Hello my dear reader(s), hisashiburi da ne? The following series of posts concern my amazing trip to Kyoto. So sit back, relax and get ready for massive amounts of cultural insensitivity!June 6, 2008
I left the house at around 7 or 8 and I yelled to my host mom, "yo okasan smell you later"...ahem. I arrived at Yotsuya at roughly 8:30 to meet up with my travelling partner, let's call her "The Valley-chan". After meeting up, we were on our merry way to Tokyo Station. Having factored in breakfast time before we boarded our Shinkansen, the Valley-chan and I decided to search out a Starbucks. Easy in one of the most metropolitan places in the world right? Wrong. But find one we did, and we had a delicious breakfast. After a bit of wandering around the surprisingly run down Tokyo station, we boarded our Shinkansen and set out on our adventure.
Tokyo Station, it looks very charming and not in bad shape, but wait until I show you Kyoto Station.
For those of you who don't know, the Shinkansen lines are the bullet trains which can get you virtually anywhere in Japan faster than a Japanese man in bed...too soon (that one's for you Lauren!)? Valley-chan and I sat down, and relaxed into our amazingly comfortable seats. I was a bit apprehensive because although the Valley-chan and I were in the same Japanese class, we never hung our, or really talked before, which could make for an extremely awkward trip. We hung out for a bit and watched the first half of Super Bad on my laptop before falling asleep. I woke up a bit before her and just started talking to this Japanese woman who was sitting on my right. Valley-chan woke up soon after, and the three of us were just shooting the breeze about sights to see in Kyoto. After getting out at Kyoto Station, we headed to our hotel. It was quite spacious and nice, but Valley-chan and I were surprised to see that the sheets were all pure white...something which was mildly offsetting. But we wasted little time sitting around...except for that hour which we spent sitting around.
"No black light necessary to see just how badly the sheets have been defiled"~Pete
Checking my (really Matt's) travel book, we were on our way to the sites in the immediate area. The first site we saw was the Imperial Palace Park, which is an expansive plot of land save for the buildings from the old Imperial Palaces. Of course, as Valley-chan and I soon learned, we cannot go anywhere without causing a bit of trouble. As we were taking pictures of the outer wall, I decided to take a closer look at the construction of the roof overhang, after all much of these buildings are hundreds of years old. Looking underneath the overhand, I saw it was supported by beautiful pieces of older wood, but that it was holding up amazingly. In my fascination, I neglected to see the gully/moat, and accidentally lost my balance. Using my ninja like reflexes I regained my balance by stepping on the other side of the gully which basically put me up against the outer wall of the castle. Then, to my surprise, I hear a loud wailing sound. As I looked behind me I saw a small black device with a red light being emitted. That's right folks I had triggered a park wide alert system. Looking back and forth between the alarm system and the Valley-chan, I feel I did the most rational and mature decision one can make in that situation...I ran! Of course, Valley-chan in her own maturity (and realizing that they'll probably suspect the guy running away from the site of the alarm as being who they're after) calmly walked away. After the Valley and I had met up and began calmly walking around the park again, we would be passed by a security car undoubtedly looking for us.
On that wonderful note, I'll end this entry for the first half of Kyoto Day I
Gambatte,
-DPN
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