04.10.05, Kyoto

We wake up, have a breakfast in - you'll never believe it - the kaiten-sushi place and go to the Kinkakuji temple, which is famous for its gold-covered building. It's raining all the time. I have a flu and am miserable, and keep drinking hot fluids all the time, with the predictable results. Luckily Japan has a fair lot of public toilets, fewer than Hong Kong but a lot more than I expected. Most of them even have bowls, at least in one cabin.

We keep running from temple to temple. It is tiring but the temples are stunning.

Temples usually have some kiosks next to them where you can buy food and lucky charms. There are lucky charms for every occasion and purpose, such as traffic safety or school exams. At some temple they sell some powder that becomes a salty hot soup if you mix it with hot water. It tastes meaty but is in fact some kind of seaweed.

Ryoanji temple has a big outdoor area with pond and a real rock garden, which is rather unimpressive, especially in comparison with temples' "regular gardens". But at least we escape from rain there for a while.

At some point we get a novel idea: I should buy an umbrella. I am not sure of it, because no umbrella has ever survived a day with me, but Joy and Krabak assure me that they'll try to remind me not to forget the damn thing everywhere, and I spend 300 yen for a transparent umbrella. Kind of too late, I am already wet.

In Daitokuji temple we see a real live monk, and it starts raining even more. There is also a little bamboo forest, which I have always wanted to see.

I lean on the umbrella at some point, and now I have a bow-shaped umbrella. Bugger.

Some temples are free, in some the grounds are free but you have to pay 300-600 yen to get into the buildings.

In the evening we decide to eat Something That Is Not Sushi and go a Chinese place. I don't recognize it as Chinese until I am told at is, and I don't recognize the food as Chinese even after I eat it, but it is quite OK anyway. Then we have some cheesecake which is, luckily, recognizable as cheesecake.

I am going to Hiroshima, Joy and Krabak are going back to Tokyo, Simo is staying in Kyoto.

At the station I guiltily stuff the bow-shaped umbrella into the only trashcan that is marginally big enough.

In Tokyo people stand on the left and pass on the right when on an escalator. In Kyoto they do it the other way around. In other cities I give up on guessing and just look at what others do. By the time I get back to Helsinki I have forgotten how it goes there.

Japanese public toilets are usually just holes in the floor, but the vast majority of them also have at least one cabin with a real bowl. They either have a picture of it on the door, or the words "western style", or the corresponding Japanese kanji. When there is a bowl it is usually very high-tech, with a lot of buttons that explain what they do in pure Japanese. Often the buttons also have pictures. This toilet at Kyoto railway station is a bit unusual in that there is a picture that clearly hints at music. Joy was wondering about their mp3 selection but did not dare to try. Now I am wondering whether they had Ring of fire.

The train from Kyoto to Hiroshima is even nicer than the one from Tokyo to Kyoto. By the time I reach Hiroshima, almost 700 km from Tokyo, I realize that all this stuff about different cities in Japan is just for the tourists and people who want to run for mayor. There is just Tokyo. It never ends, never. Its outlying centers might be called Kyoto or Osaka or Kobe, but there is no space at all dividing the cities. Ever.

Hiroshima station is most confusing, and maps are hard to find. It also looks rather deserted. After some wandering around I buy some sandwiches and tissues and check into hotel Flex, where I have a reservation.

Just like the ryokan where we stayed the previous night, Flex is very good. It costs about 45 euros a night, can be found in the hostel listings and has small rooms, but the bed is good and the air conditioner works and there is a TV and all the tea-making equipment that one can need. There is even a fridge - not a minibar but a fridge that does not contain anything except whatever you put in it.

I make tea, more tea, yet more tea and go to bed.