Day 4 (Saturday, 9th Oct, 2010)

The weather was quite bad today, so most people in the hostel had similar plans of going to some indoor sights.

I went with Magda, Andy, and Jezeppa (sp? Italian name) to see the Nishiki Market.
This is a very long food market, which serves as both a place for locals to buy fresh food (mostly meat, but a few vegetable shops scattered here and there), but it's become quite a popular tourist destination so now there are a lot of souvenir shops in there as well.
We tasted some very nice sake on the way through (just because it's morning is no excuse to not start drinking!), and then stopped at a coffee shop we found to have some (very expensive) coffee.

After this, we went our separate ways a bit, because Magda and myself wanted to see the Manga Museum, but the others didn't.
On the way there, back through Nishiki Market, we found a small place that was selling a box of six takoyaki (fairly large octopus dumplings) for　￥180, so we had some of those because we were very hungry. They were really good!
While we were eating, Magda noticed that a nearby bin had an inspirational message written on it: "Would you like to review what your life should be?"
Inspirational messages on rubbish bins. This is such a strange, foreign, and amazing land.

The Manga Museum was incredible! It's formerly a university building that's been converted into a museum, so it had that very strong smell of being in a school (I guess schools have the same smell everywhere in the world). It basically is like a library, with thousands of comics available to just pick up and read (if you can read Japanese). There was also a room chronicling the history of manga, with shelves with a selection of comics from each year from the '60s until present.
Magda was funny because she has never read any manga before; and she kept picking up ones at random which had some erotic content that is not so uncommon in Japanese manga.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside (but we snuck a few in anyway).
The souvenir shop at the end had some very cool things, and Shinsengumi souvenirs seem very popular. I didn't buy anything, but I'll be back before I leave to buy some.

After the museum, we went to Kyoto Gyoen park, in the rain; which made it look beautiful in a completely different way. Because of the weather there were very few other tourists, so that made it even better. We walked the perimeter of the park, took some photos, and ran into an Irish couple who were kind enough to take photos of us (and us of them).

We got back to the hostel at about 6.30, and met up with Andy and Jezeppa again; and headed out to a nearby onsen (public bath) which is highly recommended by the hostel staff. It was a very strange experience, being surrounded by a bunch of other naked men, but it was a refreshing bath. The Japanese just don't see it as strange, to be naked together in a bathhouse, to them it's just a fairly normal social experience.
It did give me a chance to feel very well-equipped though!


After the bath, we came back to the hostel to have dinner, and as usual, had some drinks. The hostel offers free kimono trying (yukata, technically) for ladies, so Magda tried it on.
Afterwards, perhaps thanks to the sake, everyone decided that Andy needed to try it on as well! The hostel staff were quite okay with this, surprisingly; and after Andy it was my turn.

Ah, Japan, land of the strange, and at times borderline gay.