Out and About
So finally had time to go check out some of the tokyo night life, went with a German, and a Candaian guy from the hostel, was a good excuse to go have a few drinks, and wander a bit.
Saturday night was 3 times as crazy as friday night, more people, more madness.
Ended up finding a small ar, which looked nice enoug from the outside, so went and grabbed some beers.
Sitting at the table next to us was a British guy and a Japanese girl, started talking to him and learned he had been living in Japan for almost 9 months, and had plenty of amusing advice to share.
The guy had a really sharp pommy accent, ad frankly reminded me of a few of the characters from lock stock and 2 smocking barrels, rolled into one.
He was cynical, clearly thought the Japanese were crazy, but had fallen totally in love with the place, and had just married a japanese girl.
One concept he explained was that of sarcasm, and despite the fact their are few words to appropraitely insult people in Japanese, it is possible to do so with a sarcastic spin.
E.g
Saying: That's a nice had your wearing (polite)
saying: thats a nice hat your wearing, did your mother buy it for you.
(when someone falls asleep on you while on public transport.... it happens)
saying: I'm sorry, does my shoulder look like a pillow.
He also imparted a few interesting random facts i was unaware of, such as there is actually 3 different ways of counting:
1) for standard numbers e.g 1-10
2) Ordering food e.g- 5 pieces of sushi
3) floors of a building e.g catching the lift to level 4.
----
Anyway, monday morning hopped a bullet train to Kyoto, as a cultural experience it needs to be done, though price wise its probably possible to get a flight to QLD, for less.
It\s fast, clean, comftable and you can smoke and drink on it!
YAY, I enjoyed myself alot, I think we should have 1 in Australian, and it took me 2 hours and 50 minutes to travel what is roughly 400 Kilometeres (note: according to google...actual distance is 513.6k).
The Japanese are great at sleeping on public transport and within 30 minutes, 90% of the carriage had drifted off to sleep.
Its all well and good but i still hadn't had my 3-4 madatory iced coffee's from the vending machine!
The situation was quickly remedied, and i was able to enjoy the changing scenery.
It took close to an hour and a half for the landscape to leave the big buildings behind, and become almost nothing but green hills and power lines.
Killed a bit of time by devouring a few Hunter S Thompson books, and the whole experience made me long even more for some rum and weed.
---
Anyway, Kyoto was quiet and picturesque in a way that Tokyo simply wasn't, it still had some of the old Japan charm, as a result of not having the cr@p bombed out of it during the war.
charming winding streets and lanes, lots of beautiful little shops, and alleys, million of stunning little restaurants, and a little creek that ran through a large part of the town coming out in a large river.
In the evening i went out wandering with the Canadian who I had been drinking with in Tokyo (I found out he was a maths teacher), there was supposed to be an area that had a very classic old Japan feel, that was full of restaurants, seemed worth checking out.
couple of hours of wnadering and we found it, seemed not much more then a lane way, restaurants lining each side, poor street lighting really added to the mystique.
It was also apparently "Geisha country" (anothe reason for checking it out), so as we we wandering further into the gloom we caught sight of her, as my travelling companion put it, it was almost like seeing a strange and mystical creatue like a unicorn, she was small and elegant, and it was obvious came from a world I really never expected to truly understand.
---
Anyway the next few days were a blur of temples and aimless wandering, it was HOT, Kyoto is f$cking humid, and wandering for 8 hours a day simply destroys you, I really got templed out very quickly, and within a few days i was ready to get back to Tokyo.
There were also a HELL of alot of touristy souvenier stores, i mean just everywhere, I reckon 99% of it was absolute shite, but i did find a couple of nice things here and there.
Anyway that's about it, Im currently back in Tokyo, where its also f*cking hot, and will be flying home in a few days, more to follow soon.
Saturday night was 3 times as crazy as friday night, more people, more madness.
Ended up finding a small ar, which looked nice enoug from the outside, so went and grabbed some beers.
Sitting at the table next to us was a British guy and a Japanese girl, started talking to him and learned he had been living in Japan for almost 9 months, and had plenty of amusing advice to share.
The guy had a really sharp pommy accent, ad frankly reminded me of a few of the characters from lock stock and 2 smocking barrels, rolled into one.
He was cynical, clearly thought the Japanese were crazy, but had fallen totally in love with the place, and had just married a japanese girl.
One concept he explained was that of sarcasm, and despite the fact their are few words to appropraitely insult people in Japanese, it is possible to do so with a sarcastic spin.
E.g
Saying: That's a nice had your wearing (polite)
saying: thats a nice hat your wearing, did your mother buy it for you.
(when someone falls asleep on you while on public transport.... it happens)
saying: I'm sorry, does my shoulder look like a pillow.
He also imparted a few interesting random facts i was unaware of, such as there is actually 3 different ways of counting:
1) for standard numbers e.g 1-10
2) Ordering food e.g- 5 pieces of sushi
3) floors of a building e.g catching the lift to level 4.
----
Anyway, monday morning hopped a bullet train to Kyoto, as a cultural experience it needs to be done, though price wise its probably possible to get a flight to QLD, for less.
It\s fast, clean, comftable and you can smoke and drink on it!
YAY, I enjoyed myself alot, I think we should have 1 in Australian, and it took me 2 hours and 50 minutes to travel what is roughly 400 Kilometeres (note: according to google...actual distance is 513.6k).
The Japanese are great at sleeping on public transport and within 30 minutes, 90% of the carriage had drifted off to sleep.
Its all well and good but i still hadn't had my 3-4 madatory iced coffee's from the vending machine!
The situation was quickly remedied, and i was able to enjoy the changing scenery.
It took close to an hour and a half for the landscape to leave the big buildings behind, and become almost nothing but green hills and power lines.
Killed a bit of time by devouring a few Hunter S Thompson books, and the whole experience made me long even more for some rum and weed.
---
Anyway, Kyoto was quiet and picturesque in a way that Tokyo simply wasn't, it still had some of the old Japan charm, as a result of not having the cr@p bombed out of it during the war.
charming winding streets and lanes, lots of beautiful little shops, and alleys, million of stunning little restaurants, and a little creek that ran through a large part of the town coming out in a large river.
In the evening i went out wandering with the Canadian who I had been drinking with in Tokyo (I found out he was a maths teacher), there was supposed to be an area that had a very classic old Japan feel, that was full of restaurants, seemed worth checking out.
couple of hours of wnadering and we found it, seemed not much more then a lane way, restaurants lining each side, poor street lighting really added to the mystique.
It was also apparently "Geisha country" (anothe reason for checking it out), so as we we wandering further into the gloom we caught sight of her, as my travelling companion put it, it was almost like seeing a strange and mystical creatue like a unicorn, she was small and elegant, and it was obvious came from a world I really never expected to truly understand.
---
Anyway the next few days were a blur of temples and aimless wandering, it was HOT, Kyoto is f$cking humid, and wandering for 8 hours a day simply destroys you, I really got templed out very quickly, and within a few days i was ready to get back to Tokyo.
There were also a HELL of alot of touristy souvenier stores, i mean just everywhere, I reckon 99% of it was absolute shite, but i did find a couple of nice things here and there.
Anyway that's about it, Im currently back in Tokyo, where its also f*cking hot, and will be flying home in a few days, more to follow soon.
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