Japan Day Six : Shinkansen to Kyoto...

Day six began very early (ie - about 2am) with Woo complaining of a massive headache. It seems the "Kirin Strong -It hits you in the mind" joke was more than just a metaphor. But after a few Advil, Woo went back to sleep an continued snoring as usual.

We got up at about 9ish and packed all our shit and so forth for check out at 11. We went to the train station and got our tickets for the shinkansen (bullet train). It was due to leave at 12:10, so we got some food (which took a little longer than expected as we couldn't decide where to eat) and ended up missing our train. Lucky we hada JRail pass and all our train travel was included. We went to the ticket office and apologised profusely (in English, of course). At that piont we didn't know that gomennasai was the Japanese word for sorry. We know now as we have had a few more moments to use it, and have since looked it up.

We go on the shinkansen and headed off towards Kyoto. The shinkansen is very quiet, and you dont really notice how fast it is going. I really loved the trip, especially when we went past Mt Fuji. Both me and Woo were standing in the doorways taking photo's for the whole time you had a good view of Fuji-san. All the other passengers seemed completely apathetic, but I guess thats how you get when you are completely used to something.

The Japanese countryside is absolutely beautiful. The wooded hills surround densly populated plateaus, all the way from Tokyo to Kyoto. In the middle of the city, it con sometimes be easy to forget where you are. It could be any high ride area of Sydney or Melbourne (not Perth), but travelling through the country it is abundantly clear that this could only be Japan. So much so that I nearly expect to see a clan of Samurai charging over one of the hills and rumbling across the field.

But alas, no Samurai. We got to Kyoto and walked the short distance to check in at the New Miyako Hotel. Our room is significantly biggr than in Tokyo and we have free internet. Both of which is very pleasing.

We went back into Kyoto to grab some food. At most of the restaurants in Japan they have buzzers that you press when your want to get the staffs attention. Woo must not have been paying attention to this, as after we had ordered our meal, he asked "whats this" and pressed the buzzer. Aftr hearing the buzzing nse, and seeing the waitress come out to us he realise what it was. Another occasion for us to say sorry.

We then walked into the city side of Kyoto, where we could go up the Kyoto tower and have a look around. While looking fr where to go up the towere, wo beckoned at me to follow him into a building, whi I did without thinking, walking straight across the footpath, I heard a strange sound. I had walked out directly in frnt of an old dude on a pushbike, and he had basically locked it up to avoid hitting me. All the while I was just dopily walking across his path, staring at a smoking hottie in a white coat. I scurried quickly into the building while Woo chuckled loudly.

At the top of the tower you could see all over Kyoto, they had free floor mounted binoculars to look out at the various sites around the area such as shrines, castles and the like. They had the names of the sites and the distance to each site on a sticker on the window, through which you could see the sites when looking through the binoculars. I figured this out pretty quickly, Woo didn't. He later admitted that he kept himself amused by looking into peoples windows with the binoculars to see if they were having sex.

We headed back to the hotel to see where we would like to go out tonight. Woo bought some "Nikka Whisky" and coke and we planned on having few drinks before going out. We got a call from Dennis, letting us know that he and Michael would be coming to our room before we all go out. Woo got housekeeping to show him where the ice was, and at my request, he answered the door wearing a headbad typr thing he found in the hotel drawer. I dont think the hotel clerk quite knew what was so funny. Then we spent the time waiting for Dennis and Michael to get to the hotel drinking and discussing religion after Woo found the treachings of Buddha in the drawer next to his bed.

In the end, Dennis and Michael didn't come to our hotel room so we headed into Kyoto to meet them at Oike Station.

Woo and I jumped on the Kyoto subway, even though we were fairly sure that our JR pass didn't allow us subway in Kyoto. And, as we expected, we were caught out for the transit guard at Oike station and we had to pay our fare.

We then followed Dennis to a Sake bar he had read about in the Kyoto visitors magazine. We found it with the help of a little old lady, whom Dennis gave a small furry Kangaroo for her troubles. The sake bar was run by an Isreali immigrant who had lived in Japan for the last 13 years. The sake was awful (I hate the stuff, but i'm sure some people like it) but the conversation was fantastic. It was one of those quintessential Japanese experiences that you dream about. After that (about 11pm) we headed into the night club/ bar area of Kyoto. We found a little bar called Voodoo Noise Bar and went inside. We quickly struck up a conversation with the barman (Adsu) and a girl at the bar (Yumi). Yumi worked at Voodoo some nights, but tonight she was just there drinking. They had a fooseball table downstairs and Woo challenged many Japanese fooseball heros to game (and lost all of them). We had a fantastic time there until leaving at around 2am and heading off looking for something else.

We then entered another little bar. Fuck knows what it was called. But Woo and I struck up a conversation with two girls at the bar named Hiyako and Yu. They were lots of fun, and despite the major language barrer, we managed to get drunk together and take the piss out of each other. Finally at around 4:30, all decided it was time to call it a night, and we all headed home.

A night of desperately trying to understand a language you have absolutely no idea of can be very tiring.