京都 Kyoto

In this next installment, I’ll go up until my trip to Kyoto and Osaka.

So first off, it was ‘recovery’ time after the week of no sleep. And by recovery, I mean next to no sleep because there were still so many different things to do. It was mostly back to ‘routine life’ of going to my lab every day and reading lots of papers and stuff. Nothing that exciting except that what started as an event for the Festival now began to sprout into something that people wanted to continue.

That’s right, 琉球ストンプ became, and has continued, to grow since the festival. It has now been performed in various different locations that can be seen on my youtube channel. I won’t go into much detail about it since it’s not really that interesting other than to say that we’ve been to different festivals and occasions.

I must say that I worked semi hard on my costume for once (^_^.)

Up until the beginning of December, there is nothing that important that happened. So, I’m going to skip it all and go straight to my trip to Kyoto. It was a personal trip…of sorts, but it was mostly sponsored by the school as a ‘graduation trip’ (yes, almost a year before our actual graduation). I don’t know if it’s right to say how much it cost, but it was insanely cheap! It was 3 day, 2 nights with lots of really good food for practically nothing.

Anyway, let’s start from day one of this journey! It started early in the morning and saw me almost missing the bus because I forgot to wake up my friend in time >.< OOPS!!! But, it all worked out in the end because we weren’t the last people to arrive!! *phew*

Our flight out from Okinawa was at 8:00 and after that we had a 1.5 (?) hour bus ride from Osaka to Kyoto. Luckily, the tour guide (who stayed with us the whole trip) was very nice and entertaining. She was trying her hardest to teach us things but it was all in Japanese. Maybe only about 1/4 of the people that went understood her. But, she still tried her hardest and did a good job (I learned a lot at least!!).

The first day we went to 清水寺 (kiyomizudera) which is my absolute favorite place in Kyoto!! And then we went to some place in the mountains. I don’t remember the name. Sorry >.< It was a cool place that we could to walk around.

We then went to our hotel that was in Shiga Prefecture!! My first time there and we were next to the really big lake!! Our dinner was a…shabu shabu like meal. Very good and…probably worth more than all the meals that I eat in a week. Okay…maybe in 3 days…HAHAHA.

After the large meal and some random activities, we were free to do what we pleased which meant we could sleep or try and find something to do nearby. Oh google maps how I love you! I had searched before and found that there was absolutely NOTHING that was really close the hotel. HEHE. So instead, my friends and I spent a LONG time in the onsen that was in the hotel! AWESOME!!

The next day, we had to wake up at the crack of dawn which provided some awesome pictures. Our first stop of the day was high up in the mountains at a temple. I forget the name. (again…I need to remember these things…or write them down). For those of you that have seen my blog, you know that we ended up in the snow up on top of the mountain. It was fun to be in a ‘winter wonderland’.

Needless to say, it was freaking cold!!! So, to warm up, we went back into Kyoto proper and went to see 金閣寺 (kinkakuji). Awesome place, but still not as good as 清水寺. This was then followed by a trip to 二条城 (nijoujou). This castle is very interesting in that the floorboards creak whenever you walk on them. Specially designed to detect ‘silent’ assassins. Very cool, but maybe annoying as you’re walking around.

We then ended up going to a shopping district in Kyoto where I bought a lot of presents for people (yes, the touristy place…). Pretty cool.

We followed this with going back to our hotel that was right next to Kyoto station. Since I knew the area, we were going to go around and play…but….we got sidetracked and ended up staying in Yodobashi-camera for a while. After that, we just hung out in Kyoto station until we were tired enough to go to sleep.

Our final day, we spend a lot of time on the road. We went to Nara and got to play with the deers there and see the large Buddha.

This was followed by another long road trip to Osaka where we went to Osaka castle. We had to rush through the castle because our next stop was to a LARGE shopping district in Osaka. That’s where most of the other people bought their Omiyage. My group, on the other hand, went in search of Osaka’s famous Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki!

Sadly, this was the ending of our trip and we had to fly back and return to our research back in Okinawa. But it was a fun filled 3 days!