GW 2011 Part 3

The Kansai trip I shall be retelling here and in the next post almost didn't happen. Kevin, my dear friend Tracy's coworker, is about to return to America and he'd been after us the past few weeks about going to Kyoto and Nara. He never made the trip out there during his stay in Japan and he REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to go before going back home. I told him I'd be game for the trip and I'd gladly pay my share, but no way in hell am I going to plan it. Students and parents alike were telling us we'd probably waited too long to get hotel rooms or Shinkansen tickets, but Tracy and Kevin managed to find both and arrange everything maybe two days before we left. While I was enjoying a hot dog at Kasai Rinkai Koen, they were scrambling for train tickets.

I left my apartment Monday morning at about 6:45am, to catch the train to the station we were meeting at to get on the Shinkansen. I didn't realize Odawara was two hours away (eek) but I really didn't want to be on the bullet train by myself so I had agreed to meet them at that station. I'd also totally forgotten that I'VE BEEN TO ODAWARA BEFORE, but I remembered when I saw the castle outside the station. 

The Shinkansen ride was about two hours from Odawara to Kyoto. Not too bad considering the price of a ticket and the amount of time it took. I slept most of the way there. When I did get up to use the restroom, I was taken aback by the fact that the train had one of these:

At least they provide toilet paper.

Granted I got mad squat toilet skillz, but WHY IS THERE A SQUAT TOILET ON THE SHINKANSEN??? THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS. IT IS UNNECESSARY TO THE BILLIONTH DEGREE. I digress...

We got to Kyoto around noon but we couldn't check into our hotel until 3pm, so we went off to Fushimi-Inari Shrine - a.k.a. that shrine with all the orange torii lined up that gets used in movies and commercials a lot. It's about a 15 minute bus ride + 10 minute walk from Kyoto Station.

Start of the torii.

One thing you almost never see is the back of the torii, where they all have kanji carved into the wood. As I was walking through the gates, I noticed some of them were brand new and a few didn't even have the characters painted black yet. I naively assumed that the kanji were blessings or sutras or something and the torii have to get replaced every so often, since they're made of wood they probably get eaten by bugs or damaged.

Kanji kanji kanji...

WRONG. Shrines like these are where businessmen pray for good fortune, so anyone can buy a gate and have their business or name written on the back for good luck. If I have a good chunk of money laying around maybe I'll think about getting my own Fujiyoshi torii.

Rates for different sized torii. Get yours today!

We checked into our hotel at about 4pm, after wandering around the streets of Kyoto for about half an hour trying to find the place. I'm glad Kevin and Tracy were able to get us a proper room so we didn't have to stay in the dorm-style lodging downstairs.

We made a fairly pitiful trip to the famous Gion district that night, as well. We were all pretty beat and we didn't know where to go for anything fun, and wandering around only led us to sketchy areas and host clubs. I knew the Gion was a red-light district in the past, but I didn't realize that it's still fairly true to its roots today. But at least the shrine was pretty at night!

Ugh I STILL HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO WRITE ABOUT. Next time: Nara, losing my wallet, and my camera deciding it hates the world!