Irasshaimase!

Minnasan, konnichi wa!

Welcome to Japan! I arrived yesterday morning after a gruelling 22 hour journey from Auckland (6 hours at Changi airport - 10/10 btw, free wifi and butterfly garden!), dead on my feet, sleep deprived, feeling quite grimy but very excited to be here. Made my way to the J-hoppers hostel after much difficulty finding the right exit (read: ANY exit) from the bohemoth Kyoto train station then walking for about 10 mins. Met Laura & Stacy here who had hired a guide to show us around the for day; I literally just dropped the bags & headed out the door. It was a great first day, we visited the Kiyomizu shrine, Yasaka shrine and had okonomiyaki for lunch (Japanese pancakes with meat & cabbage inside). NOM! We spend some time wandering the streets around the Kiyomizu shrine; it's rows and rows of shops selling all kinds of Japanese stuff, some aimed at tourists but mostly specialist eateries selling only one kind of food (e.g. mochi/sweets, udon, fried... things). The area is an old district of Kyoto and the buildings are very historic-looking, it's the same area where we will be dressing up at maiko on Thursday.

Today we made an early start, hired bikes from the hostel and headed to the Fushimi Inari shrine around 8am, before most of the tourists got there. It's the shrine with lots of red torii (gates), that go for several kms around a hill. Good exercise to work off all the yummy food we've been eating! Photos below.

Today we also went to Nijo Castle. The castle itself was a bit meh, the gardens were gorgeous with lots of weeping cherry trees. It feels a bit like being inside a fairy tale, with random shrines and temples absolutely everywhere, cherry blossoms on the trees and little old Japanese women in kimonos here & there. the Cherry blossoms are starting to fall off the trees, so if there's a breeze they fall down and the effect is magical :)

OK so the panda hat - it was a present from Laura & Stacy. Looks a bit naf, bit it kept my head warm while we were biking around today!












Initial impressions of Japan: despite everything being cramped, it's very neat & tidy. The houses are so close together neighbours can probably touch each other out their windows, alleys are very narrow but full of bicycles, but everyone has gardens with beautiful Japanese pine trees and flowers. There are little eateries everywhere, anything from a bowl of udon to a full-on set including miso, salad, todu, dessert, pickles, rice and your main meat item. Fruit & veges are REALLY hard to find - an orange costs 300 yen (NZ$5, 2.5 euros). We're keeping the local 7-eleven running by buying bread, eggs, chips (bread comes in packets of 3 slices).

OK now it's bedtime, email me and/or leave a comment, will post photos of the maiko-henshin asap!!

ML