Day 12 (Sunday 17th Oct, 2010)

I got back to the hostel at about 8am, just after the doors unlock again (curfew etc.)

I briefly entertained the idea of not going to sleep, but I was SO tired. I went to bed at about 8.30, and got in a couple of hours' sleep before I woke up around 11 by the hustle and bustle of other people in the dorm room being awake.
I had a quick shower, before I went to chill out at Kyoto Station for a bit.

I wasn't really hung over, just very very tired. I pretty much planned to have a lazy one today, heh. I had a quick burger at a place in Kyoto Station; I forgot the name of it, but their burgers are good and cheap, and their image is based on a (very filtered) image of America, so all the staff wear ten-gallon hats. Awesome.

I trolled some shops for a few hours, and spent a bit of time in the bookshop in the Avanti building that I was at before. I didn't buy anything, but I was sort of getting an idea of what books I want to buy to take back with me.
I did manage to find a Japanese copy of Alice in Wonderland　（不思議の国のアリス, fushigi no kuni no arisu) which I will surely buy. Unfortunately it has a lot of kanji without accompanying furigana (google these terms, kanji and furigana, and you'll see my dilemma. I can read very few kanji). I'll also pick up a couple more comics; I've discovered that ALL Shonen Jump (a popular manga publisher in Japan) have furigana for every kanji, so that is very helpful. And they have a lot of cool comics.

They also have a copy there of an English book, "Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps", for about ￥2500. It's the only English book written on Shinsengumi, and its a bit cheaper than it would be to import in Australia (it doesn't seem to be available locally there), so I'll probably buy that as well.

On the way back to the hostel, I happened by a store specializing in flannel in shirts. I got a really nice black/red one for about ￥1200. Good cop.

Also on my way back, through Kyoto Station, I stumbled upon an amazing sight, which I'm not sure how to describe.
You may have seen videos of waterfalls, in which the water drops are timed, such that as they fall the water droplets create pseudo-pixels to create an image in the falling water. This one was I guess advertising a nearby hotel, and among the images produced were a variety of cool patterns, images of famous sights in Kyoto, the name of the hotel (in both Japanese and English) and some other words. It was pretty incredible; I took some film footage of it which I will edit and upload to YouTube when I get home (along with all the rest of my film footage from this trip).

I had an early dinner at a cheap gyudon place near the hostel on my way back, then, needless to say, I had an early night. Tomorrow will be a big, fun-filled day in Arashiyama.