We checked out of the New Osaka Hotel and headed for the station. In the hotel, I noticed the escalator was going the opposite direction than the night prior. I guess it changes depending on whether its check in or check out time. At the station, the delicious scent of belgian waffles struck my nose so I bought what I guess you would call a belgian waffle cream sandwich. It had strawberry cream between two rectangular belgian waffle slices. Needless to say it was very delicious. Ever since departing Tokyo, getting around and finding the right train has been more difficult. After stumbling around for awhile, I finally found the shinkansen we were to board.
The ride was only about 15 minutes to Kyoto from Shin-Osaka Station. We found our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) and dropped off our bags to go explore until check in time. We took the subway to a station where we transferred to another subway to arrive near the Gion District. Here we browsed just about every shopping street in sight at the request of Okaasan. We ate lunch in a little western style cafe and I had fried chicken and a melon soda. The last melon soda I had was in Tokyo, and it came from a tap. It is quite possibly the most delicious soda I've ever had.
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| Ryokan Tomiya, crammed along side the rest of the buildings across from the station. |
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| Our room in the ryokan. Not super spacious, but still nice. |
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| A shopping street in the Gion District. Also, a perfect example of how cars will take any street, |
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| メロンソーダ! (Melon Soda!) |
I'm glad to be leaving soon, as there is not much for me outside of Tokyo. Osaka was okay, but was harder to navigate (surprisingly). I definitely want to return to Tokyo to study as soon as possible. I would make a great Tokyoite. Maybe one day I'll be an expat, even.
A few random notes: I noticed nearly everywhere in Japan, cars typically aren't off limits. They'll go down the narrowest streets while people scurry to the edges to get out of the way. Also, vending machines and convenience stores are in incredible abundance. On nearly every corner and in between you'll find one of each. I'm convinced that AKB48 is the most popular musical group in Japan. I've seen posters, CDs, magazines, books, merchandise stores, cafes, and more with their faces and logos plastered all over. I've honestly never looked much into them; perhaps I'm missing out on something? In Japan, everyone waits at the crosswalk for the light to change no matter how short and how few of cars are around. It could be a 5 foot long crosswalk with no cars around and no one would cross it until the green light comes about. Apparently, according to my made up stats, 85% of Japanese would rather funnel into and take the escalator than walk up the stairs. This is a real pain when you have large luggage and all these people with perfectly working legs and NO luggage are crowding the lift. I'm still amazed at the sheer amount of beautiful girls here. Even older women, upwards of 35, look stunningly gorgeous. Perhaps I just don't pay attention in America, but everyone here seems 10 times more fashionable and stylish here. I enjoy myself here so much, you'd think I was born into the wrong race, country, family, what have you.
Moving along, I finally found the tea I was looking for. I bought quite the large package of hojicha in fact, and it was in a shopping center in the Kyoto Tower Hotel. Next to the station outside of the Kyoto Granvia Hotel, was some kind of traditional dancing festival or sorts. It was done entirely by students, and it was all very interesting. I later translated the cover of the program and found out its called, "Yosakoi."
Dinner at the ryokan was interesting, to say the least. 3 or 4 different people brought it into our room at a time, dish after dish. It all looked amazing, but most of it was too odd for me to eat. We decided to sneak what we didn't want to eat out in a plastic bag, so as to not seem rude that we wouldn't touch a lot of it. Okaasan and Obasan ate a lot more of it than I did though, so don't write them off entirely.
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| Dinner, served in our room. |
We went out shopping to kill time until the beds would be made and the food cleared from our room. On the way back, I saw my first gyaru girl (look it up). I was surprised I didn't see any in Harajuku, Tokyo actually. We also explored JR Kyoto Station, which to say the least is amazing.
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| Kyoto Station from the first floor. There's a long set of escalators on the right that lead up to the following picture. |
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| The view from the top of the station, called Sky Garden. |
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| The futons laid out for sleepy-time. |
Until then,
Daniel
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| This vending machine actually heats the food in front of you in a microwave of sorts. |
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