Kyoto, Japan - Part II

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We then met up with our friend, Francie, who lives in Osaka. We met her at Nijo Castle, which is a beautiful fortress, and best known for its inornate interiors and nightingale floors. The floors of Nijo Castle were actually pretty cool because they were designed to make bird-like squeaking sounds when walked upon, a warning of possible intruders. Finally we decided to call it quits with the history part of our trip and go shopping with Francie. We went to a very popular area of downtown Kyoto for shopping and got lost in its maze of stores. Here we bought a couple of souvenirs and Melanie bought a cute jacket. After shopping, we headed to a nice restaurant/lounge called "Ki-Chi-Ri"where we had dinner, drinks and delicious desserts. Then we went back to our hotel (yeah, this night we actually stayed in a western-style hotel) and went to sleep.

The next day we got an early start so that we could head to Arashiyama to ride the "Sagano Romantic Train". Unfortunately when we arrived, the next train about to leave was all sold out, so we bought our tickets for the next available train and then walked through the old-fashioned streets to kill some time. We also bought a small bottle of wine to drink as we walked around and did a little shopping. Finally it was time to board the train and so we headed back to the station. The ride was absolutely beautiful as it went through mountains, past bamboo forests and travelled along the Hozu River. Eventually we reached the end of our train ride in a small town known as Kameoka, but our journey was not over just yet. Here, we boarded a small river boat with about 20 other people and headed back towards Arashiyama along the Hozu River. This ride was really great, especially since parts of the river were calm and serene, and other parts were rocky and rapid! We also saw many beautiful mountains, bridges, and even monkeys along the way!! All in all, it was a very exciting day...

We then jumped on the next Shinkansen to head back home to Tokyo. Unfortunately however, our train ride home on the Shinkansen was not as enjoyable as our train ride to Kyoto...mainly because ALL of the seats in the non-reserved section of the train were taken! This means that we were expected to stand in the aisle of the train with all of our luggage for the entire 3-hour ride back! Well, thinking this was unfair since the journey was so long and we had paid nearly $250 each to ride this train, I told Larry to go find us some seats in the reserved section. Eventually the train conductor came by to check tickets and was not happy with us for sitting there once he saw that our tickets were not for reserved seats, but to make a long story short, we were finally able to keep our seats once I lied and told the conductor that I was pregnant and could not physically stand up for that long!!! Haha...probably not the best way to go about things, but when you can't speak the language, ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

We hope you enjoyed our Kyoto adventure!

Love,
Larry and Melanie

Japanese for the Day: Kare wa hidoy yatsu des! ("He's a bastard!")

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