Friday - Day 8 - Kyoto (a.k.a The Kyoto Disagreement)

So I've heard a lot of good things about Kyoto and that wasn't surprising considering it was the nation's capital city for a number of years. It's only 25 minutes from Shin-Osaka station (so about an hour in total from Tom's apartment) and seemed like a good, quick, choice for a day trip out. Friday in Japan was hot though, seriously hot, and waking up dehydrated and sweaty isn't a great start to the day! I've pretty much got the hang of catching trains in Japan now so the journey there was as effortless as it could be (aided by the fact that all I listened to was NFG's cover of "cut the tension" by Lifetime!) and I arrived in Kyoto at 11. The station entrance is pretty standard for Japan and I grabbed something to eat and headed off in search of a sightseeing map. Having found one in direct sunlight I was trying to be quick about it when an elderly Japanese man approached me speaking good English and being polite - and then his talk quickly turned to being a jovah's witness and did I want to talk to him about having a happy life. I did not want to talk to him about having a good life though as it was far too hot and my life has been pretty good so far!

They advise you in the guide books to use the public transport in Kyoto when you head off in search of the various temples but the guide book has been wrong on a number of occassions (such as suggesting that Osaka had a castle and then nothing else to see or do) so I walked it. Five minutes into the walk and I'm hating my life and regretting the walking option, but I didn't want to pussy out and stuck it out for the next hour of aimlessly wandering towards the east of the city in hope of finding something. It seemed like everytime I had a right or left decision, I'd go and choose the wrong one and end up walking back down the road and starting again. This wasnt helped by the fact that I was getting through a 500ml bottle of water every vending machine (a few hundred metres max). Eventually I find the first of the temples, although I have no idea of their names as I wasn't exactly sure where I was, and it had the biggest graveyard attached to it that I have ever seen. Of course the path led me through the graveyard and up into the hills. After a lot of bitching and moaning I made my way through it and into the next temple which was swarming with school children and japanese tourists. I wasn't having a great time. Some would say that I should have stuck it out more but after seeing a few temples I really had seen enough and hot footed it (literally) to the nearest subway station and made my way back to Kyoto station and went back to Osaka.

The night was far better though as we hung out with an American called Brian who lives downstairs from Tom and has been on the JET programme for three years now and he had a lot of interesting things to say and insights into the city and the country.

As I finish writing this we're off to Tokyo and I don't expect to have time to update this until at least Monday night, or maybe even Tuesday morning when I'm waiting at the airport to come home.