Though I wanted to go to Kyoto since I picked up our JR passes at the start of the vacation, I wasn't sure whether or not we would actually get around to it. Since we were both getting pretty tired of the constant hustle and bustle of Tokyo, we decided it might be interesting to finally check out something different. Making reservations for the train went without a hitch, and once again my Japanese ability really helped out. In fact, for those of you planning travel here in the near future with no experience in the language, I HIGHLY suggest planning your route using hyperdia.com, then writing down the name and number of the train you want to make reservations for. This will save the ticket agent some grief as they struggle with trying to figure out how to convert your English into Japanese - it also makes sure you receive the ticket you're expecting.
This time, I made sure we had non-smoking tickets, as the last time I was on the Shinkansen, last year, getting stuck in a smoking car was one of the worst experiences of that vacation. Not being able to breathe for hours at a time as dozens of Japanese salarymen all light up their cigarettes and cigars, with little to no ventilation in the train car, was disgusting. If I get lung cancer, I'm blaming you, Japan. So yeah, that's another thing...unless you like secondhand smoke, RESERVE YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE FOR THE SHINKANSEN!
Anyways, this Shinkansen ride went a lot faster than the last one, and the train emptied out sooner as well. The countryside scenery was just as pretty as last time, and I spent the time listening to J-Pop on my iPod as I watched the countryside pass by. Strangely enough, I really didn't get a good view of Mt. Fuji this time, as I was on the wrong side of the train.
The trip to Kyoto took roughly 3 hours, and when we finally rolled into the station it felt great to get off the train. We didn't really have a plan as to what we wanted to do in Kyoto, so we just started walking. Unfortunately, apparently the direction we headed - south - was the wrong direction to head if you were interested in seeing temples, shrines...or really anything at all besides light commercial and residential streets. There was one bright spot, I suppose, in that we found an electronics store called "Jashin" which had a large used game and peripheral section. I even found a rare Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Fight Stick, which I immediately snapped up, along with a white gamecube controller to match the Wii. Now...keep in mind, this store's selection was great, but it had a problem. A big problem.
The store was a big supporter of the region's pro baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers. Why is this a problem? Well, they have a cheer. A 30 second long Hanshin Tigers Cheer. And this cheer was broadcast over the speakers - on repeat. Now granted, when I worked at K-Mart back in college, I used to get sick of hearing the same Wilson Phillips and Phil Collins songs, but at least they didn't repeat EVERY THIRTY SECONDS. To give you an idea of how annoying this was, here is the Hanshin Tiger cheer in its entirety. It hurts. It hurts. IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My theory is their reasons for broadcasting the cheer are twofold: first, to support the team, and second, to stop gaijin from spending too much time buying stuff in their store. If they were indeed trying to drive us out, congratulations! It worked.
So after purchasing our stuff and fleeing Jashin, we came across a restaurant. It was located in the lobby of a small hotel, and had Japanese lanterns posted listing most of the trademark dishes of the country (so I figured we could find something here that we both could eat - like the Japanese equivalent of a Denny's). Oh, how wrong I was. Upon sitting down, the waitress brought us cups of water and tea. Lisa's tea cup had lipstick on it... lots of lipstick, like it wasn't even washed. Then we noticed a bug crawling across the table...and decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to eat much here.
This left me in a bit of a bind. Since they brought us complimentary tea already, I couldn't just get up and leave without buying something. And neither one of us wanted food poisoning, either.... so that leaves...hmm... THE DRINK MENU! So after looking briefly at the menu, we decided on Green Tea with Cherry and Sakura on the Rocks. When the drinks finally came, one was good - and one was fail. Can you guess which was which?
Sadly, the fail was Sakura on the Rocks. Or, as we would prefer to call it, "Philips Vodka with a Sakura Blossom in it". Yeah. So even though it wasn't very tasty, it managed to give us both a little bit of a buzz since we hadn't eaten anything yet during the day - which I was a bit concerned about, since I'm the one that needs to figure everything out when we're over here in Japan. But anyways, we left the "Denny's" and headed back towards Kyoto station to find some REAL food. It didn't take us long to come to a little indoor mall with about six yummy-looking restaurants. We sat down and ate in one, sans English menu (another problem with Japan...not all places have them), but with my Japanese was able to ask what things were to ensure I was ordering something that was less than crazy. I ended up with a beef meal set and Lisa got a tonkatsu curry (which is a safe standby). Both were delicious - if a bit on the expensive side.
After lunch, we started exploring north and came to the first of many temples along the way. This particular temple was under construction for reinforcement purposes, which looked kind of strange. We didn't stay there long, and sat down at a fountain outside the temple for some much needed rest. A few minutes later, the highlight of the trip occurred:
We weren't at the fountain for longer than three or four minutes before I noticed some Japanese college students giving us strange looks. I just assumed it was our gaijin awesomeness at work, since there are indeed fewer gaijin in Kyoto than in Tokyo. But a couple minutes later they came up to us and began talking in (barely understandable) English:
"Can we talk you for minute?"
Lisa looked confused. I responded yes. They were apparently collecting survey data for what I assume was a school assignment, and wanted to get some opinions from people visiting the temple. Since the English was obviously a barrier - they had to write their questions down - I decided to answer them in Japanese, which shocked them all. The question ranged from where we were from, to our ages, to our interest in the site and any Japanese historical figures. When they asked about why we wanted to come to Japan, I said, in Japanese... "Well, I'm kind of a video game enthusiast (Game Otaku) so..." which caused the girls and a couple of the guys to break out in laughter. The one doing most of the talking pointed to a couple of his buddies and said "They are game otaku too". We talked with this big group of kids for about 2-3 minutes in total, and as they were leaving I asked them in Japanese if we could have a picture together, and they kindly obliged.
This kind of thing would never happen in Tokyo. Ever. But it seems to happen in the Kansai region (Kyoto/Kobe) quite frequently. People are legitimately curious about us, so it's always fun to talk with them. You can't look confused for longer than a few seconds in Kobe without someone asking you if you need help. In Tokyo, you can look lost all day and nobody would even bother - you need to ask for help if you need it.
We saw more shrines and temples in Kyoto, but nothing stood out in my mind as particularly amazing following the awesomeness that was Kamakura. Those temples and shrines were tough to beat - and the ones in Kyoto seem to pale in comparison. Maybe it's something about them all being nestled among high rise buildings, but none of them seemed too "Zen".
So after a few hours we headed back...and everything went well - up until the local train back to Shinjuku. Two stops before ours, an older guy with a long beard wearing a winter coat got on the train. Now keep in mind, it was raining cats and dogs at that time, so why someone would have a winter coat is beyond me...but the coat wasn't the problem. The smell was. When I was a kid, my grandparents used to take me and my sister to the zoo near our cabin in Wisconsin when we went there on vacation - and one of the stops we would always make was to the black bear cage. Whenever one of those bears went into the water, it let off a stink that seemed to go on for miles. They stank before they got in the water, but for some reason the water seemed to amplify it. This guy was the same way. The combination of his sweat, the water, and the fact he probably hasn't taken a shower in months was enough to cause everyone around him on the crowded train car to move away. See, this is the kind of behavior I expected people to do to us since we were foreigners, but that didn't happen at all. But they sure moved for this guy. The Gaijin Barrier is a myth, but if you stink enough, you can have the whole train car to yourself! I actually moved along with the other Japanese guys to the other side of the train car, and fortunately the guy got off at the next stop - but his stench lingered long after he left.
And that's about it, except that this morning we woke up to yet more Japanese people getting it on down the hall. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if the Avenue Q song "You Can Be As Loud as The Hell You Want [When You're Making Love]" is actually a cultural truth in Japan. Ugh...
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