Bamboo Grove

I was up at 7am. I put the heater on this morning, I didn’t want to shiver this morning.

8am. Sam was up.



9.30am. We leave the house. It is a lovely sunny blue sky kind of day.

We find the bus stop near the park on Marutanachi-dori Street, then walk down the road looking for breakfast.

At the next big intersection, the one after our big intersection with the good coffee, we find our Tokyo breakfast place, or a franchise of. I eat a big hamburger patty with rice and an egg, a salad, and some miso soup. Sam eats a curry with rice a salad and miso soup.

The bus stop is just across the big intersection. We could have ridden our bikes to the Bamboo Grove, it was a nice enough day for it.

10.35am. We catch the 93 bus to the Bamboo Grove. 193 yen, flat rate. The seats are electric blue velour. The air is warm, I open a window. I’m always opening windows on public transport, if the windows are openable. The rest of us are to cossetted in heat atmospheres to contemplate such radical action. The movement and stuffiness of the bus makes me sleepy.

The bus stops on a narrow road, and we get off. There are people everywhere. Oh, all the people. What was I expecting, I think as I push passed some of the slow, crippled ones? (Ha ha, only kidding)

11am. We walk the Bamboo Walk. There is a grove of bamboo which must have been planted relatively recently nearer to the main street.

“This can’t be it?” I question.

Sam looks quizzical.

We head off down one of the paths, not really sure where we are going. The hot rickshaw boys, with their black tights, thoroughbred legs and winning smiles, pull their rickshaws passed us.

The path leads us over a train line. We stop on the long straight train track and take a photo.

“See that man,” says Sam. “He’s really ugly.” He was taking a shot of the train tracks in front of us. And he was ugly, tall like lurch and wearing active wear, with absolutely no right to be doing so. Some people are completely unaware.

It is a lovely day, it is just like walking in the country, and it must still be the outskirts of Kyoto. We walk passed a drained lake, not sure why it is drained. There are men doing some sort of excavation work nearby, I wonder if that has something to do with the depleted water?

We find the big bamboo walk, the one you see in all the brochures, and take photos, with the other 1000 people taking photos. The path descends down through the bamboo. It is cooler in the shadow of the tall bamboo.

There are quite a few temples to visit, but we don’t, we’ve seen enough temples.

We wander back down to the main street, heading to the river and the bridge, because we hear people talking about the river and the bridge.

I feel lost in a tourist theme park, sometimes, with the huge number of tourists at these must see attractions. The numbers kind of ruin them. It is so busy with people. The bridge is choked with people, the river is lovely, when viewed through a zoom lens.

12.30pm. We catch the 93 bus out.

12.45pm. On the bus on the way home. There was day of the living dead on the bus, the collective age was 1000. I’m sure it must have been pension day. Every person getting on the bus seemed to be over 80 years old. It was like god’s waiting room on wheels.

1.25pm. We’re home again.

We lay down and had a nap.

3.30pm. Off to the coffee shop to drink coffee.

We are riding our bikes in the warm afternoon, lovely it is too.

It almost feels like peak hour there are more cars than I am used to seeing.

We park our bikes in the multi-level bike car park near the entrance to the market.

4pm. We’re at the Excelsior Caffe drinking coffee. It is always coffee time, my friends, you must have worked that out by now. Oh, come one, I have got my 6, or 7, cups a day down to 2, on some days 1.

The sun is shining.

6pm. We’re eating in town, next to Gion, down an alley, where they cheer in the patrons, where they don’t have an English menu and where they announce the order to the kitchen by microphone.

But they do have smiley, handsome waiters. Big, strapping boys with black bandanas, sparkly eyes and toothy grins.

One patron is carried in appearing to be drunk, or disabled, it is hard to tell. No, he is drunk, very drunk. They prop him up at the bar.

“Where are we?” asks Sam.

“You chose,” I say.

I think the Yakusa are sitting at the next table. My meal turns out to be fried rice and ramen. Sam’s is omelette gyoza soup. I



We ride to Gion and walk amongst all the tiny streets lined with restaurants. So, this is the Gion they all talk about. We wish we hadn’t eaten before, otherwise we would have eaten here. The restaurants look expensive, it would have been nice to have an expensive dinner.

The tourists are packing the alleyways, so we get out, leave them to it. It is pretty though.

We take photos on the bridge. We ride along the river. We take the scenic route home.

6.50pm. The river at dusk is quite picturesque, romantic even. The Duck River.

We spot another BookOff and take a look inside. The nerds are lining the isles inside, but the selection isn’t the same as Tokyo, the population isn’t there. There are no CDs that I want, unlike Tokyo where I could choose between many.

We ride home. Our bikes have lights, so we switch them on, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference to the bike riders of Kyoto, light, no lights, and nobody wears a helmet.

Kyoto, on the river

Duck River

Gion

Good legs

Shopping and Eating

I was awake at 5.30am. I got up to have a piss, thinking that the sensor light was on, but it was just the day light, in our little enclosed court yard, with our toilet outside.

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.

Golden Palace

Satan's House

Zen Garden

Turtles

100 million selling Honda motor bike

Tourists and Food, Tourists and Food

I’m up at 6.30am. It’s a curse. I want to sleep until midday.

So, I guess it is time to check Facebook and post photos. Australia is an hour ahead, I think.

Then it is hours later and it has got light outside without me noticing and Sam is up and telling me it is time to do, do, do. Off to see Japan. Don’t waste the time, I think, because I will never be coming back here.

8.30am. I’m in the shower, as the hunt for breakfast begins. I’m for eating straight up, but Sam can put it off and eat later. It is a source of conflict, as you may well understand.

We’re going to ride our bikes to the Golden Shrine again today and try to catch it when it is open. It is hot as we step out our front door, and we both take it in turns to head back inside and change into shorts before we leave.

9.15am. We headed off up the main road towards the Golden Shrine. Passed all the usual takeaway food shops offering breakfast. Then I spotted something on the other side of the road.

"Sweetie, sweetie, is that a p, p, pannery? Sweetie. Sweetie, stop stop."

A french’ish bakery right there, not far from home. How could I have not sniffed this out before now?

We got a fish roll and a chicken sandwich, and a burger, and an egg pie and a second egg pie, not quite the same as the first, all half the price of what we have been paying for breakfast in a restaurant/café. We found a small park not far away in which to eat them. Lovely.

A man came into the park with his young daughter, about 5, or 6 years old, and they appeared to be having a very intelligent conversation between the two of them as they entered the playground. That’s the type of kid you want, I think.

After we were done, I headed over to the pissoir, a small nondescript cream coloured building in one corner to have a leak, which was, practically open to the street on one side. As I urinated, I watched grandma come out of her house, lock the door and head off up one of the streets, all the time I was sure I was visible to her.

We looked at some of the signs on the wall. Sam has an app on his phone that he points at Japanese writing, through the camera function, and it changes the language to English.

As we were looking at the signs, a sixty something, possibly older, I don’t know exactly, man rode up to the bog and he made it quite clear he was looking for some men to play with in the bog. We rode off, and I thanked the universe I wasn’t him. Then I wondered what grandma may have got to see?

10am. We’re at the Golden Temple. We followed the heard. 400 yen thanks. A short walk and then there is was glinting in all its gold beauty in the sunshine. The gardens were quite lovely, dare I say spectacular, somehow appearing in a state of peace and tranquillity all of their own.

There were a million tourist taking photos of it, as you would understand.

We headed out to get our bikes, and I stomped off across a crossing where the red man was showing, not a car in sight though. The old bloke directing the proceedings – they seem to give old retired pensioners menial things to do to keep them busy – shit his pants at my wickedness, but I was taking no notice of such nonsense. I’m sorry old man that you have retired without an interest in the world and now the state has patronisingly given you a job of no basic worth, but please don’t waste my time, I am an adult and I can manage to get myself across a street without dying thanks very much.

He stopped Sam though.

We ride from the Golden Temple to the Ryoanji Temple, apparently, not all that far away. I discover Satan’s house on the way. A house with a white Mercedes out the front with 666 number plates.

The bike riding through the streets of Kyoto, seeing the Kyoto world up close and personal and even getting lost, is quite possibly more fun than the temples/tourist attractions themselves. Is more fun. People wreck the tourist attractions, in plague proportions the people are.

11.15am. We get to the Ryoanji Temple. 500 yen thanks.

We arrive with a tour group, and while I’m Silently incanting and wishing to them all dead, okay not so silently, Sam declares that he has to send me to Zen School. “It is an emergency situation,” says Sam. “All this negativity…”

“Ha ha,” I scoff.

“It is my ears that bleed, not theirs.”

The Ryoanji Temple, it is not easy to achieve a state of zen with a bus load of Russian tourists yapping on in your ear.

The Svetlanas never shut the fuck up, oblivious to anyone else present. Loud and talking over everyone else so it was only them who could be heard as we all sat and contemplated the 500 year old zen garden. Get back on your bus and bugger off back to the transcaucasian states, is all I could think. Intolerant? Well, of boorish behaviour, maybe I'm guilty. It was a zen garden for the universe’s sake, we didn't need to hear them laughing at some mother state humour, or whatever the fuck they were blithering on about.

Then there is an earnest American talking constantly to his interpreter about varying states of the Buddhist religion.

We get it, we get it, you have read up on eastern religions.

And, of course, there are always the rude Chinese. Terrible thing to say, but they just don’t have any courtesy for anyone else. I’m guessing it is because there are so many of them back home and they have to speak up to be heard over the masses. Different lives. It is all very interesting. And I am allowed to whinge if I like.

“Complainer,” says Sam.

The day is gorgeous, a lovely day to ride our bikes.

We come to the old train depot we saw last night, we see the old purple train go into the depot. We want to check it out some more, but we are hungry and it is time for lunch.

12.20pm. We’re eating Kazaguruma ramen for lunch. Sam ordered a mountain of food. Sam ordered 2 large bowls of ramen and dried chicken with rise. We were both really full by the time we’d finished it.

The guy running it was adorable, dimples and all. Sam calls me an old perve, even if I catch him gazing at the cute guy.

Randen is what the old train is called. It seems to be a historical train with its own short train route, it takes in historical sights. We want to go on it, enjoy the antiquity of it, but we can’t find anywhere to park our bikes. There are plenty of bike parks nearby, but they are all connected to the large shopping centre next door. We can’t find any other parking, so reluctantly we leave for home, waving the old train line behind.

There are more back streets we wend our way through. There is a quaint old bridge which seems to be made out of stone and a river which seems to have many people using it for recreation.

We head to the Kyoto Gyoen, the big park that houses the Emperor's Palace. (Do parks house?) The palace is open so we park our bikes in the nearest bike park and go in for a look. It is huge, (I know we have all heard that before, but in this case, it is true) and the grounds are lovely. We walk the sign posted route through the grounds with everybody else. It hasn’t, actually, been the emperor’s palace since 1870, or thereabouts, when the capital was moved to Tokyo

After we have finished viewing the palace, we ride our bikes through the park, there are no uptight whingey mother’s, with snatches like a tight fists here, hysterical about a bike coming within 100 metres of their precious Tarquins or Maddisons, here, so sensibly one can ride through a park. My usual spot on sense of direction deserts me and we ended up riding to the exact diagonal corner to which we were headed. Rats. Google maps to the rescue.

3.12pm. We’re drinking coffee at the kiosk style coffee shop on the corner of the big intersection next to McDonalds, across the road from the Kyoto Gyoen and on the other corner to the place where we’ve eaten breakfast a few times. They have an espresso machine, which is what you have to look out for, otherwise it is going to be pour over coffee, America’s crime against humanity.

A double shot macchiato, double shot latte. Then home.

5pm. The rain started. Then we’re home and the rain is falling nonstop. What are travelling boys to do? Hop into bed with a good book and read until we fall asleep. Sounds good to me. An afternoon snooze is always a good idea.

The tourisms’ been done, what is there left to do? The trip to Gion tonight is now definitely out of the question with Sam's pathological fear of his hair frizzing in inclement weather.

7.22pm. We head to the market to eat pancakes. Straight down our street to the city. We were going to walk, then decided to ride our bikes as it would be quicker, so we got our bikes out, but then it began to rain again, so we put the bikes back, got the clear umbrellas and walked, as the rain spat lightly, into the night. Kyoto, warm night, rain sprinkling down gently, the long streets, the golden glow of house lights dotted along the way, lovely.

8pm. In town at the pancake place, just near the market. There are cabbage savoury pancakes, Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き o-konomi-yaki) ( listen (help. · info)) is a Japanese savoury pancake containing a variety of ingredients. The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning "how you like" or "what you like", and yaki meaning "cooked" (usually fried).

We order two, one with meat and one with seafood. There are hotplates in the middle of all the tables which the pretty waitress switches on as soon as she has taken the order. The meat pancake will be ready sooner than the seafood pancake. “Did we want them both bought out together?”

“No, just as they come,” we say.

We didn’t catch any trains again today, only the 2nd time we’ve had a day of no trains since we’ve been here. Japanese cities are so train intensive, with their efficient metros systems, it is interesting to not when we don’t use them.

The Okonomiyaki are great. There is nothing quite like them, and I would suggest you must try them when in Japan.

We walk home with full tummies.

Big Orange Sticks

Big orange sticks lake

--> Shimagoryo Shrine 

Doors, sweetie, lovely doors.

Kyoto House

Kyoto House

Kyoto House

Antique Toyota, circe 1971, the oldest car I saw in japan

Take me home

Another Tourist Attraction, Tick

I woke up at 5am. I needed a piss. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I didn’t. I got up at 5.45am

My acceptance to awesome bulldogs was accepted and I read their Facebook page, but a lot of it seemed to be about their bulldogs dying and it made me cry. And then I felt sleepy and I went back to bed at 6.30am.

Sam woke me up and he was surprised that it was 11am. Neither of us have slept in that late, well, ever really.

“It’s 11am?”

“Really? 11am?”

Into the plastic shower module, which I quite like really. It doesn’t matter where you stand, all the water just drains away. There is a drain all the way around the base of the plastic room.

It’s warm in there, but it is cold getting out though but, you know, I wonder if feeling different temperatures is, actually, good for you? Rather than being cossetted in the same benign temperature all your life, have your senses feel different things. I don’t know, just something I think in the shower. I think it is.

We got dressed and headed out for food. We’re off to see the big, orange sticks today. A couple of stops from Kyoto station.

The sun is shining. The sky is blue. Sam ate beef and eel and salad, I ate pork and rice and silken tofu and miso soup. We eat on the corner of the big intersection, a block from our place.

Sitting at breakfast I saw a silver XK8, a blue Rolls Royce Phantom and a blue Peugeot 208GTI all heading across the intersection in a relatively short time frame.



We head to Kyoto Station, changing trains to go to Inari Station to go see the big temple with all the orange sticks.

We drink coffee at Kyoto Station. Got to get a decent coffee in when the chance presents itself, before we venture out.

Sam goes to the toilet at Kyoto Station before we catch the train, and he tells me to look in the shops, so I buy chiffon cake. What else is there to do?

We caught the train to an above ground station, which is almost village-like. There are, of course, many, many people there heading to the same place we are. It is only a few short steps from the station, up a wending path. The sign at the gate says not outside food, but I think that is just to make you buy food inside the temple. No Buddhist objection, just a capitalist one.

We ate the chiffon cake at the gate of the temple before we head in, even if there was no one there policing it, I don’t think, and people were eating from the stalls inside.

1.30pm. We’re watching a Buddhist christening, possibly, at the big shrine as soon as one walks in. A bit weird having a christening as all the tourists watch, but whatever. We were standing at the side and suddenly it was even stranger when we were surrounded by a bunch of Italian noonas who were all prattling away in Italian.

Shake of the head? Where are we?

We walked the entire orange stick track, up the hill to the top. Correction, we nearly got to the top of the orange stick thingy, the last stop before the top, but I wanted ice cream to go that last little bit (it was hot) and he who is a mean bean said no and so we headed down again.

The big orange sticks are amazing really. The path wound its way through them all like giant crochet hoops.

There were lots of shrines along the way. The fox was the messenger of buddha, I guess, (I read something about it, but I can’t really remember the details) so there were lots of fox images. There was a gorgeous lake, as pretty as a picture, a gorgeous lake picture.

It was hot. There were lots of people. It was all up hill and then back down. Lots of forest. The grounds were really quite nice.

Sam wanted to buy a selection of 3 foxes that would have cost $65. They were on sale for people to leave as offerings to the gods, some of the shrines had many of them.

As we walked down through the stalls at the front of the shrine looking for singular foxes that were cheaper. We didn’t find one.

We walked through the little village-like area which was bulging with shops and souvenir stalls.

There was an intersection in which I took a 360 video (do we still call them video?) of all the people.

We walked to the other train station across the town, which is really just another part of Kyoto, which had a direct train to a metro station near our place, which would be just a short walk away from home.

4pm. We got off at Jingu-Marutamachi train station and started to walk home. It was a bit of a walk, but nice.

We crossed the river, The Kamo River, Kamo-gawa, duck river, it is the first time we see it. There seemed to be groups doing sporting things. Maybe school kids practising martial arts, Taiichi, exercise on the banks of the river. I immediately think of China, or Vietnam, or even North Korea and their adherence to communist party dictates on exercise. I wonder if it is the same thing?

We stopped at the supermarket, Fresco, and bought juice and tomatoes and a cucumber. Sam is made on tomatoes and cucumber.

“We’re not getting enough greens,” he says.

I question if tomato’s, or cucumbers are classified as greens.

“What colour are cucumbers?” he asks.

“You know what I mean.”

Japan is big ginger, tiny snow peas. Their citrus never seem that fresh. Everything is individually wrapped in plastic. The anti packaging message seems to have miss them altogether.

We stopped at the Shimagoryo Shrine which is in our neighbourhood. So many shrines in so many neighbourhoods. Not far from our place.

We walked through old Kyoto, I am assuming, where the houses seemed a lot more traditional, which seems to be our part of Kyoto, so that seems convenient. Small houses made of wood fronting right onto the street.

Kyoto is so beautiful, they said. You will love Kyoto, they said. Kyoto is the historic part of Japan, they said.

When I hear historic, I think Europe kind of historic. I guess it just isn’t the same thing?

5pm. We get home, get changed, get our bikes and ride to the Golden Pavilion. (Have to cross those tourist attractions off) Since 1397, so I am guessing that is old. The streets of Kyoto are so bike friendly. But the sign said closed, and the man said, "No, no, no, no shrine for you," to the boy tourist of the Italian couple, who’d walked up the long drive way to investigate. They laughed about it.

So, we rode our bikes home again.

6.30pm. We stopped at a skewer place and eat grilled meat for diner. We ate skewers of beef and chicken and liver and offal and we drank beer and green tea, because the nice smiley waitress said they required us to buy a drink, and although she was smiling we could tell she meant it. The food was good. The offal was tough and indeterminate as to what part of the animal it was.

We rode home, it is getting dark. We stop at two street shops and buy sweeties at both. Open right onto the street, we didn’t even have to get off our bikes. Some skewered sweeties at one, and a chocolate bun and a custard bun at the other.

7.24pm. We’re in a supermarket, again. One we just happened to ride passed. We parked our bikes in the bike park out the front.

“I need rice, I need rice, I’ll die without rice,” says Sam. We bought fruit and white bait and some veggies. He wanted those rice triangle things of which he has become so fond.

It was now dark.

We stopped at the pet shop, which had a wall of kittens and puppies, in clear Perspex boxes. Bengal, Ragdoll, English Short Hair Blue, cats. Yorkshire Terrier, Shiba Inu, and a bunch of oodles, oh, and some white hairy thing you just know was going to grow up to be fluffy and yappy dogs. There was a French Bulldog, so naturally we gravitated to it. We were going ask if he could be taken out so we could play with him, as there were two young Japanese girls playing with the white fluffy thing, but it had got dark by that stage and we still had to ride the rest of the way home, so I wished the Frenchie a happy life and off we toddled home.

8pm. And we are home. Back in our small, paper house, with low ceilings and sliding doors and no windows.

At the food market, Kyoto. I think those skewered fish were alive moments before, they had a tank of them swimming around, and they could see what was going to happen.

Bikes, Kyoto. There are bike parks every where, like our city car parks. This one is on ground level and I just liked the symmetry of the tyres, but they have under ground bike parks for bikes just like we have for cars. First 3 hours free parking, after that you have to pay to get your bike out.

Girl's in traditional dress, Kyoto. We're ten stories up. There is this huge building they have built right in the middle of Kyoto, over the train station, which is pretty amazing. I took photos of it but they just didn't do it justice.

It's a tower, sweetie. A tower. Kyoto. The sun shone, the sky was blue. Lovely weather in Kyoto. The tower is right next to the big train station building, from where I took this.

Eyes, Kyoto. It was some sort of exhibition

Getting the band back together

A Little Shopping, a Lot of Pissing About

I’m up at 7.15am.

This place, our funny little house, is cold in the mornings. It opens onto its own internal court yard, behind another house, which it is separated from by a high wooden fence. It is a rabbit warren of housing, to be sure. The neighbours tower above us on the boundary on a few sides, with balconies on the perimeter, although we never see anyone else, or hear anyone else, for that matter.

I’m glad I bought my tracksuit pants with me, even if I haven’t worn them up until now. This morning I did. An essential item is the track suit pant. Sam questions why we can’t be light travellers, like he sees others are? I thought we were being fairly restrained on this trip. Who cares anyway, got a suitcase, fill it. We didn't even do that. We both bought half full suitcases.

We ride from our place into town. No helmets, nobody wears helmets in Japan. The ride is easy, the terrain is flat. Our street heads straight into town, a straight line unbroken. There are no footpaths, just a line painted on the road delineating where pedestrians should walk. The smaller side streets seem to be predominantly one way, I think. (not really sure, to tell you the truth) Bike riders seem to be able to ride in either direction, on either side of the road for that matter, without anyone getting upset about it. We have no idea what the road rules are, we just give way to everyone.

10.15am. We find the market easily, but where to park our bikes? We meet up with an English couple who are having the same problem, there is camaraderie in the same spoken language. We ask someone, who tells us where we can’t park our bikes. Another person points. Another says Daimaru. We head off in the direction of the points and Daimaru, which are in the same direction. We find the blue P sign for parking. There is a whole bike park downstairs for our bikes, just like we have for cars back home. The first 3 hours are free. The bike rack locks your bike in, it will let it go for free if you return in the allocated time. We ask a young guy for the information. The guy from New York told us that. “If you want to know something, as a young Japanese, they are most likely to speak English.”

We head to the market.

I eat a rice cracker with sugar and plum, Sam eats a rice cracker with lavender and wasabi.

No walking and eating. You have to stay in the place you bought it to eat it, no wandering through the market eating. You’d be forgiven if you thought this was for your own safety, but I don’t think it is. It is all for Japans crazy rubbish laws. It is weird, I reckon. There are no rubbish bins, practically, anywhere. The shop of purchase must take the rubbish back from you. But there seems to be no effort put into not creating the rubbish in the first place, with the excessive amount of packaging they allow.

We eat squid and scallops on sticks. A whole octopus with a skewer up its clacker, and scallops seared by a blow torch.

There is a take-away place that is doing pancakes and omelettes out the front, seemingly with a restaurant to eat them in, of which the take away is out the front. However, when we ask the lady serving she says we have to eat the takeaway stuff at the front section, she indicates the space with a swirl of her hands, otherwise we can go into the restaurant and order food. So, we sit down and eat fish and chicken in the restaurant, during which time the same woman is directing people with take into the restaurant to eat. Bitch, we think.

11.30am. We’re walking through the market. I am so bored. Another’s market, yay. The food is amazing, there is no doubt, and I’d be really interested if I could observe it in my own leisurely manner, but the market is packed with people and it is really slow going.

We eat ice creams at one of the many crossroads crossing over the market walk way. The sun is shining. We sit on small stools at the road’s edge. The market walkway ends in a relatively standard issue shopping mall, and our interest wanes.

Midday. We found our first Bookoff, but there isn’t much that I want. I missed the opportunity to get a remastered copy of Love You Live, which I, actually, had in my hand in Tokyo, but put back on the shelf. It was a single CD rather than a double CD and it just didn’t seem like the right thing. It wasn’t until a few days later that I read that the single CD was the latest remastered Japanese version, dam it. I don’t think Kyoto has the population of Tokyo so it won’t have the same variety. It is a simple economics issue. (I think about my economics days at uni)

We walk down to what seems like the main street of Kyoto and walk back towards where we parked the bikes looking at the big shops. It all suddenly seems quite standard issue.

12.30pm. We take our bikes out of the bike park. We don’t have to pay anything, 10.15am to 12.30pm.

We rode home and had a sleep. I don’t know why I was so sleepy, but I was.

We head back into town to look around, not sure what we really want to do. We haven’t really got our Kyoto feet yet. You move from one city to another just after you have got used to the city you are leaving. We could sniff out another BookOff, indeed we could, but we have to buy a train ticket out of here, for Friday before they get booked out. If we couldn’t get back to Narita airport that, of course, would be a disaster.

We catch the metro into town to have a look around. Kyoto metro seems old and dated compared to Tokyo’s, like it has never been updated.

4.45pm. We are in the JR ticket office in Kyoto buying train tickets out of here. It costs us 29,900 yen ($400 approx) to take a train from Kyoto to Narita on Friday. So, it is done.

We come up the escalators to the surface and discover the huge building in which the station is in the basement. It is a pretty amazing building really. Escalators go up and up and up and up right to the top where there is a court yard/deck/square even.

5.15pm. We’re in the fuck off big building over Kyoto Station, which I am sure is a landmark, and is probably famous, but we just stumbled across as we came into town.

5.30pm. We’re eating dipping noodles into ramen 10 stories up.

Apparently, it is okay to eat in department stores, did you know that? It doesn’t always have to be cute cafes and nice restaurants. So Sam tells me a number of times, when I complain about eating in tacky surrounds.

That’s it, nothing much to do for the rest of the day.

We head off to find the BookOff, which takes us across town and out of the CBD. We wander through an ugly neighbourhood, which gets greyer and greyer and uglier and uglier. It just no longer seems like an area where you’d find a BookOff, but Sam insists. We keep walking and the place seems more deserted and uninteresting. This is where you’d get mugged, if it wasn’t Japan. Maybe I am delusional, but I feel like everywhere in Japan is safe to go. Then we turn a corner and there is the orange and blue BookOff sign. Sam gives me that I-told-you-so look. They don’t have anything I want.

So, we head back through the ugly suburb back towards the CBD, but not, we skirt around the outside of it. We cross over one of their ugly big intersections, over one of these ugly, rusty, metal walkways that go in all directions across big intersections.

We keep walking, the light starts to fade. Our feet start to hurt, well, mine do.

We finally come to the Metro Station we are looking for. The Kyoto Metro system is ugly, grey, bleak even. We take a train back to our Metro Station.

There you go, it was a bit of a nothing day. The food in the market is well worth seeing, if you can stomach the crowds.

Sexy, aren't they