Our first day in Kyoto, we grab some food and sit on the river bank with the locals watching Snowy Egret and Herons, fish for their lunch.
Kyoto has many beautiful, traditional wooden Japanese houses built along narrow cobbled streets, where there is always a faint scent in the air of cooking and sometimes incense. We were lucky enough to see some Geisha float in and out of alleyways glimpsing shyly at you and scuttling away in their wooden flip flops which look hugely uncomfortable but they ware them so effortlessly, every detail about their appearance is flawless, their skin porcelain white, their hair shiny with delicate blossom flower clips and every movement religiously choreographed.
Upon walking into the city centre the modernisation of the buildings stands out.. The space for car parking is limited, so they have a great solution, you drive your car into a car elevator where it is mechanically taken to the appropriate floor and along on a escalator to the space.
The taxi cabs here are a shock too! The back doors of the cabs automatically open and close behind you, the cabs also have white lace seat covers! Couldn't see that working in the UK.!!
The Japanese have drinks machines everywhere, on every street on every road, you will never go thirsty!
The toilet seats take some time to get used to too! The seat is heated and most have many buttons for different functions making doing your business that little bit more pleasurable. They even have a flush sound recorded for you to play whilst on the loo!!
On our second day we visited Nara, which is famous for Daibutsu-den (Hall of the Great Buddha) One of the largest bronze figures in the world 16m high and weighs 437 tonnes in bronze and 130kg in gold! Bling a ding!
Dainichi Buddha, the cosmic Buddha believed to precede all worlds and the perspective historical buddhas!
At the back of the Buddha is a large wooden column with a hole in it, apparently exactly the same size as one of the large Buddha nostrils!! If you can squeeze through the hole you are ensued of enlightenment!! Quite comical watching some folk being pulled from one side and pushed from the other! Wouldn't fancy getting wedged in there myself,a tad embarrassing! I can just see the headlines!! 'Red Haired British tourist attracts crowds of onlookers as Japanese Fire brigade winch out of cosmic Buddha!!'
We are convinced that the Japanese have developed some kind of steroid for their veggies over here! Yesterday we visited a food market where they exhibit and sell HUGE veggies!! Judging by the size of the cabbage we saw, weighing 17kg , it could feed a Japanese family and their friends and their friends friends for months!! But surely there is only so much cabbage one person can eat before you're, well, all cabbaged out?!!!
At the market the fish stalls had some interesting delicaseys for sale?!! Firstly Cod's sperm, white and looked a little like brain but not stuck together!!mm mm?! Sea Cucumbers! Now I love my food, but how ANYONE human could find this remotely appetising I don't know?! Fish would maybe?.... Maybe not?! Then there was the Octopus, which really was the icing on the cake!! Apparently you can go into bars over here and order Octopus legs, they keep the Octopus alive and chop its legs off to order, so when you eat it apparently the suckers stick to the roof of your mouth!! Yuck!!
Mike and I did, however, sample some food whilst at the market, we surprisingly opted for those things we recognised, vaguely! Tempurared Veg, Potato mixed with beans in batter, and traditional Japanese sweets with a filling of bean curd sweetened and coated in batter and fried, very good!! Mike did however sample some small dried fish, which the Japanese love, his face was a picture attempting to look convincingly impressed to the vendor! Also we sampled some Octopus dough balls which have a soft almost wet, uncooked batter centre, with large chunks of Octopus legs chopped up inside! Mm interesting!? Well great value for money if you are travelling on a budget, like us, because they keep you chewing for hours!! Its surprising the Japanese are such a slim race considering how much fried food they eat! Well I suppose those giant veg maintain a healthy balanced diet and of course the odd sea cucumber thrown in?!!
The weather is bitterly cold in Kyoto and it has snowed all down the west coast of Japan over the last couple of days, fortunately we are on the east coast so wont be donning any skies!!
We haven't learnt much Japanese while we have been out here but have the basics. As you walk into any market or store the shop workers shout Welcome! Repeatedly! Another thing they say is, well it sounds like, 'skinny master' and we still haven't worked out what this translates as, we have however heard it mentioned on the sumo programmes, so obviously doesn't mean skinny master!! 'Hai' is yes but is pronounced like 'Hi' and said by raising your voice as if saluting an officer!!
The Japanese take advantage of the number of people in their country by recruiting someone for each and every job!
They have people who man the lifts, yes standing in the lift and opening and shutting the doors welcoming you in and thanking you for using the lift!! Wee guys on the buses are employed just to give change! Two people at each till in each shop, one to pack and one to operate till and then both to bow and repeatedly say thank you! In fact if you are first to enter a department store in the morning all the staff from each floor gather by the entrance and line up either side of the doors to bow and welcome you to the store!! You feel like the Queen!! Its wicked! Also all the staff are so incredibly well dressed. The station master wears a full suit and hat with white gloves!
Mike has turned into an avid train spotter over here, reaching for his camera as soon as the funky tune is played on the station speakers announcing a train arriving.
It has been a bank holiday weekend over here and boy do you know it! All those 127 million people that live on the island all come out of the woodwork, to cue like sheep for everything!! We sensibly got up early and visited Himejii Castle and Gardens early but by the time we had returned home the streets were thick with people! Rushes of people were flowing off escalators, we were attempting to go against the flow, you felt like a salmon swimming up stream (and a large one at that with our rucksacks strapped to our backs) .
We visited Osaka which is a city an hours bullet train ride from Kyoto, which is the home to the world's largest aquarium! It houses the worlds largest shark too, the Whale Shark is an incredible sight! It also has the most amazing Sea lion exhibit, there was a Sea lion pup darting about, you could watch it for hours! The Manta Ray are such belittling fish, they soar around the vast tank as if they are a raptor gliding through the sky! And they are HUGE!! Another Brilliant Day!!!
We visited Japan's tallest 5 storey pagoda and like many of Japan's shrines and temples they are constructed without nails just with the huge pieces of wood slotted into each other so that when Japan experiences one of those regular earthquakes the building snakes from side to side with ease!
We are off to Tokyo now for our last week, looking forward to experiencing some more bright lights and buzz of the city!
