03.10.05, Kyoto

Simo and I take the same train to Kyoto, Joy and Krabak are already there since the early morning because they took the night bus. I am afraid I am boring company because I sleep all the way there. I am still very tired for some reason (which later turns out to be flu).

Joy and Krabak meet us there and we go to a local kaiten-sushi place at the station. Kyoto station has a huge underground shopping arcade with lots of shops and restaurants. Then we go drop our stuff in our respective hotels. Ours is a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) fairly close to the station and we are greeted by a shy-looking middle-aged woman who keeps admiring Krabak's Japanese.

We start walking and find a huge temple. There is a partial moat full of big fish. (Later it turns out that such fish are pretty much are everywhere.) The temple is called Higashi Honganji, and this is a Buddhist temple. You can tell Buddhist temples from Shinto ones by a massive gate and also by the fact that English-language maps usually call the Buddhist ones temples and the Shinto ones shrines.

Both usually have a gate and an inner yard and the main building and some smaller ones. This one also has a big modern building that looks like it is giving birth to little temples.

We take our shoes off and walk in. The inside is golden and almost-empty and lined with tatami. There are passages to the other buildings of the temple.

A covered shopping street. There are many of those all over the country. In the streets old-style and modern-style buildings stand next to each other.

Next thing we find is Nijo castle, which also has a moat and walls with little towers. I like their pond, too.

The main building has a floor that makes birdlike sounds when you walk on it, so that the inhabitants would notice assasins in time. Nightingale floor, they call it.

We want to sit down for a while but it takes a long time to find a bench. When we finally find some benches they are at the highest point of the park and have pretty nice views.

After the castle Joy and Krabak go to the ryokan to take a nap, and Simo and I wander off each in our own directions, although really I am also in need of a nap. However I decide that sightseeing is of a higher priority than napping, because I want to see all the temples. That was before I realized that there are more temples than people in this city. They often mark Buddhist temples with a swastika on the map, and Kyoto map has more swastikas than the Nazi party in 1939.

I get in a bus. Buses here are small and work in mysterious ways: people come in through the back door, take a piece of paper whose purpose is still unclear to me, and put money (220 yen) into a slot when leaving through the front door. I have a 500-yen day pass.

I decide to ride around and see at least the first 30 or 40 temples that way, but it is impossible because often there are temples on both sides of the street at the same time. At some point I become sleepy and decide to get out and see at least some temple properly. It turns out to be Heian Shrine, a Shinto temple in Helsinki subway colors. Apart from the main building and a nice-looking yard with funny trees it has the typical Shinto shrine gate, a hand-washing place and some turrets.

I catch the bus back, have some cake and tea at a cafe at the station and go to the ryokan to pick up Joy and Krabak. We meet Simo, go have some sushi and look for a bar. Finding a bar proves a challenge and we find some cheap food place that also welcomes drinkers, and have fun there.

In the evening we go back to the ryokan. The place has a fairly big room with three futons and a low table. Guests are supposed to leave their shoes by the door, and are given slippers, which are indeed very slippery. In the toilet there are separate toilet slippers. The room also has a water heater and cups and teabags, which is a blessing.

They have emptied their little hot water before its time, do we fill it up again and have a good time there (relaxing in the hot water and chatting, you perverts!).