Kyoto

I'm back from Kyoto. I'm pretty much exhausted. I haven't walked that much since Italy, I don't think. I stink. I feel bad for the guy who had to sit next to me on the bus ride home, if not because I had my shoes off then because I had to keep throwing my legs up in the air to stretch my knees out, which for the record hurt like a motherfucker. But it's OK because he straight up farted in his sleep. Probably to get back at me.

I took 200 photos, used all three of my memory cards, and would have taken more had I had space. I visited 17 shrines/temples/famous sights, spoke a good deal of Japanese, met an olympic gold medalist (2002 women's skeleton) at my hostel, and got mobbedd by hordes of Japanese elementary school students, and overall had a pretty nice time.

It was drizzly the first day, cloudy the next, and sunny and gorgeous the last, so all in all it was decent weather. I'm glad it was how it was and not reversed. The weather couldn't have been better for all the hiking I did yesterday.

I saw almost everything I wanted to see, the notable exception being Saiho-ji, or Kokedera, the Moss Garden, which you need to have made a reservation for by mail in advance, which I blanked on and have only myself to blame for. Was it worth all the effort? Yes. Was it more or less expensive than I thought? About what I figured. Whole trip total cost me about 39,500 yen.

On my big list of things do in in life, I can now check off Kyoto as done. I still wanna see Kokedera, but, I'll live if I don't. The picture I took of Kyoto from the Shinkansen platform in 2003 has finally come full circle. I should have known then it was To-ji, but now I have pics standing in front of it, instead of admiring it from a distance. Go me.

Was I lonely? Not really.