Japan Day Two

I had a group trip to Kyoto. There were two buses with 40 people each for this tour. It was a mixture of students, faculty, staff and senior adult passengers. We set off from Kobe at 8:00 am, for the 90 minute trip. About 10 minutes into it I started feeling really sick. Diarrhea sick and nauseous sick. I did my best to relax and I would start feeling a bit better but then it would come on again worse than before. I finally told Sally who was our bus leader that I really needed to stop and she told the Japanese guide who told the bus driver. They said there was a good place to stop 10 minutes away but we almost immediately hit a traffic snarl, I was pounding down the pepto, but it was touch and go the whole time. About 25 minutes later we got to the rest stop which thankfully had western style toilets. You've got about a 50/50 chance in Japan of getting a western style toilet. The rest are squat toilets which is not at all what you want in the condition I was in. After the bathroom stop though I was much better.

Our first stop was Nijo Castle, this is an early 17th century castle and the country home of the shogun. One of the most interesting things about the castle are the floors. They're wooden planks, but built in such a way that when you step on them they make an unusual chirping sound. This was done intentionally so that assassins couldn't sneak up on the shogun. I think a first rate ninja would have been able to sneak up on the shogun anyway, but I didn't feel broaching the subject of ninjas with the tour guide would have been appropriate. The other very interesting thing about the castle is that there isn't/wasn't any furniture. They sat on mats and slept on futons that they stashed away during the day. It was giant empty room after giant empty room.

Stop two was Kinkaku-ji shrine (golden temple). This is a beautiful temple that's completely gold plated. It was surrounded by gardens and woods and would have been very peaceful if it weren't for all of the annoying American tourists (us).

Stop three was Heian Shrine (Shinto), and then Kiyomizu Temple which is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It was located on the top of a hill overlooking Kyoto and was surrounded by an enormous veranda. The views were spectacular.

This was a very interesting trip, but I didn't like being herded around on a bus all day, getting off taking pictures, getting back on. It would have been very difficult to see everything we saw on my own, but it was difficult to enjoy it fully in such a big group. You know how it's annoying when you're somewhere trying to take in some awe inspiring monument or scenic area and a bus load of Japanese tourists show up and start taking pictures and jostling you around. Well, that was us.

When we got back to the ship I ate a quick bowl of soup and went to my room for a nap, because Marc and Sally and I were planning on going out for some karaoke. I was exhausted and really wanted to cancel. But I drug myself out of bed and got ready. We caught a cab into town and went to a karaoke parlor. We pointed and nodded and shrugged and got a room and 3 gin and tonics. We had to get the waiter to show us how to work the thing, but it wasn't that hard once he showed us. There's just a little wireless box with English directions and you enter a song title or artist name and it shows what songs are available. We sang, "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," "Waterloo," "Light my Fire," "Sweet Caroline," "Suspicious Minds," "Paperback Writer," "For the Longest Time," and finished up with "Like a Rolling Stone." The drinks were really watered down, but sweet and refreshing. We sang for an hour and drank three gin and tonics and then got kicked out. The bathrooms in the karaoke bar were western style, though, and that made the experience truly excellent.

After that we wanted to find a place for a drink and stumbled on an English style pub called "The Hub." It was only Japanese people inside, but a familiar pub type atmosphere and menus that were in English. I had a mojito, Marc had a beer and Sally had a glass of wine. It was very cozy and nice and we chatted for awhile, and then I went to the bathroom. Western style again! Awesome! While I was washing my hands, a Japanese woman came in and asked me if I lived in Kobe. I said, no and didn't try to elaborate because I thought she might not speak good enough English. But she asked me what I was doing, so I told her about the ship and about semester at sea. Turns out, she's the ship's doctor on the ship that's docked right next to ours. She just started that job and had previously been a doctor either at a base or on a ship in Antarctica. She introduced us to her friend who had been in Antarctica with her and was now going to be a pilot in Kobe. The five of us talked for 20 minutes or so and exchanged business cards. (Her English was perfect, by the way).