More Kyoto and then Shizuoka

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June 8th 2006

Published: June 9th 2006

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Amanda and Robert

A nice picture

Some lady came up and offered to take our picture in front of the golden temple

We got up and out of bed at about 10 and went to Kyoto Station. We found the Vie De France bakery and loaded up on bread. Everyone else was getting one or two pieces we got like 5. We would run across peach buns, and then they would bring out some chocolate thing and I would have to have one while they were warm. Needless to say we looked like pigs, but whatever. We have been walking an average of 8 miles a day. I can eat all the damn bread I want.

So from there we went to Inari to see all those red Tori. This is the shrine in the Memoirs of a Geisha movie when the girl is running through those red arch looking things. They built them 4 kilometers up this mountain. Amanda complained that she wanted to walk all the way to the top. I told her if she became Buddhist I would bring her back and she could walk until she hit nirvana. But today I wasn’t gonna walk 2 miles up a damn mountain just to see what was at the top. So that shrine was nifty, after about 300 or so

The first tori

One of many that we got to see

of the red thingies I was done. We got back on the train and headed back to Kyoto.

We then took the bus to the golden palace and botanical gardens. This was kinda neat, but also a tourists trap. It was 400 yen to get in each. We walked around for a bit and then got attacked again by the gaijin hunters. This time they were doing a school group project (we see these kids everywhere in their school uniforms. When do they go to school?) and had to ask us a few questions. They love to practice their English. I heard them coming one said in Japanese “just walk up to them and say excuse me”. I knew there was no avoiding it then. So they came up and asked us stuff like our names and where we were from, how long we were in Japan and where our favorite place was. They did pretty good actually. Then they asked for a picture, so we got one with them. So far were now parts of 2 school projects. The funniest part is at the end when Amanda surprises them with asking them a question in Japanese, their reactions

Another cool shot

are pretty classic. After the attack we walked on taking pictures and what not.
We started back to Kyoto station and then it started to rain. We ducked into a café and I tried to get a chocolate shake. I ended up getting an iced coffee shake because I thought it was chocolate. I’ve done this twice now. I hate coffee. It stops raining and we continue our journey back. We got to the station and went to Shizuoka. Our hotel was hidden but with a little walking and some help from and information desk we found it. It was unmarked and we ended up walking buy it twice. We decided to eat a little snack and watch some to unwind. It was a very quiet night, this place is not in the travel guide and I don’t think we saw a single white person, I liked it though. Japanese TV is just plain weird.

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