Nutz: Chasing a Noodle

I used to be indecisive... now I'm not so sure. 
« Back to blog

Japan Day 10 - Journey To Kyoto

Well, I hope you've all been enjoying lovely weekends. Here in Japan, we've just come to the end of another event packed day.

We left our hotel early, and headed off in the direction of Coco (not the clown) to meet up with our friend Liz. Before leaving Hikone completely, Mark stumbled across a Starbucks. However, this one was slightly unusual - it was a drive-thru Starbucks (I guess you have to supply the Christmas music yourself).

After buying our hot drinks and playing around trying to get the ancient Japanese Sat Nav to work, we went on our way. It proved to be a delightful little journey, taking us out of the built-up areas and into some little country roads, with fields of colour and traditional Japanese houses dotted around. Photographs 1 and 2 are of a colourful little flower field that we found (one photo with me in, one with a Japanese family). Photograph 3 is of a sunflower field, with Mark taking a photograph in the distance.

At one point, en-route, Sayaka pointed out a special shrine at which a large family appeared to be gathering. She explained to me that a blessing is traditionally held for boys at 5 years of age and for girls at 3 and 7. The blessing is said to get rid of any bad spirits. It made me wonder, though, why girls have two blessings compared to one for the boys. What happens to girls between the ages of 3 and 7 that means that their bad spirits return during that time? Hannah Montana?

After about an hour and a half of driving, we met up with Liz. I quickly seized the opportunity to impress her with my Japanese… by calling her a cucumber. She didn't seem too impressed. Disappointed, we got in the car and headed off for some lunch at what I called the Little Chef of Japan. Photograph 4 shows Liz, Mark and Sayaka looking through about 30 different menus. After eating, we left - destination Kyoto.

En-route to Kyoto, Liz helped me to learn some more Japanese words. But she also revealed some other interesting facts, including one about an interesting new habit. Having been in Japan for four months, she is now so used to bowing when talking to people that she even bows when talking to someone on the phone!

After about an hour of driving, we arrived in Kyoto and found our hotel, which had a rather nifty vertical car park. You drive in through a front door and park on the lift plate. Then, you get out of the car and leave it. The doors then shut. When the attendant hits the button, the car is automatically turned around 180 degrees and is lifted upwards. It is then stored somewhere in the vertical block. Photograph 5 shows the car, having been parked on the lift plate. Photograph 6 is of the inside - with the cars stacked vertically up the side. Clever!

Having dropped our bags off at the hotel, we made our way towards the city centre. There, we wandered through a couple of the more famous market areas (photograph 7). We tasted lots of different Japanese foods, looked at expensive chopsticks (the pair in photograph 8 were £100!), bought souvenirs and tried wacky Japanese amusements (more on that in a future blog post). Photograph 9 is of Liz standing alongside a character called Tanuki. Liz told me that this famous Japanese character is a "racoon bear dog" and that it famously has big testicles. It is said to be a sign of virility (or he just needs to learn to adjust the posture he adopts when he sits down).

Ok. I'm going to finish today's blog off there. However, there are a couple of very funny things that happened today that I will be blogging about separately, and individually. Those posts will be appearing in due course.

Night night.

Bookmark and Share

Comments (2)

Nov 08, 2009
Sue said...
Alastair this whole holiday seems to be centred round eating, hilarious to read and very interesting, makes Bexhill seem very dull. Loved the vertical parking. Sue
Nov 09, 2009
Alastair Hazell said...
Thanks Sue.

Leave a comment...