Kyoto!

Words cannot describe just how much I love Kyoto. Despite it being unbearably hot and humid, no, seriously it can melt your face off your skull, I do love this place. When I arrived at the station (the ride from Nagoya was probably a half hour, TOPS), I felt very much at home. I knew my way around, for the most part, and I had no trouble finding my hostel at all. As it turns out, the hostel I am staying at is the sister hostel to the one I stayed at last summer. And the receptionist was the same guy, too. I told him I recognized him, but I didn't expect the same of him. I think he tried... He said something about my eyes, but I told him it was okay. He's a funny guy. I didn't get any pictures of the first night here, but I was so happy to finally have my internet back that I didn't much care at that point about taking pictures. I am such a nerd. (Scott: TEE-HEE!)

I suppose it shouldn't surprise the lot of you that there are quite a bit of pictures in this batch... There would have been more but yesterday my battery died and then today, when using my other camera, the memory card filled up. Not to worry, though, I still have PLENTY of pictures to go around.

Yesterday morning, I had no idea what I wanted to do... I knew I wanted to go to that one place with all of the red gates. My previous-night's roommate ended up following me because he didn't know what he wanted to do either. In a miraculous turn of events, I ended up meeting up with the awesome Canadian chick at the station and the three of us headed out together. The place we went to, with all the red gates, is called Inari shrine. I think that is my new favorite place in Kyoto... My god, that places is HUGE. And we didn't realize just how many STAIRS there were... I mean, Jesus there are a lot of stairs. We ended up going halfway up the freaking mountain, and there were still even MORE stairs after we stopped. But we ate at this really cool little restaurant at the top and enjoyed some green tea ice cream. My camera died just as we reached the top... Stupid camera! But not to worry, I will be returning there with Lyndsay on Saturday.

From July 13 - 14

For those of you who are wondering, a pretty memorable scene from Memoirs of a Geisha was shot at this shrine... The part where the little girl is running through all the gates after giving the money as an offering for prayer to see the chairman again. I'm pretty sure I've been to all the Japan locations shown in that movie now. =)

I was particularly happy because there was this really cute Japanese photographer guy that kept crossing paths with us... He was nice to look at.

From July 13 - 14

This is the only picture I managed to get of him... =(

Such is life.

After we returned from Inari shrine we went into Gion and saw some pretty cool preparetions for the Gion Matsuri...

From July 13 - 14

We ate at this really good shabu shabu place. We ate SO MUCH MEAT. Good god, we at a lot... I'm not exaggerating, we probably ate like 7 plates of meat between the three of us. We were hungry, though, and it was damn good.

So, TODAY... Me and Emilie, the Canadian were on our own... So we decided to go to the Atamariyama (I think this is horribly horribly wrong but we'll call it that for now) and check out what was there... Mainly, we wanted to go to the monkey park and see the bamboo forest. So that's what we did.

From July 13 - 14

For 100 yen you could feed the monkeys through the chainlink fences. This was at the very top, though... So more hiking. My god, today was so miserable in terms of the weather... It was unbearably humid, but we pressed onward. We saw the monkeys! We could pretty much walk freely among them with no gates. If you wanted to feed them, however, you had to stay inside the building. Which was fine... The building was air-conditioned and offered iced drinks for a small price. And you could still see outside... It was quite an amazing view, too. =)

From July 13 - 14

After the monkey park we headed to the bamboo forest... This was pretty cool, though it was a bit small. And there were SO MANY MOSQUITOS. Luckily, I have ointment and salve that helps with the bites.

From July 13 - 14

After that we were pretty beat... So we went back to the hostel and chillaxed for just a bit and then went out for dinner. We ate at this cool Okonomiyaki place and had ice cold beer... Beer never tasted so good, let me tell you. The Japanese people sitting near us were impressed with my Japanese skills, even though I didn't use it much during the time we were at the restaurant. I over heard them saying in Japanese that I was good at Japanese... I wanted to look over and tell them thank you, but I figured I would spare them the embarassment since they made some comments about us a few times during dinner that were pretty funny. I made the same, likewise, since I could understand some of what they were talking about. So I left the restaurant without giving those other Japanese even the slightest hint that I heard them. But I was still pretty happy that they said that about me. =) Yay!

I've been working on memorizing the lyrics to this Japanese song so I can sing it in Karaoke... Its pretty difficult, but I think I can do it. That is my final goal for Japan! I haven't done Karaoke yet, but I'm still trying to fight off this stupid cold.. Bah. Well, I think I will be okay.

Anyhow, I think I'm annoying my roommates with the typing sounds, so I should go to bed now... Gotta head to Hiroshima tomorrow!

Until next time,

Nicole

PS - Here is the link to this post's photo album. You can also get to it from the side bar on the right, under 'PICTURES!'