Kyoto, Day One
Or, How to Get Where You're Going Without Speaking a Word of the Language.
So, I set out at about 11 or so on December the 23rd to Incheon airport on this lovely bus.
It's not too special, but it's what Korean buses are like. It's also the first time I've taken a bus, any bus, anywhere in Korea, largely because it's to tell exactly where the damn things are going. There's a colour system for figuring out which goes where and how fast, but this one I took on a recommendation from someone who actually knows what they are doing.
Plane ride was entirely uneventful.
Arrival at Kansai International airport, the same. I took out some money (apparently $700 is about what you need to do Japan on the cheap for a week, more or less, probably more in Tokyo or if you stay in the big cities), and went hunting for tourist maps and the train station. As it turns out, the station was a floor up and across a bridge, and so I get inducted into the weird world of Japanese public transportation.
It turns out Japan has several different rail lines, all owned and operated by different companies -- I don't think any of them are state owned. There is no functional difference between the subway and railway systems in many places, very often the terminus of a subway line matches up with the terminus of a railway line run by the same company under different auspices.
In any case, since I didn't have any idea how long it would take me to get from Osaka to Kyoto or Nara or back, I figured I'd be safest going to Kyoto and Nara first, and then finishing in Osaka so I wouldn't be in a mad rush for the plane. It's allll up here, people.
On the platform I ran into a rather nice older New York lady who is also teaching English in Seoul as a sort of semi-retirement from the jungle environment of the New York school system, so I had a train buddy for the ride. But she's older and has actual money and has already done the youth hostel thing, so we parted ways at Kyoto station where she went off to her four star hotel and I went looking for a place to crash that preferably had a roof.
I found it in the Higashiyama Youth Hostel, which is basically a lot of bunkbeds crammed into a rather smallish building. My room had space for five, and my first night there was full occupancy. After dumping my gear (with the exception of Sigma, who I'd brought along for the purpose of transferring and organizing photos asap, except that I forgot the USB cable, oops) I went to get food.
Dinner: Mixed Udon
About three shops down was this tiny mom-and-pop restaurant deal, where I got a nice boiling hot bowl of udon noodles with vegetables, chicken, and a tempura prawn. I was sure I had a picture of it at one point, but I must have deleted it by accident. In any case, it was pretty exciting to finally have something to eat that didn't taste exclusively of red peppers. The presentation was also rather nice for a change, so I was pretty exstatic.
After that I wandered around in the dark for a while to get a feel for the neighbourhood. This particular neighbourhood had a more ancient feel to it, but also considerable affluence, judging from the size of the lots and the quality of the construction. All the houses have walls around them and old style roofs. Apartments buildings are all rather low, four or five stories, and rather modern if styled in sterotypically Japanese style. It was generally very quiet at night My closest Canadian analogue would be Vancouver.
I also came across the first of the bulk vending machine things I'd heard so much about. It's not uncommon to see two, three, or four vending machines in clusters on just about every corner or under their own protective awnings. THEY HAVE PEPSI TWIST IN JAPAN
I soon came to recognize the Suntory Boss Coffee vending machines, because they ALWAYS had Pepsi Twist in the 500 mL size.
Also, Suntory Boss Coffee is apparently represented by Tommy Lee Jones, because they have a picture of him with the word BOSS in huge letters. I guess the first thing that the Japanese think when they see Tommy Lee Jones' craggy, authoritarian face is that he is the Boss Of Them All Since 1992.
Welcome to Japan.
So, I set out at about 11 or so on December the 23rd to Incheon airport on this lovely bus.
It's not too special, but it's what Korean buses are like. It's also the first time I've taken a bus, any bus, anywhere in Korea, largely because it's to tell exactly where the damn things are going. There's a colour system for figuring out which goes where and how fast, but this one I took on a recommendation from someone who actually knows what they are doing.
Plane ride was entirely uneventful.
Arrival at Kansai International airport, the same. I took out some money (apparently $700 is about what you need to do Japan on the cheap for a week, more or less, probably more in Tokyo or if you stay in the big cities), and went hunting for tourist maps and the train station. As it turns out, the station was a floor up and across a bridge, and so I get inducted into the weird world of Japanese public transportation.
It turns out Japan has several different rail lines, all owned and operated by different companies -- I don't think any of them are state owned. There is no functional difference between the subway and railway systems in many places, very often the terminus of a subway line matches up with the terminus of a railway line run by the same company under different auspices.
In any case, since I didn't have any idea how long it would take me to get from Osaka to Kyoto or Nara or back, I figured I'd be safest going to Kyoto and Nara first, and then finishing in Osaka so I wouldn't be in a mad rush for the plane. It's allll up here, people.
On the platform I ran into a rather nice older New York lady who is also teaching English in Seoul as a sort of semi-retirement from the jungle environment of the New York school system, so I had a train buddy for the ride. But she's older and has actual money and has already done the youth hostel thing, so we parted ways at Kyoto station where she went off to her four star hotel and I went looking for a place to crash that preferably had a roof.
I found it in the Higashiyama Youth Hostel, which is basically a lot of bunkbeds crammed into a rather smallish building. My room had space for five, and my first night there was full occupancy. After dumping my gear (with the exception of Sigma, who I'd brought along for the purpose of transferring and organizing photos asap, except that I forgot the USB cable, oops) I went to get food.
Dinner: Mixed Udon
About three shops down was this tiny mom-and-pop restaurant deal, where I got a nice boiling hot bowl of udon noodles with vegetables, chicken, and a tempura prawn. I was sure I had a picture of it at one point, but I must have deleted it by accident. In any case, it was pretty exciting to finally have something to eat that didn't taste exclusively of red peppers. The presentation was also rather nice for a change, so I was pretty exstatic.
After that I wandered around in the dark for a while to get a feel for the neighbourhood. This particular neighbourhood had a more ancient feel to it, but also considerable affluence, judging from the size of the lots and the quality of the construction. All the houses have walls around them and old style roofs. Apartments buildings are all rather low, four or five stories, and rather modern if styled in sterotypically Japanese style. It was generally very quiet at night My closest Canadian analogue would be Vancouver.
I also came across the first of the bulk vending machine things I'd heard so much about. It's not uncommon to see two, three, or four vending machines in clusters on just about every corner or under their own protective awnings. THEY HAVE PEPSI TWIST IN JAPAN
I soon came to recognize the Suntory Boss Coffee vending machines, because they ALWAYS had Pepsi Twist in the 500 mL size.
Also, Suntory Boss Coffee is apparently represented by Tommy Lee Jones, because they have a picture of him with the word BOSS in huge letters. I guess the first thing that the Japanese think when they see Tommy Lee Jones' craggy, authoritarian face is that he is the Boss Of Them All Since 1992.
Welcome to Japan.