the day. We caught a train to the small town and looked around the many shrines and temples – eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The most impressive is Todai-ji, the largest wooden building in the world containing the largest bronze statue; a sixteen-metre tall, 437-ton Buddha. We also went to a sake brewery and tried different versions of the rice wine, including some fruit-flavoured numbers and even sparkling sake! In the evening we went out for a traditional Japanese meal and I ordered the unfortunately titled "octopus balls".
The next couple of days were very wet, so I spent most of the time in cafés looking artistically melancholy. However, I did manage to visit a few sites – and indeed see a few sights – including the famous Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion Temple) and the Imperial Palace. I also went to a sento (public bath) where you undress in the locker room, take a naked lift up to the third floor and either bathe with the Japanese people staring inquisitively at your genitals, or watch television in the lounge (still in the nip). Bizarre. Apparently there is a sento in Tokyo that's mixed-gender!
The weather was slightly better on Sunday so, having moved back into my original hostel, I spent the day exploring a beautiful area of Kyoto called Arashiyama. There was a little temple called Takiguchi-dera with a real-life Romeo & Juliet tale behind it:
A nobleman was forced into the priesthood by his father after showing an interest in the peasant consort. One day she came to the temple with her flute to serenade him, but he told her they could not be together. She consequently wrote him a farewell sonnet on a stone, in her own blood, and tossed herself into the river.
The stone is still at the temple, and supposedly the blood is visible by moonlight, but the place closes at four so I'm cynical. In the evening, Taiwesian (?) Tasha, Singaporean Chua, two Swedish guys, a Japanese girl and I went out for dinner and drinks. As the others were engrossed in Mandarin and Swedish conversation, I began chatting to the Japanese girl and discovered that she lived in England for ten months – on the road adjacent to me in Bournemouth! Small world.
Yesterday morning I went to the doctors. I have had a perpetual cold since Nepal, which isn't a huge problem, but I have also gradually been losing my hearing, and am now at the point of needing an ear trumpet to hold any kind of conversation. The doc told me that I had contracted some exotic fever and plied me with drugs – fifty pills to last me five days! Afterwards I went to explore Nijo-jo castle and got talking to a German woman called Honne. We spent the afternoon looking at more shrines and temples (the things are endless) and found a stepping-stone path across the river, so ended up having childish races from bank to bank. As it was my and Sam's (Swedish guy) last evening in Kyoto a huge group of us went out to a Japanese bar for the night. I had a bizarre cocktail comprised of half beer and half tomato juice, then we rushed back to the hostel for the 11pm curfew.
So this morning I am catching my first shinkansen to Himeji – home of 'Japan's most beautiful castle' – and on to Hiroshima. The trip should be refreshingly short, as the train travels at around 300km/h*. To put that in perspective, the same technology in England would allow you to travel directly from London to Manchester in under fifty minutes. Or indeed Manchester to London, if you're that way inclined.
I shall post again sometime. In the future. Obviously.
'ye,
Joe x
* There is actually an experimental shinkansen that has reached 581km/h.
