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Published: August 29th 2009
After waking up around 8:30 and grabbing a quick shower, Sean was ready to get some food, and bad things start to happen if he doesn't get food. We told Jun we wanted to get something for breakfast, and he said that the cheapest and easiest place for morning dining was to go to a grocery store that we had passed the other night looking for the hostel.
He and Sean had a short conversation that ended in us getting a pair of keys. I wasn't sure what they were for, but a few minutes later we were headed out the door. When we got outside, I noticed that Sean was headed towards the bike rack, which, as it turned out, is what the keys were for. Jun had hooked us up with some wheels with sweet rims.
We cruised through Hanazono dodging cars, poles, small children, old people, and made our way to "kyoto Coop." Raisin buns happened to be on sale, so we grabbed a few bags of them as well as a pouch drink for myself, orange juice for Sean, and a milk coffee drink for Jun, knowing that he had liked the coffee from McDonalds
last night.
When we returned to the hostel, Jun was just getting off work, so he returned to our room with us and crashed on one of the unused beds for an hour, saying that we'd head out to go sightseeing after he had slept. About an hour an a half later, after we had all woken up and showered, we walked to the bus stop nearby, where Jun produced 3 all day bus passes for us to use for our sightseeing in Kyoto. Thanks Jun!
The first spot we visited was the Ninnaji temple, a fairly short distance from the hostel itself. Inside were several shrines as well as a pagoda. There was also a garden at the entrance, though we initially passed on it to explore the temple area, as we were getting ready to leave, Jun said that he thought it was his favorite garden in all of Kyoto, and further convinced us to enter by buying us the tickets required to get in. Thanks Jun!
The garden was amazing. I won't try to describe it in detail, I'll let the pictures do the talking. There were three major portions. At the entrance there
Wall Painting
Paint on the walls of the Ninnaji temple.was what I think is a zen garden (the rocks raked in a pattern), then the picturesque traditional Japanese garden complete with waterfall and carp, and finally the shrine itself, though it was mostly closed up. as a place of religious importance, I'll assume that the unwashed masses aren't welcomed inside.
My memory isn't the greatest since I've been slacking on these blog posts, so I may or not be forgetting somewhere we've been, but Sean took pictures everywhere so those'll jog my memory later. Other places we stopped during the day included: a temple I cannot remember the name of (had cool moss gardens), Ryoan-ji (under rennovation), and the golden pavilion.
After our sightseeing, a member of our crew was hungry (no points for guessing who), so Jun took us to an awesome "don" place that offered various rice bowls on the cheap. Rather than having to worry about what to order and likewise, rather than the place having to worry about getting custom orders wrong, this shop had you purchase the meal ticket from a vending machine at the entrance, complete with pictures and sizes of all the available meals. Once the machine printed out your
Buds
Sean, Christopher, and Jun in the Ninnaji gardens. ticket, you simply brought it up to the counter and sat down. This seems like a really easy and efficient way to do "fast food" if you don't mind not being able to say "no pickles."
We returned to the youth hostel at about 4:30pm and Jun mentioned something about driving or having a driver. Sometimes its hard to understand, but we knew there was driving involved. Jun took a power nap (which seems to be a super-power of the Japanese, able to sleep anywhere for any length of time and still wake up in time for whatever they need to do) and at 5pm, we headed up to the hostel's lobby.
Jun was good friends with one of the hostel's staff, who we had actually seen earlier that morning when we had returned from the Kyoto Coop. He and some other people either were just getting ready to or had just finished cleaning the room we were staying in that morning. When he saw us heading for the room with our food and juice, the guy jokingly asked if we had brought the food for him. "For me?" There was a sign at the top of the
Golden Pavilion
Picture of the Golden Pavilion and its mirror pond. stair that said don't go down, cleaning is in progress, but we sort of... uh.. well we ignored it. The room had air conditioning.
Anyway, this guy turned out to be our driver. We had told Jun that we wanted to see the countryside and Jun had asked his friend if he would drive us around Kyoto to see some things that were too far away to walk to and the bus routes didn't go by. So, we all piled into.. some sort of van thing and headed out into the extremely narrow streets. The man obviously knew his way around, taking all sorts of tiny alleyways, dodging cars, bikes, small children, old people. We stopped off at what looked like a butcher shop and were treated to "onion ringed" meat/veggie kebabs, and some sort of solid tater-tot looking thing that tasted like it had meat and potatoes inside. From there, we stopped along side a river with an excellent view of the mountains.
Jun had to work at 6:30pm, so we made our way back after our driver had a smoke break. Along the way, we drove through a bamboo forest on a path I'm pretty sure
Staring
Christopher staring at nothing in particular at the Ninnaji gardens. was intended to be for pedestrians and also drove along a road above the city past rice fields and a house of some importance (it sounded like it was the house of someone related to the imperial family, or maybe it used to be the house of an imperial family member.) Also, before arriving at the hostel, we made a quick stop at the Kyoto Coop where Jun bought some Suntory whiskey and a very sweet sake.
We made it back to the hostel just in time for Jun to head to the front desk. We returned to our room and slept until 10:30ish when Jun got off work, at which point we enjoyed some of the beverages Jun had purchased earlier.
It is worth noting that the whole time, Jun was there explaining things to us, showing us what to do, and basically letting us do things that without him, while we may have been able to figure out, would have been much more difficult. So, once again, thanks Jun!
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Jun is a boss. He carries a magical sack full of everything and anything you might want, including a ridiculous amount of coupons to MakuDo's...which
Thanks Pal!
Mr. Driver, Christopher, and Sean sitting on the edge of the river in Kyoto. i now know to be McDonalds, several bus passes, maps of any area in both japanese and english, more coupons for crazy random food stands, and obviously since its Jun, exactly one beer for everyone in the group.
I've come to decide no amount of air conditioning can make living in Japan worth while. Sure Japan is an amazing place, but by three weeks, i feel like my thermal breaking point will be reached.
Anytime I enter a room I immediately find the air conditioner controls and mash the down arrow button until the number no longer decreases. I don't need to know Japanese to do that much. Turns out 18 degrees celsius isn't satisfying enough. Lingering thoughts of japan's intense heat and humidity take away from any comforts found in the air conditioning of the hostel room.( just like to note my back is drenched from sitting here typing...mom you better enjoy this entry...i'm wasting valuable baby girl searching time)
Honestly i feel like hostels should be much easier to find, especially the Hana Hostel in Hiroshima. Until this point, my superior directional abilities haven't let us down, but Hana proved to be too much(well i
Offering
An offering bowl at the Golden Pavilion. guess not really since we did eventually make it here). And certainly the locals should be more aware of there surroundings. I find it hard to believe that the tackle/bait shop owner 200ft down the street has never heard of the Hana Hostel.
I very much dislike mosquitoes, migraines, and the conspicuously friendly french loitering outside the Hanazono Station. Mosquitoes because they slay our ankles, migraines because they slay my head, and the french because they pose as helpful english speaking alllies (offering maps and words of encouragement) but turn out to be back stabbing jerks using their facade to prey on the unsuspecting traveler. We're onto them now.
105 yen raisin buns and 158 orange juice...yes sir. unfortunately the orange juice doesn't have pulp but i'll settle. protein continues to save my life...i'm considering an upgrade to orange juice and protein instead of water and protein...a little hesitant because i don't want to taint the orange juice.
I also want to thank obento boxes for existing (very delicious and pretty inexpensive, aside from the italian ketchup noodles. oh and thank you to the restaurants that have menu's with pictures.
Moss Garden
A small moss garden at a temple. The name of which I have forgotten. : /
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