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February 01, 2005

Kyoto

We spent so many hours just wandering around the streets and taking any turn that looked interesting. I tried to plan things for us to do, but Kyoto is just packed with sights, temples and shrines. On one hand you can get lost in the piles of things to do, and on the other you can just wander and know you’ll come across something interesting.

We stayed in the tiniest hostel I have ever seen, which made up for its size with really friendly people. Ben tried to learn to ride a bike for me. And he did really well. So now that he’s going to shot me for letting that cat out of the bag I’d like to add that he can now officially ride a bike, just not at a speed that makes it more efficient then just say..walking :P

I even had a chance to show off my Japanese in front of my guy when a shopkeeper asked a few questions that I understood and an hour long conversation ensued. She made us tea, taught us about some of the sweets in her shop (including some lovely samples…) and even threw in a mini Japanese lesson when I told her I thought the multiple meanings of so many words made Japanese interesting, rain and candy are the same word, so is cloud and spider, and chopsticks, bridge and edge. Of course there is some inflection that makes them different and the kanji is probably nowhere near similar, but that’s abit above my level right now.

Our last day in Kyoto was probably the best one as we got royal treatment from Ben’s Japanese coworker. This man and his girlfriend met us in the city, took us to a tofu restaurant for lunch, a shrine for intelligence, a bakery where we took a class on making a traditional Kyoto desert called Kyogashi, the most famous temple in Kyoto at the end of the main street in Gion, and then treated us to dinner in Osaka. All the while getting to talk to them was possibly the most interesting part as they both were stunning people.

Kyoto was amazing. (I'll put captions up later, it's been a crazy few weeks because I've been in the process of changing schools!)

This one goes out to a certain boy named John Witten (use asked, I delivered!). Though I can’t guarantee that they are used underwear…eww.

Posted by theinfonaut at February 1, 2005 06:36 AM

Comments

Posted by: Jesse at February 1, 2005 07:18 AM

Posted by: Fred at February 2, 2005 11:12 PM