Friday, 28 April 2014
After a 5 hour jet lagged fitful sleep I was about to endure
one of the most awkward shower experiences of my life. The capsule hotel
offered a traditional bathing setting known as an onsen. This is involves stripping naked in an ante room, stuffing
your clothes in a provided locker and entering an adjacent bathing room. Inside
the white tiled bathing room sat a Jacuzzi and along one wall a bunch of small
stools with flexible shower heads tapped into the wall. The idea is to sit on
the stool, give yourself a once over with the shower head followed by a dip in
the Jacuzzi tub where you properly wash yourself with soap. Committed to
getting the full Japanese experience I decided to go for it with about as much
confidence as a fat kid on swimming pool day.
Fortunately the onsen was not brimming with other people,
instead I shared it with one other guy. Clearly we were both first timers. Fumbling
with our clothes, the tip toing into the bathing room. We exchanged head nods,
both accepting we were here for nothing more than human hygiene care. Sitting naked
around the Jacuzzi, we eventually made small talk, he correctly identified I
was American, I thought he was Indian (he was Bangladeshi, whoops). I made a
half assed attempt at soaping my body and got out of there. Later that morning
during checkout I saw the same guy and made eye contact. We both knew what we
were thinking.
With that behind us we departed the capsule hotel and made
our way to the Shinkansen (Bullet
trains) station for our journey to Kyoto. The trains themselves were not only
quite long, but very wide. Seats sat 3 a piece, two rows with a large aisle separating
them. Windows were large and we had plenty of leg room. The four of us has
purchased a “weekly pass” (not cheap) allowing us unlimited travel on the
Shinkansen for a 7 day period.
2.5 hours later we arrived in Kyoto (saw my first Geisha!),
met up with Abbey and the 5 of us took a cab to our hostel. We dropped off our
luggage and wandered around the central district. Had lunch with Karen and
Craig in some hole in the hall restaurant – Lauren and Abbey decided on a vegetarian
restaurant nearby. I did NOT come to Japan for vegetarian food!
We took the Kyoto Metro to a large park near the edge of the
city. Inside we walked around various gardens eventually coming to a large 2
story Japanese temple covered in gold. The temple overlooked this small lake
and looked very imposing and impressive.
Post golden temple, we strolled around a large park in the center
of town. A huge squat off limits castle sat in center of the park. The cherry
blossoms were blooming and many a Kyotoian (just made that up) was ogling the
trees. Some had large cameras with lenses the size of elephant trunks pointed within
inches of the petals.
We rounded out the day with further walking around town and
dinner consisting of some soup based meal.
Our hostel for the evening was made of rooms with bunk
style beds, except each bed was walled off on all four corners with Japanese
styled sheets giving the occupant a degree of privacy.
Observations so far: The taxis here, like in London, all
appear to be of a same model car, resembling a 90’s Mercedes. The back passenger door opens and closes at
the flick of switch controlled by the driver. Set into the sidewalk are yellow
plastic tiles with rows of raised lips, they run the length of the sidewalks
all around time. These are for blind people to navigate by. Apparently
blindness is a huge problem in Japanese society so they’ve done everything they
can to accommodate people with this disability. Before every meal we are given
little warm towellettes to clean our hands. The locals are friendly and accommodating.
