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Published: September 12th 2006
A Monk at the temple complex in Nara, near Kyoto
A typical example of the Old and new in Japan. Look closely and notice both rosary beads and a walkie talkie in his handsWe arrived in Kyoto somewhat weary after three days of hardcore sightseeing in Tokyo. When we booked our hotel room it appeared that there was not a big price difference between the cheap rooms and something half decent so we booked the Granvia which was pretty fancy, right in Kyoto station and even had a decent pool.
As soon as we got to Granvia we decided to head for the pool, though we nearly didn't make it in. Upon arrivial we were told to read the rules, which said that no tatoos were allowed. Fortunately after flashing our tats we were allowed access, but not without being given sexy purple swimming caps to wear.
Our second day involved a trip to Gion which is the old part of Kyoto and the part where the Geisha work, it's full of really old tea houses and if you have ever seen Memoires of a Geisha it really looks the way the film shows it. We decided to head back to Gion in the evening as our friend Lorraine had recently been and suggested a route that involved walking through the old part of Gion (Lorraine had even spotted a Geisha on
Attack of the purple helmets
Our required head gear by the pool at our hotel her trip which made us even keener to try it). We had seen what we thought were Geisha during the day but plenty of women wear the kimonos without them actually being Geisha. Our walk did not disappoint and it was not long until we actually saw a fully made up Geisha, with the white face, the hair piece etc. It was pretty unbelieveable to see and Matt actually did a double take (which we later remembered from the film is the sign of a good Geisha).
It's pretty hard to find places to eat in Japan as the restaurants all advertise their food in Japanese (funny that!), you may be lucky enough to get a picture that enables you to sort of work out what's on offer. I am a pretty fussy eater with regards to meat and would rather starve than eat Chicken Gizzards or something similar so in Gion when we saw a restaurant with English menu I thought we should go in, the cover charge instantly made Matt wary but I didn't care. After eating they basically tied to rip us off by overcharging us and the price suddenly dropped when we complained. So a
Would you like me to rinse the ring now Michael ??
The Knightrider of the toilet world in our hotel room. It warms the seat, cleans both front and rear bottoms, provides free odour and 512 mb Broadband connection (ok i lied about the last one) lesson learnt by me!!
Our third day in Kyoto was lovely and sunny and we decided to head to Nara which is an area with loads of temples. It was beautiful, one temple in particular was really high up with a fantasic view where you could see mountains and other temples, it was exactly what I expected Japan to look like. At the temple you could pay you to write your hope on a wooden stick which you then put in a box and it should come true (it was pretty cheap hence us being sucked in!!) Matt saw the offer as the opportunity, not to make some profound wish, but to promote our World tour!
On Saturday we spent our final day in Kyoto. We visited a little out of the way village and had a lovely Beef curry before going back to Kyoto station to make the trip to the airport, we had a hotel booked close to the station as our flight for Bangkok (via Hong Kong) was due to leave at 10am on Sunday (10th Sept).
We have both really enjoyed Japan, it wasn't as expensive as we feared, food was pretty cheap,
Carla Contemplating.......
...during a hard day of temple exploring in Nara though transport and accommodation are pretty steep. It was a good way to ease us into travelling though, the Japanese were always very helpful and never hassled us on the streets for anything, no-one ever asked us for money (without doing something for us!). So onto Bangkok where I have a feeling things may be slightly different.....
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Linda & Steve
non-member comment
Japan
It sounds as though it was everything you hoped it would be - and to see a Geshia while you were there - we envy you both - carry on enjoying it and carrying on looking after each other - Love to you both