It's been a busy few days - all a bit of a blur, to be honest. The first night was just amazingly surreal, being whisked off to a concert only hours after landing. Not that I'm complaining, it was a great show, but I did end up literally falling asleep on my feet during one of the quieter songs. I'm serious - I felt my knees buckle and I started dropping to the ground. I caught myself in time, but I guess being awake for 24 hours straight will do that to you.
I can't help the feeling that I'm getting ahead of myself, though - I still need to write about my last few days in Japan! Well, no time like the present, I guess. I mean, it was only a week ago...
The night I wrote about Tokyo was actually my first night in Kyoto - Saturday night, in fact. As I have since discovered on this adventure, it's not a very bright idea to try and cram too much into so little time. I've also realised it's not a very bright idea to try to do much after you've actually arrived where you're staying - so the rest of that night was a write-off. I did go for a bit of a walk around the city for an hour or two, but that was all I managed. Well, aside from having a chat and a couple of drinks with a fellow traveller.
Like Tokyo, though, the next day was massive. After a few chilly days in Japan, the weather in Kyoto was a magnificent 22 degrees with a perfect blue sky. My first stop (after a big long walk) was Nijo Castle. This place was great, exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see on the Japanese leg of my tour. The area itself is made of two separate buildings: Ninomaru Palace, the outer building, and Honmaru Palace, the inner palace (surrounded by a moat).
Ninomaru Palace was the more impressive of the two, mostly due to the Nightingale Floor. This was really cool: in order to alert the Shogun to people wandering the corridors (I'm guessing by this they mean assassins or other unfriendly people), the floors are deliberately designed to gently squeak as they're walked over. Throughout the tour, all you can hear is a constant squeaking throughout the place. Honmaru Palace was more ornate (and did I mention the moat?) and had some fantastic gardens, but it wasn't quite as interesting as Ninomaru. But it did have a moat.
Another brief walk later and I was at Kyoto Imperial Park, a rather huge chunk of greenery right in the middle of the city that is home to the Imperial Palace, Sento Palace and the Kyoto State Guest House - none of which is open to the public so I only saw the outside of them. It was a nice walk though. There were lots of people around that day (it was a Sunday) taking advantage of the weather, but it's also a really nice looking area with lots of plum blossoms, err, blossoming.
After checking my map, I realised the Heian Jingu Shrine was nearby (actually, there were lots of shrines nearby - there are temples and shrines everywhere in Kyoto!) that sounded interesting, so up the road I walked again... but it wasn't there. I checked the map again and figured I'd made a wrong turn, but no - I was in the right place, it just looked closed. A little disappointed, I found somewhere else to go instead and wandered off. As I kept walking, I came across a giant red gateway - and then realised I'd found the shrine I was looking for, I just came at it the wrong way.
By this time I was getting quite hungry, so I thought I'd head toward the city and grab something to eat. To get there I followed one road which led past the Chion-in Temple - this one looked too cool not to take a look. To get to it you needed to scale these massive steps - which I did - but by the time I got to the top, the bell started ringing to say the place was closing. It looked nice, though. I meandered through Maruyama Park for a while, passing the Yasaka Shrine until I finally reached the edge of the city.
I'd read about a soba bar toward the northern end of the city, so this was the way I started to head. Passing through the Sanjo Shopping Arcade - with a detour though the Nishiki Food Market - I came to where the place was supposed to be, but couldn't find it. By now I was having severe hunger pains, so I decided to head back to the hostel and dropped into the first place I found that looked good. One very nice meal later, I decided that 11 hours on my feet was quite enough for one day (it was dark by now, anyway), so I headed back to the hostel and crashed.
So that's Kyoto. There's still so much to go and I'm so far behind, I'll try to get up to date as soon as I can.
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