Despite the rain, this was the kind of day I was hoping for by traveling alone.
It did not start well because the Katsura Imperial Villa I first went to see was closed… plenty of other options, I consoled myself.
On the bus to the Kinkakuji Temple this very cute Asian girl stood next to me… we exchanged some glances and then I realized that she was also a tourist when I saw her with an English map.
Turns out she is also traveling alone and she is from the Netherlands. She became my tourism buddy for the day.
The Kinkakuji temple is covered in gold. We had some seaweed tea – very interesting and tasty and also had some tea inside a traditional tea ceremony house.

From there we went to see a Zen rock garden – Ryoanji Temple. Pity it was raining… the pictures would’ve been much colorful.
All of these temple are surrounded by beautiful vegetation and carefully tended gardens.

We then went all the way across town to the Kyoto Station to eat some lunch and get the bus to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Amazing place… My friend left because she had a previous appointment and I went ahead and did the entire trail.
I wish I had a guide to tell me all the meaning behind of these temples. The travel web sites give you only a very superficial explanation of each of these temples.


As I left the trail through an “alternative” route through the woods this lady stopped her car next to me and offered me a ride! She spoke enough English so that we could say what we did and so on. Turned out she was going to Kyoto Station to pick up her daughter who works exactly in front of my hotel! After she dropped me off, I was waiting to cross the street and she comes running towards me with an umbrella and gives it to me as a present!!
So… the kind of day I was looking for… meeting interesting people, interacting with the local people, and having some random things happen out of the blue 🙂
Going to push my luck tonight and see if I fair a little bit better at night – want to see what the local hang out scene is like 🙂 Last night I went to Gion and wondered around aimlessly extremely confused as to what door was what. Many Geishas walking around, many small restaurants, and many “strip” joints… but I could not tell what was what – nothing written in English – very frustrating. Came back home with dinner in my belly and not much else 🙂

OK… one more… very appropriate video being in Japan, seeing all of the “cuteness” that permeates their culture and all of the bathroom posts, here comes a poop training video for Japanese kids… couldn’t stop laughing!

Went to breakfast this morning here at the hotel in Hiroshima and all that was being played was Brazilian music… MPB… versions I had never heard before – all excellent renditions of the classics – So Danco Samba, Desafinado, Garota de Ipanema and so on.
Off to Kyoto 🙂

That was the range of my day today. Kind of expecting it but did not think I would actually have tears in my eyes.
I first wandered around the Peace Memorial Park preparing myself to go into the actual museum. Got an audio guide which proved to be very emotional and informative. The bombing completely leveled the city and even though it was war and they were expecting air raids, no one was expecting something this big. The pictures and stories were simply horrifying. I think the one that made the most impression on me was some life size wax representations of what it looked like a few minutes after the blast. A woman and two children with their skin hanging from their bodies like melted plastic…
At the exit my mood swung when a group of Japanese students started to say hello in English and were very happy when I asked to take their picture. The sun came out – that helped a lot as well.

For the second half of my day I went to Miyajima. I was actually not expecting much from this island full of shrines close to Hiroshima (1 hour by tram + 10 minutes on a ferry). Right off the ferry I was greeted by some deer! They roam around freely in the island and in the city! The natural beauty of the place was stunning. The cable car that usually takes people up to the top of this 500m high island was out of service so I walked up one of the climbing paths (2km) and was rewarded at the end by a beautiful view and a very good energy along the entire way. Beautiful town, very traditional and some impressive shrines and temples.


Tomorrow I head to Kyoto then back to Tokyo. Next week I still have to decide where to go.

So the rain subdued and I went out for a walk and dinner.
Dinner proved to be harder than I thought… unlike Tokyo there are very few menus with pictures or any signs in English for that matter.
The lights, billboards and many stores and video game/slot parlors look just like Tokyo. Well, Hiroshima is a big city – 1.5 million inhabitants.
Anyway, ate some noodles, saw the A-dome and went into a video game place… off to another early start tomorrow to see the Peace Memorial Park and museum and then go to Miyama – one of the most visited/photographed sites in Japan. Let’s see 🙂

Just played around with the view from Max’s apt yesterday night.

Woke up early today and caught the train to Hiroshima… sounds simple? Not really… first went to the Shinjuku Station at 8am. The JR exchange office only opened at 11 so I had to go to Tokyo Station. After going into the wrong entrance, a very nice man lead me to the correct entrance. In the station I went to 4 different JR ticketing offices to finally get to the one that exchanged my purchased ticket into the actual pass.
With incredible punctuality, the train left at 9:36am. I happened to be sitting right where the train officer dispatches the train from the platform. He was looking at the clock (with seconds) and as soon as 9:35 flipped over to 9:36 he pressed a green button and 15 seconds later the train started moving. They say you can set your watch to the JR trains.
The ride is very comfortable and when you think it is going fast, it accelerates even more. The train I was in went up to 300km/h (188mph)!
The landscape, well, not much open country – all the way to Hiroshima (a 4 hour train ride) it is all built up with many rice fields in between houses and buildings. Very pretty how rice is always completely flat and level.
Into Hiroshima I took an old tram to the center of town and found a hotel that has internet in the room. As I was about to step outside rain started pouring down, so now I am here in the room blogging 🙂
For now, here is a quick video of the train itself:

Well, in China most of the bathrooms are crouch-down style.
In Japan it’s a different story…

Even the bike garage at Max’s place is pretty cool…

The packaging here is also awesome… it is all thought out… guess it comes from the Origami tradition 🙂