Nara, Kyoto, Takahama and back

My 9-day holiday began August 23rd and lasts until tomorrow, the 31st. I spent the first day of the trip looking for a giant backpack in Nagoya. I found one for 11,000 yen but I had to let an old salesman feel me up to get it. Bargain in my opinion.

I left for Nara on Thursday. I saw the stupid temples there and a bunch of good-for-nothing tourists. The only things that would make me want to return was the Daibutsu (big Buddha) and the deer. The deer are believed to be messengers of the gods and they're free to roam the city and eat anything that isn't tied down. A lot of tourists get their maps eaten and if you're lucky you'll get to see a little kid crying because a deer is eating something out of her hand that wasn't being offered. I saw a deer hold up traffic, shit, and then a tourist fed it some senbei (Japanese crackers). Where's the Nara deer application? I have excellent qualifications.

I was able to pet almost every deer I walked by and I named the cutest one Daniela.

The big Buddha is housed in the largest wooden building in the world but the last structure built around it was even larger. The last time it burned down the Japanese decided to scale it back to the bare essentials. Lazy asses.

So I left Nara the same day for my buddy Irvin's place in Uji-shi (halfway between Nara and Kyoto). He called me, thinking this whole time that a different Ben was coming to visit him, while some Japanese guy was telling me I looked like a martial artist and that I should grow my hair out. Funny guy. He teaches English to middle schoolers and started writing down everything I said about where I work and where I'm from. He was on his way to some conference and I think I was quickly becoming an anecdote. He said that while a lot of people want to learn from native-speakers, its just as good or better to learn from Japanese. I needed clarification. He said that native-speakers clutter their phrases with expressions that confuse Japanese students. Instead of saying 'Well, in order to comprehend what I'm saying consider this' you could say 'for example' and its better understood. I completely agree. So now I'm now learning Japanese from a deer.

I spent the night at Irvin's and we went out to an Uji bar. The bartender, Katsunari, was a cool guy and on the second night he played a ton of Common. He did watch me piss near his car though to make sure I wasn't fucking with it. It was awkward.

I was in Kyoto for the following two days and I got to see the Imperial Palace, Ginkaku-ji, the Heian shrine, Okazaki shrine, the Eikando (my favorite), Kiyomizu dera (click here to see some people drinking from its spring), and something else I forgot the name of. Most of the temples run together and I don't suggest anyone look at all the pictures I took. The exception was the Eikando. Architecturally it looked similar to the others but you got to walk around the place, go into most of the rooms, pray to their Buddha, and drink free Green tea while you sat near the gardens. It was much nicer than say, Heian shrine, which has landmines, or Kinkaku-ji, which everyone who visits gets Hepatitis C from. By the Kamo River I saw this guy selling cats but I don't know how to cook cat so I passed.

On Saturday night, Irvin and I went ambitiously into Kyoto to drink all night long. Kyoto's subways stop running around Midnight so its either drink all night and skip sleeping, or go back early like some kind of loser. I met him after a day of sightseeing at the Nijo subway station and we went to an Irish pub. It made me think about all of my friends from college (in Ireland at the time) and bummed me out a little bit. By the way, here in Japan we're paying 850 yen per pint of Guinness. Whats the cost in Ireland? We met some random foreigners, Russell from Melbourne, Australia and Cybelle (sp?) Egan from Wisconsin. He was quiet and weird and she was loud and weird. She freaked out because we have the same last name. I tried to downplay it because she was so dumb and annoying. She opened right up though and said she has family in Massachusetts (before I mentioned where I was from). I asked a few questions, mildly interested, and she said she had a grandfather or great-grandfather named Michael Frederick Egan. Well, I happen to have a grandfather who was named Frederick Michael Egan. This caused her to get even louder. So we decided that we are probably distant relatives and she agreed to shut up after that. She was so god-damned lame. Russell was flirting with her all night (maybe even buying her drinks) and right before she up and leaves she mentions she has a fiance. Ugh. I guess jackass distant relatives are better than hot ones you want to see naked. That would have been worse. Maybe.　We are probably pretty distant.

We went to some little bar near the Kamo River (Kamo River in Japanese is Kamogawa, and all the tourist maps write it as Kamogawa River, which is Kamo River River) after that and Russell and Irvin wanted to sit in this bar that charged 1000 yen to sit down, per hour. I didn't feel like it after we just paid 8 bucks per pint of Guinness. I took the last beer that we had stashed away in Irvin's bag and told him I would go sit near the river and try to talk to some girls. We parted and I wasn't to see Irvin again until 7am. Russell could be dead for all I know or care. He was pretty lame. Anyway, so I took the beer and went down by the river. I walked up and down the beach a bit, looking for a group of cute Japanese girls with which to flirt. I came up empty. It turns out not a lot of really cute Japanese girls like to sit by the Kamo river for no damned reason at 2am. So I sat down and drank my beer and fell asleep. I woke up an hour and a half later and realized I had totally fucked up. I went back to the bar only to discover that I had no idea where the bar was. I wandered around for the next 45 minutes unable to do anything but wobble on my feet and look tired. I made my way back to the river thinking that maybe they would return to find me. Not so much. I went back and sat down but couldn't get comfortable. Nothing like being drunk at 3am, sitting in wet sand, far away from everyone you know to get completely lonely and depressed. I would have given anything to get home except the cost of a taxi. It actually never occurred to me to take a taxi home since I thought I might still bump into Irvin. I started to search bike racks for unlocked bikes and by God I found one. I stood near it and mentally debated the morality of stealing a bike to peddle home. On one hand, its wrong. On the other hand, I really want to. It came down to a complete lack of direction. I had no clue where I could find Uji. So I went back to the river and fell asleep with my head on my knees and arms wrapped around my legs. I hopped on the subway after the sun came up but took it in the wrong direction for quite a while. I eventually figured it out, corrected myself, and got back to Uji after 7am. Irvin was already there and had been since 4ish since he bargained with a cab driver to take him home. Behold genius: 'Excuse me, this is all the money I have. Can you take me home please?'

I slept until about noon and then got up to continue my adventures. I was on trains for the rest of the day and got to Takahama beach by 4:30pm. I met these three Filipino guys who are living in Japan to learn woodworking and they told me that I could camp out anywhere. I walked to the far end of the beach and saw an actual campground, so I stayed there. I didn't get to swim that day because I was starving and had to hunt/gather on the beach. Sleeping in my tent at Takahama beach was the worst night of sleep I've had in a long time. Even dozing off by the river was better. The only thing that topped that night of sleep was the FOLLOWING night when I did the same thing all over again, in the pouring rain. I did get a video of myself on the day after the rainstorm, which you can see here. I was able to swim and read my Hemingway short stories all day Monday and part of Tuesday. It was awesome and yes, of course, I got burnt.

I packed up my things on Tuesday when storm clouds started to gather in the distance. After just a couple hours of sleep the night before, the prospect of sitting in that god-damned tent all day in the rain was enough to get my ass moving. I was carrying my pack towards the train station when it started to rain and I felt like a genius for not getting caught in it. I quickly lost that feeling when I found out that the next train out of Takahama-Wakasa station wasn't for two hours. So I took out my Lonely Planet and tried to figure out where I was going. There was nothing back towards Kyoto I wanted to see and my original plans were to go to Kanazawa, on the water, and then on to Takayama in the mountains. The prospect of sleeping in my tent again in the rain made Kanazawa an inferior choice. So I thought I would just press on to Takayama and get a hotel room for the night, a much needed reward for my perseverence. So I caught the train to Tsuruga station and a nice old lady helped me read the train board. It turns out that it used to be possible to catch a bus to Takayama from Fukui (not too far away) but a bridge collapsed or something and there was no longer service. The fastest way to get to Takayama was to either take a train up north to Toyama or south through Nagoya and both ways were going to take a long damned time. If I went south, I could sleep at home that very night and as long as no one bothered me on the train, I could get the whole ride home for free (thank you Japanese train pass system). So I looked in my guide book and there wasn't shit to do in Toyama as far as I could see, so home it was. I got here last night at 7 or 8 and the ride didn't cost me a single yen. I was jazzed. I slept in my bed last night and just couldn't move this morning. I guess my trip is over. I studied Japanese and read some Roddy Doyle at the Gasto in Kyowa. Now I'm uploading my photos and trying to get deer shit off of my sandals. I feel pretty good but the week could have been planned better I think. Takahama was way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere so it left me with few options.