Day 5 (Sunday 10th Oct, 2010)

Today is a sad day, because all of my hostel friends are leaving. Still, travellers, generally, are cool people, so perhaps I will meet some other awesome folk!

I went to the Tourist Information Centre in Kyoto Station to get some maps and pamphlets and the like, and by some stroke of fortune I ran into Magdalena again! We had another sad goodbye hug, and I promised that if I was ever in London (which I surely will be in the near future) I will visit her.

Today's plan was to visit Kiyomizu-dera, which is a large temple at the base of the mountains to the East of Kyoto; and is one of the most popular and famous sights in the city.
The roads up to the temple are an incredible sight in their own right; very reminiscent of "old" Kyoto as seen in period films. The streets are very narrow, and lined with souvenir shops, teahouses, cafes, ice cream parlours and the like. Driving a car up them would be near impossible for the narrow width and sheer volume of pedestrian traffic.
I parked my bike at a parking lot about halfway up; ￥100 for all day. The guy running the parking lot was very chatty and friendly, as a lot of people in Japan seem to be.
I stopped at an ice cream place a bit further up because it was ridiculously hot (あついですね！） and I was curious to try Japan's famous "Green Tea Icecream". Words can't describe the strangeness of eating what has the texture of icecream, but tastes like tea. It was damn nice, though.

The temple itself was amazing! ￥500 to get in (which seems to be standard fare at most tourist spots), which was well worth it. Inside there are the usual temple-type sights; buddha statues, good-luck boxes, lucky charms tied to things etc.; but there is also a terrace with a selection of different good luck rituals to try: tying paper to things, dissolving paper with your wish on it in water, and some others. They're each ￥200 a pop, though, which isn't really that much, but I didn't try any of them.
The main hall of the temple has a deck which sticks out from the side of the mountain, and provides an incredible view over Kyoto city.
The path then snakes around down the side of the mountain, and there are some good views of the temple itself. I asked someone if he would mind taking a photo of me (in Japanese), and he was very excited about hearing a "gaijin" (foreigner) speaking Japanese. Took some photos, and a very enthusiastic handshake afterwards. These people are lovely.

At the bottom of the hill there was a cafe, so I stopped for lunch because my stomach was grumbling a bit (it's doing this a lot this trip; it's hard to get a sufficient amount of food here. I'm going to lose so much weight ><).
I had some udon noodles with tofu; and this was my first time in a restaurant/cafe here that I've managed to conduct the entire process of "go in, ask for a table, order food, pay for food, thank the staff and leave" entirely in Japanese and with no hiccups. Yay!

After leaving the temple, I got lost for a couple of hours among a maze of little laneways lined with shops and cafes. This area in particular really has a feel of old Japan; and even if you don't visit Kiyomizu-dera itself, the roads here are beautiful in their own right.
It seems like the best place to get souvenirs; they're better than the usual crap you see at other places, so I'll be back here again to buy things. I managed to find a nice postcard as well to send to work, which I'd been looking for for a few days.
I also noticed that there are so many Shinsengumi and Sakamoto Ryoma themed souvenirs! They're both really popular here; I'll have a lot of stuff to choose from.


After that historical adventure, it was time to come back to the modern world; so I sort of meandered my way back to downtown Kyoto. I found somewhere to park my bike (bike parks are really hard to find in downtown area! Especially free ones) and went to my favourite place, a-Cho (the super dope arcade).
It was very crowded becase it was 5pm (all the after-school/after-uni crowd were here) and there was a KoF ranbat going on. Because of the ranbat, everything had been rearranged: they really go to a lot of effort for these! I look forward to the Guilty Gear one on Friday (I may even enter!).
I played a few rounds on Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and got completely annihilated. Not quite triple-perfects, but just about. I was playing Makoto against the other guy's Akuma, and he just ran a train on me. I landed one karakusa in 9 rounds; and then I missed the link afterwards. Ugh.
I wanted to play Guilty Gear as well, but it's been about a year at least since I've even touched that game, and I've forgotten all my combos. All I remember is "2S = Victoly!" I'll go back tomorrow hopefully during the morning when it's quiet, so I can practice-mode against the CPU.


After a brief stop back at the hostel to cool off, I decided to go to the nearby "Second House" Italian restaurant for dinner. It's just at the end of the road that the hostel is on, so it's very close and convenient.
As I was walking there, walking past a bike rental shop, I heard a loud "Herro!"
The guy who runs this bike shop, who's name is Naoki, gets really excited about meeting foreigners. I talked to him for ages, and tried talking some Japanese as well, which made him even more excited. He asked if he could join me for dinner; and then called his wife to see if it was okay. Then he made me ask her, in Japanese, on the phone. I managed to do it though!
We went to eat, and Naoki-san introduced me to all the staff there; he goes there very often because its across the road from his shop, so he's friends with all the staff. He got really excited about telling them that I speak Japanese.
The food was really good, and the price was fair.

As usual, I finished off the night with some sake.