Day 2 (Thursday 7th Oct, 2010)

Ah, my first proper day in Japan. I woke up kinda late, about 9.30ish, after a good 12-hour sleep to recover from the taxing series of flights.

My first order of business for the day was a proper look at Kyoto Station, to explore it a bit and pick up some English "what's on" type publications that can be found at the International Centre there.
The station is incredible. Its huge! Its 15 floors high, 9 of which are a very large Myer-esque department store. Lots of little outlets for various clothing labels all under the banner of one store, Isaten.
Lots of very nice clothing, but with hefty price tags. I'm not sure if I'm baller enough to spend $250 on a pullover, even if its awesome.

I went up along the "Skywalk" in the station, which is on the 10th floor and goes all the way across from one side to the other. It has a series of information boards along one side, detailing the history of the city, and the other side has windows to look out over the city. Of course I was very intrigued by the Shinsengumi boards, even though I can't read them, and among them there was a map of SSG-related places to visit around the city.
At the end of the Skywalk I went outside and up to the highest level, the "Happy Terrace" under the suggestion from someone. Not because Happy Terrace is amazing, but because its exactly the opposite: very anticlimatic, given the name, which leads to entertainment looking at the lacklustre surprise on the faces of other tourists. It was under repairs, though, (maybe they realized it was boring?) and there were no other tourists.

As I was leaving the station, I ran into a friendly policeman who approached me to ask if I need help. When I told him I was okay, he asked to see my passport. I didn't have it on me at the time, and apparently, its law in Japan for visitors to always have their passport on them.
HEY LONELY PLANET, THAT MIGHT BE WORTH NOTING.
Its probably common sense to have it with you anyway, but me and common sense are many years divorced. Anyway, the policeman was very friendly and happy to let me go, just so long as I always have it on my person from now on.


After a brief stop back at the inn to get changed (its so hot in Japan!) and get my passport, I was off to see my first temple: Nishi Hongan-ji.
Its a free-to-enter temple very near the station (and thus, near my inn). Needless to say, I was floored. I've seen so many of these buildings in movies, comics, games etc. but to actually see one live was amazing beyond words.
I also ran into an English-speaking monk called Fukuroma, who is an American born Japanese, who works at the temple offering an orientation for tourists.
He explained in detail about the history of the temple, the sect of Buddhism (a branch of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism), and its founder. It was thoroughly interesting, and made the visit there significantly more fun. Looking at pretty buildings is all well and good, but knowing about them, how and why they're there, is so much better.

Next stop was another free, station-near temple called Higashi Hongan-ji, which is another temple of the same sect. This one I found less amazing for the temple itself, but the great part was feeding the birds.
Outside one of the gates is an elderly man selling bird food, with which to feed the pigeons, who are VERY friendly and comfortable around people. They will literally eat out of your hand, sit on your arms/shoulders/head/anywhere they can, and eat food.
I'm not a bird-watcher or anything, but I've never been able to be that close to a bird aside from my sister's parrot. It was an amazing experience.
This was also where I started to properly use my Japanese (so far, I've spoken broken Jap in restaurants and the like, but very poorly). I saw some others feeding the birds, and asked them where to buy the birdfood. Then, I asked them to take a photo of me! I felt great.

After that, I had a brief look around the nearby Shosei-en Garden, which was lovely; but I have a feeling its nothing compared to some other gardens I will see here. I did get to see and get a photo of some "tourist geisha" though: people who are dressed as geisha for the sake of tourists, as opposed to real, trained geisha who entertain rich businessmen and are very rare to actually see.


A bit of a walk north from there found me at downtown Kyoto, Shijo-dori; the equivalent of Melbourne's Bourke St. or Auckland's Queen St. Of course, this is where a lot of Kyoto's youth hang out, which of course means two things: shoe shops and arcades! I think I found about 6 sneaker shops in the space of about one block (admittedly about 4 of them were branches of the same shop). While the normal prices are not significantly cheaper than Australia, and still a lot more expensive than USA, some of the stuff that's on special is really cheap. A pair of dunks for ~$70, for example! Also, because of the hard efforts of Converse Japan's design team, the range of Converse here is amazing. There's a pair of Chucks I think I'll have to buy which are white, with purple stitching and lacing. So hot.
As far as arcades, there are a ton of pachinko parlours/crane games, but I only found one proper arcade with fighting games. Its okay, because its A-cho, the only one that matters! A-cho is basically the premiere arcade in Kyoto, where all the top players play. They have ranbats for just about every game there. I will be back!


I came back to the inn to dump my photos (my camera was already full after 2 days!), and had some sake with some other other travellers; John and Sam from Manchester; and Magdelena from Poland. John and Sam had already had dinner, but Magda and I hadn't, so we went to a nearby Yakitori house. This was my first proper Japanese meal, and in a one of this tiny little restaurants that you see in films. It was great! We had a couple of beers there, then came back to the inn and had some more sake with some other guests (Andy from China, Charlotte from Taiwan, Thomas from Germany, and an Italian guy who's name I've forgotten).

It was pretty much the best day ever.