Kyoto
We got the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Kyoto and it took a greand total of 17 minutes! The hostel we are staying in is ace. The guy who owns it had travelled all around the world on his motorbike and thought he would try and make it a bit easier for foreigners in Japan and it:s definately working.. Lots of tea and coffe and curtains around your bed and kimonos to try on and a beer machine! The fridge talks to you and tells you off if you leave the door open and the hot water pot sings a song when it:s boiled. I keep thinking I am used to this country but a good few times a day I spot something that makes me wonder why not every country works like this..
We visited a shrine to Inari, the Shinto goddess of Rice. People go there, pray to the gods and then go to the souvenir shops inside the temple to buy treats. Some of the shops have been there for generations! There is a walkway right up to the top of the hill behind the shrine which is lined with hundreds and hundreds of orange gates. People (often companies as they are quite expensive) pay for them in order to receive good luck in their trade. We didn:t even make it half way up the hill as there were so many!
The evening we got to Kyoto we met a few people in the hostel and we all decided to go out for a drink. We walked for miles and could hardly find anything.. We found one bar which was down some stairs and we all went in to find the smallest bar I:ve ever seen. We got our drinks (only Heineken or Sake available) and noticed a vending machine with 'Variety goods' inside so we asked what was in there and the barmaid told us "sexy goods!" Of course we wanted to know if you really could get knickers from a vending machine but 1000yen seemed like a lot of money to find out so we didn:t. The barmaid seemed to have formed an impression of us though because she proceeded to pull out some "sexy DVDS" and put them on. We left pretty soon after.
The best thing we have done in Japan so far is go to the Sumo! There happens to be a tournament on in Osaka at the moment and as it only takes (exactly) 17 minutes to get back there we decided to go. We got the cheapest tickets which mean you don:t have a seat but you can sit wherever you like until whoever the seat belongs to turns up and you have to move. We spent most of the afternoon sat right near the front where we had an excellent view of the Dohyu (the ring) and all the wrestlers. We were sitting next to a group of old ladies who kept smiling at us a lot and pointing out their favourite wrestlers and getting us to clap for the right ones. They gave us a bag of food (which you can order if you:ve paid for the posh seats) full of Japanese treats - rice balls, chestnuts, sesame pancake sticks, unidentifiable vegetables etc. It was great! They also gave us a programme so we could match up who was wrestling to who was in the book. Before each rank of wrestlers comes out, they have a ceremony where they all come out at once and have their huge aprons on, each one is worth a lot of money so only the highest paid wrestlers have them. We got kicked out of our seat just as the highest ranks were coming out and we happened to be in the aisle as the HUGE guys came past us. It was a little bit scary but really cool to see them so close. Lots of people were trying to touch them and things cos they are really really famous. The Yokozuna (top wrestler) came right by us with his huge heavy belt on for his ceremony. We stayed to watch every match right up to the Yokozuna (each match only takes about 5 minutes) and when he won it all the crowd went mental and started throwing their cushions at the loser. I never thought Sumo could be so much fun!
Yesterday we went to Hiroshima (only 2 hours on the Shinkansen, 6 hours on regular trains!) for the day. The A-bomb dome was very imposing. While we standing in the peace park looking at it an old lady came up to us and asked us (She had a piece of card with it written in all different languages) if she could pray for us. We said sure why not and she did, then she told us that our blood had been purified. Which was nice.
The Peace Memorial Museum was very interesting and really sad in places. It was quite draining seeing all the artifacts and pictures drawn by survivors. The main theme was that nuclear mustn:t be in existance at all. The mayor of Hiroshima writes to every country that conducts tests every single time and urges them not to continue. Outside of the museum, Hiroshima is a lovely city. It is a much more manageable size (about a million people) and has a really nice atmosphere.
We met a Japanese family at the hostel who asked us what Japanese food we liked and then told us that Ramen is actually Chinese not Japanese. Oh the shame.
We visited a shrine to Inari, the Shinto goddess of Rice. People go there, pray to the gods and then go to the souvenir shops inside the temple to buy treats. Some of the shops have been there for generations! There is a walkway right up to the top of the hill behind the shrine which is lined with hundreds and hundreds of orange gates. People (often companies as they are quite expensive) pay for them in order to receive good luck in their trade. We didn:t even make it half way up the hill as there were so many!
The evening we got to Kyoto we met a few people in the hostel and we all decided to go out for a drink. We walked for miles and could hardly find anything.. We found one bar which was down some stairs and we all went in to find the smallest bar I:ve ever seen. We got our drinks (only Heineken or Sake available) and noticed a vending machine with 'Variety goods' inside so we asked what was in there and the barmaid told us "sexy goods!" Of course we wanted to know if you really could get knickers from a vending machine but 1000yen seemed like a lot of money to find out so we didn:t. The barmaid seemed to have formed an impression of us though because she proceeded to pull out some "sexy DVDS" and put them on. We left pretty soon after.
The best thing we have done in Japan so far is go to the Sumo! There happens to be a tournament on in Osaka at the moment and as it only takes (exactly) 17 minutes to get back there we decided to go. We got the cheapest tickets which mean you don:t have a seat but you can sit wherever you like until whoever the seat belongs to turns up and you have to move. We spent most of the afternoon sat right near the front where we had an excellent view of the Dohyu (the ring) and all the wrestlers. We were sitting next to a group of old ladies who kept smiling at us a lot and pointing out their favourite wrestlers and getting us to clap for the right ones. They gave us a bag of food (which you can order if you:ve paid for the posh seats) full of Japanese treats - rice balls, chestnuts, sesame pancake sticks, unidentifiable vegetables etc. It was great! They also gave us a programme so we could match up who was wrestling to who was in the book. Before each rank of wrestlers comes out, they have a ceremony where they all come out at once and have their huge aprons on, each one is worth a lot of money so only the highest paid wrestlers have them. We got kicked out of our seat just as the highest ranks were coming out and we happened to be in the aisle as the HUGE guys came past us. It was a little bit scary but really cool to see them so close. Lots of people were trying to touch them and things cos they are really really famous. The Yokozuna (top wrestler) came right by us with his huge heavy belt on for his ceremony. We stayed to watch every match right up to the Yokozuna (each match only takes about 5 minutes) and when he won it all the crowd went mental and started throwing their cushions at the loser. I never thought Sumo could be so much fun!
Yesterday we went to Hiroshima (only 2 hours on the Shinkansen, 6 hours on regular trains!) for the day. The A-bomb dome was very imposing. While we standing in the peace park looking at it an old lady came up to us and asked us (She had a piece of card with it written in all different languages) if she could pray for us. We said sure why not and she did, then she told us that our blood had been purified. Which was nice.
The Peace Memorial Museum was very interesting and really sad in places. It was quite draining seeing all the artifacts and pictures drawn by survivors. The main theme was that nuclear mustn:t be in existance at all. The mayor of Hiroshima writes to every country that conducts tests every single time and urges them not to continue. Outside of the museum, Hiroshima is a lovely city. It is a much more manageable size (about a million people) and has a really nice atmosphere.
We met a Japanese family at the hostel who asked us what Japanese food we liked and then told us that Ramen is actually Chinese not Japanese. Oh the shame.
posted by alicestronaut at 12:46 am
1 Comments:
Sounds like you're having an ace time in Japan. I wanna see Sumo wrestlers! I bet you wanted to touch their bottoms alice didn't you!?! I would have! Have a a wicked time in your last week and have a safe journey home. Miss you! xxx
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