It gets light, I think. I scratch my arse and wriggle my toes in the slippers I have on, as I stop momentarily and feel the aloneness and enjoy the quiet.
I was up at 6.30am. I rugged up in all the clothes I could find. It is chilly here in the morning, and while I don’t mind the cold, in fact it can be quite invigorating, it is also nice to keep putting layer upon layer on until you beat the cold. I sat in the dark and did online stuff.
8am. Sam was up. A voice from the other room. “What time is it?”
“8am,” I say.
I got in the plastic shower module and stood under the water for the longest time. I don’t usually have long shower but here I kind of like it. Maybe it is the feeling of being enclosed, maybe because there are no windows so the world can’t come nudging my conscious, maybe it is the cold, who knows. I’m going with the cold.
We walk down our street straight into town. It is an easy walk, through the narrow streets of Kyoto. Long and straight. There are many people walking and lots of people on bikes. I think it is why the traffic isn’t impossible, certainly nothing like back home.
10am. We are drinking coffee in Excelsior Caffe, yum, yum, yum. It is on the corner of our street and the main city road and easy to find. It is an easy walk for a good cup of coffee and in Japan good coffee is hard to find.
Two Americans are planning their day next to us, drinking coffee from disposable cups. He’s short and woggy, she is really plain. He doesn’t fancy her, he is with her like he might have been put with a tute partner in uni.
A hoard of Eastern Europeans descends like locusts. They are a tour group for sure.
“Ve can’t keep eating rice for breakfast,” Sam says.
“Give me some potatoes, Boris,” I say.
They buy up the bread products for breakfast, with their straw coloured hair, their bad dress sense and their throaty accents.
Mercifully, they go upstairs with their trays, not that there was any room for them downstairs.
The wear and tear of travelling. Sam’s suitcase wheel has decided to pack it in. The structure on the corner of the case that holds the wheel on has started its final stages of collapse. Our host originally said it would cost 1000 yen to dispose of the old suitcase should we buy a new one, so we decided to struggle home with it. But then she messaged us to say the cleaners would get rid of it for free, so the search for a new suitcase begins.
We look for suitcases in what I assume is the main CBD Street. Maybe, the main shopping street, we find out later when we ride our bikes to Kyoto train station, discovering there is a lot of Kyoto between here and there.
We look in a couple of shops, we see a few suitcases, the first one we saw in the main street was the cheapest, on sale 50% off.
“It’s probably a made up 50%,” says Sam.
Of course, you never believe the first item is the best buy, do we, we just have to keep looking for a better deal. There must be a better deal out there, if this is the first deal I find. It’s just greed, really. Or is it stupidity? It is certainly ignorance, as in lack of research.
The Japanese shops are crazy, they sell such an assortment of stuff all in one shop. It is hard to know, upon initial viewing, what some shops actually sell. Is it alcohol? Is it electrical products? Is it those twee cute things the Japanese seem to love so much? There was one travel shop that started on the first floor as a bottle shop, changed to an electrical shop on the second floor, before morphing into a travel shop on the third floor. It’s suit cases were expensive.
We browse the craziness. It’s eclectic, it’s happening, it’s exciting, if a little confusing, somewhat overwhelming, and just a touch exhausting.
I see bone conduction headphones that sit on the outside of the ear. I wonder if they would help with my tinnitus? I research them later, and the information seems to be inconclusive, still I kind of like them.
12.15pm. We walk to Gion. We stumble into Gion, straight down the main road. Kyoto isn’t a huge city, as you can actually see the edge of it on the far side of Gion.
1pm. We walk to the market it is much nicer during the week than the weekend, so many fewer people. We eat pancake, okonomiyaki, and teppanyaki seafood.
We eat the balls further down, the ones with mayonnaise and shredded fish. They are not as nice as the other day.
We walk to the end of the market, where there is a long shopping mall stretching in both directions for as far as the eye can see.
We walk the shopping centre looking for suitcases, but still the first one we saw comes out the cheapest.
We window shop on the shopping strip. Really, it is just a slow meander.
1.42pm. We go back to Gion. We wander around and take photos. We may, or may not, have seen a geisha. Maybe? The allusive geisha.
2.43pm. We head back down the Main Street and buy Sam a new suitcase, the first one we saw.
3.15pm. We are drinking coffee in Excelsior Caffe again. You know me, as far as I am concerned it is always coffee time.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue.
3.30pm. We’re in Tokyu Hands Creative Lifestyle Store. I’m listening to those bone conductive headphones again. So many department stores.
I see a grim woman leading her blind daughter to the escalator. She was closely followed by a serene woman following her handsome son to the escalator. How people’s lives turn out differently.
We stop in 711 and buy sushi and pork buns, for a snack when we get home.
4.25pm. Home again. My back is sore.
We have an afternoon snack.
Sam’s favourite thing is Japanese 711.
We walk through the night, through the dark streets.
7.43pm. We’re eating pancakes, again. Okonomiyaki.
I ordered a beer. “What is wrong with you,” exclaims Sam. “Do you want to be an alcoholic now?”
“Two beers,” I say. “Twenty four hours apart.”
We’re in bed by 10.30pm.
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