June 15th - Tuesday

Our first day on our own! We start by exploring the rest of our hostel, the Bakpak Hostel. We begin in the first-floor lounge and chat with two boys who have just graduated from high school. One will be going to school in Denver because it is just far enough away from home; the other is going to study aeronatics in Fargo, ND! He wants to be a pilot. We ask then if they met Andy in their communal dorm room and they both think he is quite a great guy! They also think that he has already left!

It turns out that there is an other lounge on the fifth floor and the wifi up there is wonderful.. . I'm trying to blog, Ginger is emailing and Betsy is trying to get in touch with a friend of a friend who lives here. There is also a small outdoor patio with a view of the river and our part of town. It starts to rain and we come inside and start to plan our day. Betsy also checks with the front office to see if they have any word on her luggage. Not yet.

After some discussions we head out in the rain, umbrellas held high to see what we can see! First is the Hokanji Temple and Yasaka-no-To Pagoda. There were school kids everywhere even in the rain and the temple and pagoda are gorgeous. I'll have photos soon. We continue to explore a shopping arcade where a lady offers us samples of Kyoto tea which is very flavorful and slightly salty. It is an instant! You add 100 cc of hot water to the contents of one packet and get one Japanese cupful. Who could resist? Nick finds us a lovely little restaurant for lunch and although the lady has no English and we have even less Japanese we succeed in ordering what looks like rice pilaf with mushrooms and other goodies (who knows? but they taste great!) and she brings forks! We don't need no stinkin' forks! We want chopsticks and after offering us spoons and knives we finally get our point across through pantomine! Everyone has a good giggle and now we know the word is "hashi" and Google tells us later that it means "bridge". While we sit and enjoy the soft jazz background music Nick sees a geisha pass, surrounded by people taking her picture. By the time I make it to the door she has vanished, though. We have seen lots of ladies in traditional kimonos both on the street and, particularly, at the shrines. There are few men in traditional dress.

There is so much to see! When we need another break we find a lovely tea room that is upstairs and overlooks a shopping street with lots of activity and great people watching. The ladies (stop giggling! We are so ladies!) all have Kyoto Beer which comes with a little dish of wasabi-coated snacks of peas and rice crisps, and Niock has coffee with chocolate-banana cake. It is only a little disconcerting to find that the background jazz is really Christmas music!

Our tired feet suggest that we head home for a short break to get dry and put our feet up. While there we chat with a young man who is a traveling nurse and is taking a four-week vacation in Japan. He would love to live here one day. Small problem - he has a pregnant wife at home and a one-year old and a four-year old son! His wife didn't want to come on this trip - go figure! and she doesn't want to move away from her family. He does Skype every day and is being quite frugal. Still, four weeks? Really?? One good thing comes from this conversation. He suggests that we go to visit the Thousand Tori Gates and later in the week we will do that.

HOORAY!! Betsy's bag arrives! We were just on the verge of going shopping for some clothes for her since the airline said they would reimburse her for some expenses. Oh well.