Last days in Kyoto

Merging the last three days in Kyoto into one post, since they were all pretty short.

Day 5 (Nara)

I woke up a little late on Easter Sunday and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I’d initially been planning on taking a train to Ise, which is where Japan’s largest and holiest shrine is. I figured it’d be a fitting place to see on Easter (particularly since it’s a shrine to Amaterasu, the god of the rising sun, and I like puns), but when I looked it up, it was significantly harder to get to than I thought. It was a 2-3 hour, two-train trip on a train that wasn’t run by JR, so my pass didn’t cover it.

I didn’t feel like spending 6 hours on trains that day, so I gave it a pass and bumped my plans up by a day. I went to Nara instead, which is home to a herd of deer that were considered holy by the Buddhist temples in the area, so they weren’t ever harmed. After decades of this, the deer just stopped being afraid of us, and would wander around pretty much like they owned the place. The deer became a tourist attraction, and so vendors in the area started selling rice cakes you could feed them. If the deer weren’t afraid of people before, the CERTAINLY weren’t afraid of us now. Walk around with a stack of crackers in your hand and you’ll get swamped by a pack of hungry beggars.

When I got to Nara, I was starving, and given that the night before had been the funky Japanese meal, I was craving comfort food. Lo and behold, when I stepped off the train I saw Colonel Sanders face smiling down at me from across the street. I sunk my teeth into a two-piece meal and felt much closer to home (despite the biscuit, which tasted strongly of disappointment).

I started following the signs to the deer park, but didn’t really need to worry: like Kamakura, the road from the train station to the tourist attractions was impossible to miss. I decided to put off souvenir shopping until later (glad I did, I’ll get to that in a second), and just headed straight to the park, stopping just long enough to buy some crackers. The deer were as adorable as promised, and much less stressful to feed than the monkeys. Trained by years of living with Japanese folks, the deer would bow when begging from you, which was hilarious and adorable all at once. They didn't like my camera at first because of the clicking noise it makes, but I wanted a closeup, so I started holding crackers right underneath the lens. Worked like a charm ^__^

Hullo.

My rail pass was just a little too big to fit in my pocket, so Nara was the only time I’ve really had to worry about pickpockets here. Not that I was worried someone would snatch it and sell it, I was worried someone would snatch it and EAT it. The deer have an insatiable love of paper, and the guidebooks and concierges in the area all tell stories of folks who had their maps, tickets, and passports snatched out of their hands. It was funny to pull out a receipt, crumple it, and watch all the deer in the vicinity perk up and turn to stare at you. This was also why I was happy I put off souvenir shopping. Some girl at the park hadn’t, and one of the deer grabbed ahold of her paper bag, yanked it out of her hand, and ran off with it, scattering its contents all over the place. She was laughing too hard to be mad, and the deer looked just absolutely tickled with his trophy.

The bamboo is something called a 'sweet pick.' I have no idea what
I was supposed to do with it.

After the deer, I didn’t really want to do the rest of the sights in the area (more temples, which I was kinda burned out on), so I wandered through what appeared to be some sort of county fair, then went back to the shopping street. I grabbed a couple of souvenirs (a washi paper journal and some Japanese wall hangings, as well as some local plum wine and sake), watched a shop make some fresh green tea mochi, and headed home. I made a pit stop at Kyoto station to get some traditional matcha green tea, which is tea that's been ground into a powder then whisked into hot water. This is the way it's done in traditional tea ceremonies, but since I wasn't staying at a ryokan, it was harder to find a place that'd do one. There was a shop in Kyoto station that did traditional tea service with wagashi sweets, though, and I did that. I was reminded yet again that it's apparently not dessert in Japan unless it involves red bean paste, as EVERY sweet there looked radically different, but was just a different preparation of mochi and bean paste. Dinner that night was soba and tempura, which was excellent. It came with buckwheat shochu and buckwheat tea, so not a meal for the gluten intolerant.

When I got back to the hostel, the Germans in the hostel were having a beer tasting of several Japanese beers and invited me to join them. The verdict was that Asahi was the worst, and Sapporo Gold and Kirin Best Malt tied for first.

Day 6 (Toji market and shopping)

On the 21^st of every month, Toji temple (a Buddhist temple just south of the station) holds an antiques bazaar on the temple grounds, so Easter Monday I spent most of the day shopping there. I didn’t grab much (a few teacups and a sakura blossom painting by a very nice Japanese man who threw in a small one of a good luck cat), but it was fun to wander the stalls. They had everything from junk that wasn’t worth the plastic it was wrapped in all the way up to crossguards from old samurai swords. I met up with the Germans guys from my hostel and we wandered together a bit before splitting up. It started drizzling, so I grabbed some chicken on a stick (yes they really have it here) and waited the rain out in a tent.

Okonomiyaki on the grill

From there, I went back to Gion to do a little bit more souvenir shopping, and ended up stumbling into an arts and crafts store that specialized in Japanese rice paper. If you know me, you know I have a deep and abiding love of art supply stores, so it won’t surprise you that I ended up buying waaaaay more than I should have. Oops. I kept lying to myself while shopping, just saying 'Oh, I'm not buying THAT much,' but that illusion was shattered when the shopkeeper handed me a shopping basket and I realized I was, in fact, carrying that much in my hands.

I spent a long time wandering Gion, and the day was coming to a close, so I went home after that. I stopped by 7/11 on the way to grab a few sandwiches for dinner, which everyone recommends doing at least once. Strange, but not too weird if you know anything about convenience stores in this country. 7/11, Family Mart, and Lawson’s are the holy trinity of corner stores here, and they stock EVERYTHING. Need a snack? Of course. How about a pack of local sweets for a gift? Got it. Spill something on your tie? They’ve got spares. Want to mail something? They sell stamps and boxes. The sandwiches are as good as advertised, too.

Day 7 (Travel to Osaka)

My last day ‘in’ Kyoto was just a travel day. I mailed some souvenirs home again (which ended with the post master chasing me down the street when he realized he forgot to charge me for the box I bought), then hopped on the Express train to Osaka. The trip was only about 20 minutes, since Osaka and Kyoto share the same metropolitan area. When I got to Osaka-Umeda station, I was lost for a bit, as the station is HUGE, and the metro trains I needed are nowhere near the express trains. That's a problem with some of the largest stations here: things are so far apart that a lot of signs don't even mention all the trains that stop there. I ran into the same thing at Shibuya Station; I found out my last day that there were two metro lines that I didn't know stopped there. 

I eventually figured it out, though, and managed to find my hotel pretty easily once I got to the metro stop. The staff was very nice! They all spoke english, too, which was a nice surprise. The hotel was called Yamatoya Honten, and had traditional Japanese-style rooms, which means tatami mat floors, rice paper windows, and, instead of a bed, futons that you rolled up and stuffed in a closet during the day. It was nice enough, though the hotel really just needed a good tune-up and scrubbing. I spent a couple hours planning, then went out to explore, which I'll cover in posts about Osaka.