Blogs from Gion, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan, Asia

Kyoto, cherry blossom, ultra modern, ultra ancient, temples, zen gardens, canals... read more

Kyoto is long gone, but I will document it as best I can using my Brain and Memory. We stayed in a hostel/sake bar (but never actually got sake there, convenience store/vending machine beer is cheaper) in Gion, the geisha district, which I worked out after noticing that we were surrounded by a surprisingly large number of brothels and 'ladys bars'. We had our first 'Steve' encounter here, more about that later if I can be bothered. The first day we were all pretty pooped, so we spent the day lazing around the manga museum, learning and colouring and reading horror/teenage girl manga. The next day was mildly disappointing, starting with the boring Imperial Palace, followed by the crafts museum, a nice temple where we were too stingy to pay to look at the garden, the ... read more

So, all my followers, I hope you get notified of this latest expedition! Well, I officially left (US Time) at 430AM Thurs morning for the Austin airport and arrived in LAX at 850 (LA time) then Beau and I boarded our plane at 11:30, but sat on the tarmac for an hour...knowing from the start, our plane would be late arriving into Narita (Toyko) we knew there would need to be new arrangements to get to Osaka. Originally, we were meant to connect to Itami, but the plane we were supposed to fly from Narita was the last one to Osaka. Thankfully, we were given vouchers to take a bus to Haneda (Also a Tokyo airport) but it was an hour and a half drive away. We arrived at 730, and were able to check in ... read more

So... Kyoto. "Previously, on A Guy And A Broad..." It was raining. A lot. But it's not anymore, hurrah! With the rain pouring down we camped out for most of the day in our awesome space age little room at the Capsule Ryokan, readin', internettin', nappin' and so forth. Around 2pm we ventured out in our very attractive raincoats and borrowed umbrellas to hunt and gather some lunch. We found a completely empty (always a good sign??) pseudo italian cafeteria type place with an owner who knew two words of English, namely 'chicken' and 'coke'. Guess what we had for lunch? Our fears as to the establishment's dodginess were unfounded as it was actually really really yummy - fresh and tasty - and the guy was super friendly and attentive (eg. running across the restaruant to ... read more

Greetings! I hereby declare myself to be a horrible blogger in the sense that the frequency of my publications is as low as my mother's ability to sit still. And now that I've annoyed at least one reader I shall proceed to more important matters. The last few weekends I have experienced a great deal of things and learned some lessons. One of these is to always get a new glass at an all-night karaoke bar if yours gets broken by a stray american. But I'll get back to that in a moment. The night in question was some time ago, three weeks if my memory cells haven't been completely eradicated by the occasional...ANYWAY, the night started off with a somewhat late welcoming party for the international students where there was food, merrymaking, a lack of ... read more

Good afternoon! I know, I've been slacking off when it comes to blogging but I have a perfectly good excuse! I've been lazy. Last weekend I finally found the BAL building, after first going a kilometre in the wrong direction. And after exiting the building I found that it was right opposite the Soba/Ramen/Tsukemen restaurant that I had visited a month earlier. My ego took a serious hit in the nuts upon learning this, but it was soon cured with a delicious bowl of ramen from said restaurant. Another thing that also made my day a little brighter was the fact that I had finally "found" the BAL building, in which the biggest foreign books department in Kyoto is located. I also discovered a really fancy tea-shop where I spent, from a student's perspective, too much ... read more

I suppose I should make more of an effort to write on here. I've been here about a week, and enjoying myself so far. It took a little longer than I planned to get to Osaka since my flight was delayed and I missed my connection in Seoul. Luckily the airline provided the group of us who missed our connections with a hotel room near the airport and booked us on the first flight the next morning. In the end I only lost a few hours. I got into Osaka and my hostel about 2:00 in the afternoon, dropped off my bag and went out to check out a few neighborhoods. Den Den town, the electronics part of town, but was somewhat disappoining, it didn't compare to Akihabara in Tokyo. Dotombori, a big nightlife, shopping and ... read more