Arigato Sushi

Inspired by the sushi bar I ate at on my second night In kyoto.. mmm I can still taste the flat fish, octopus and eel ones!!

Hmm so where was I? Yup, my last day In kyoto was probably the most hectic. I had reached my hostel late night (after stuffing my face with eel et al). The first few days had been sponsored by the conference so I was staying in the hip hotel but now I was back to my Phd (ie zero) finances and decided to move into a backpacker's hostel on the other side of the station. From outside the place (J -Hopper's international hostel) looked close to a disaster. It's a 4 storeyed narrow buidling no frills only rooms! But the man at the counter with his big smile made me feel very welcome and the cute had-drawn maps of all (cheap) things and places that matter added to my happiness! I took off my shoes (as is the rule there) and trudged up the 3 flights of stair (no elevators) to my 6- bed girls dorm. The dorm was quite crowded but I liked the common rooms, kitchen and the cute signs, pics and posters all around. The best part of staying in a hostel is that you are forced to meet people - so I did and in 5minutes i had chatted up with a British girl and a Scottish guy who agreed to accompany me to Nara the next day.

So Nara it was. Nara was the ancient Imperial capital until the capital moved to Kyoto and has many World heritage temples and teh famous Nara park. I was scared we may not find all the places since we didnt have a map but it';s hard to miss anything in Nara esp if you go when a truck-ful of school kids are also visiting - you just get herded to the right places along with the crowd! The best part about Nara are the deer that roam around not just freely but almost aggressively. If you dont feed them they come and butt you with their funny horns till you have to! ENter a temple and there under the Budhdha would be a lone deer resting!

We were too broke to go into all the temples but we did manage to see Todaiiji the temple with the largest Buddha statue, the tunnel in the pillar and the Heal all God (app'ly if you touch his body part and then the corresponding part in your body - your ailment there gets cured!) I didn't really follow the instruction too well - so ended up touching his knees although it was my head that was aching... Ah well!

A couple of school kids grabbed my "white" friends and wanted to :interveiw" them and learn some english. Ofcourse, my brown face was a deterrant and they frowned at me with obvious disbelief when my Scottish friend told them I knew better English than him! They reluctantly said "hello" and my "hello" and "what's your name" legitimised my "english-ness" and they allowed me to click a few snaps with them!



Got back from Nara late aftrenoon and was exhausted after being on my feet since 7 am but then I knew it was my last day in Kyoto so I stopped being a princess, grabbed a quick sandwich and boarded a train to Inari. Inari was not really on my itenary but my british room mate had told me it was un-missable. Inari is 2 stations away from Kyoto on any JR train on the Kyoto-Nara line and seriously IS un-missable!
Ya, it's not world heritage (and hence it's free!) but do check it out. Unlike Kyoto and Nara, Inari is a small place and not touristy. The station itself is amazingly quaint and the temple is conveniently located just across the station gate.

The high points of this temple are the hundreds of bright orange gates with balck and gold lanterns, the maze -like layout, the 10000s of stairs up a hill, with a stream running along side and the top with a brilliant view of kyoto and the setting sun. Could you ask for more? Ofcourse I went crazy with my digi cam and clicked hundreds of pics and movies and in my excitement ended up getting lost in the maze. There are maps to guide you back to the right path but in Japanese so...! I was all cheery and adventurous for the first 3 hours (and 15 miles) of my trek but once the sun set and the gates started casting funny shadows and i realized i was the only one walking aorund in a 700 BC shrine in a place where no one knew my language - I started panicking. Thankfully a German tourist appeared and saved me! In spite of the last few minutes' trauma - the trek was more than worth it!

Moshi Moshi

I ve been trying to write this post for a while but bloggers was not co-operating so stop complaining 92 :)

The highlight of october was my short sweet trip to the land where toilet seat warmers and 700 BC shrine coexist quite happily - Kyoto, Japan. Undoubtedly one of the best trips of my life.

I have to admit I was quite nervous about traveling alone to a place where (I had heard) not too many people know English. So a day before my flight Ma and I started a frantic search in Connaught Place for a "how to learn japanese in 20 minutes!" and a Rough Guide to Kyoto. The former was quite a hilarious little book which I bought but never used (as you can guess form the title - the only thing I used there was Moshi Moshi, Arigato and teh ever-present Hai) and the latter was too expensive for a gareeb PhD type.

The first thing I noticed about Osaka was that it s full of Japanese! Well, yah, it was not unexpected but that still doesn't mean that it was not fascinating. From the cute red cheeked ticket counter guy to the chic information-giver in her designer skirt and boots - all Japanese!

People were not wrong when they said I will have some communication problems - most japanese (at least in Kyoto) don't know much English . But thankfully the ones that mattered in the airport - were super friendly and English type and evidently used to Indian types turning up and looking bewildered. I stood like a retard in front of the vending machine (all the writing was in English AND Japanese but I still looked retarded) till the nice little lady from the counter gently took the 2300 Yen out of my hand and purchased a ticket for me. Then I stood like a retard in front of the bus till the conductor equallly gently pushed me up the stairs and would have probably esorted me to a seat as well , just that the bus started moving...

Osaka is a fairly industrial place - all I managed to learn from my bus window was that Japanese also hang clothes in their balconies and on tehir building walls like Indians - just that they are slightly more organised and hang them in hangers! The buildings were a fascinating mix of jaded peeling off LMC style stuff and real techno steel ones. None of them were too tall, and were interspersed with some really lovely small bamboo houses.

Since I hadn't spoken for nearly 15 hours - I decided to latch onto the only non-Japanses looking co-travelera nd speak to him non stop for the first 15 minutes of my bus ride, He turned out to be some chap from Ohio who was visiting his sister in Kyoto. Unfortunately I did not look too charming after a 12 hour flight and he lost interest in me after my bout of verbal diarrhoea. So I spent the rest of the hour counting McDonalds and 7-11s (not too many!) and cars I recognised (none!).

My hotel was bang in front of the Kyoto Station - The El Inn Kyoto. Quite business-like, efficient staff, tiny rooms but amazingly high tech bathrooms! I know I know I sound obsessed but I swear the bathrooms were really cool. The pots had not just seat warmers but a button to play music or, if you are super kinky, a fush sound to drown whatever unhappy sounds you are producing! Another button to spray you in one directon and etc etc! I was quite enchanted & actually took some pics.

The first night I just walked around bewildered and jet-lagged and hogged great amounts of raw tuna, sake and would have had more - just had needed to wake up and present my paper early next day. I'll spare you the conference details - but right after the conference, the sweet professor, my friend from Malaysia and mua, walked to the famous Golden Temple - Kinkakuji/Rokuonji Temple. The temple is famous for its (umm) golden-ness and its amazing reflection on the mirror pool that surrounds it. Since the prof was treating we decided to venture into the quaint little tea shop where they serve almost pungent green tea and a barfi looking sweet made of bean?? Something strange but nice and exotic!


The next stop was Kiyomizu-Dera - a World Heritage Site was a stunner. The walk to the palace was as thrilling as the place itself (altho I must confess I was so enamored by everything in Kyoto that I would have probably taken photographs of every blade of grass if my camera's memory card would have permitted!). The temple is in Gyon, the Geisha district and G and I were strategising how to get as many Geisha pics (for free) as possible. So I spent the whole walk looking through my camera and trying to catch Geishas unaware as they went by on Rickshaws (another turist attraction in Kyoto - although unlike in India where a ricksahw ride is 5 cents in Japan in was 2000 yens!). The lanes are a maze of restaurants, little bamboo huts, souvenir stores and Geisha tea shops - all amazingly colorful and lively. We reached the temple all sweaty and tired - it's a real steep walk and all of us were still in our conference clothes. But it was well worth the trouble. The temple, builtin 798 BC stands on stilts/pillars and is famous for its views of the sun setting and its waterfall of "holy water". Luckily we got a taste of both. The waterfall (Otowa-no-taki) story is enchanting. We went and stood where the three channels of water drop into a pond. people here believe that drinking the water of the three streams brings (now I know), good health, longevity, and success in studies. At that time, however, we were told that the streams bring money, fame and good looks (one wish for each stream) - so we both tried the third stream - but boo hoo I still look the same!

The temple complex contains several shrines, Jishu-jinja, dedicated to Okuninushino-Mikoto, a god of love and "good matches". Jishu-jinja possesses a pair of "love stones" placed 18 metres apart, which lonely visitors attempt to walk between with their eyes closed. If you successfully reach the other stone then you are likely to find love! Well no, I didnt try that!

Next day was Kyoto day with my new found Malaysian and Chinese friend. If you plan to visit Kyoto, be smarter than we were and buy a bus pass for the day (500 Yen) cos public transport is pretty expensive (250 Yen= more than $2 for each ride and if you want to see all the good temples you'll end up taking the bus at least 4 times. SO we got up nice and early, got some cheap breakfast from a grocery store (where BTW no one ever knows any english so beware!) and started off on our tour.

First stop was another old old temple - I am sorry I don't remeber the name - but it had magnificent gardens and a really cool system of making the floors on raised hollow platforms. And every time we walked there would be soft swishing noise which warned the Royalty of approaching visitors (unwanted ones).

Our afternoon stop was the famous Imperial Palace. Maybe it was because we were already dead tired from all teh walking (and lack of cooked food inside us!) or becasue of all the theatrics one has to go through to eneter the palace (you need a permit for which you have to show your passport etc, I was not much impressed by the palace. I don't really fancy being herded around like sheep by a guide either - ad that's teh way the palace tours work - you can't take a step without being monitored. But it was a "must see" according to gude books so like good obedient tourists we went in. were herded around, took the obligatory snaps of the gardens (very pretty for sure), the throne, the roof and even of the two types of Bamboo trees where birds would come and sing to the King and work as his natural alarm clocks in the mornings!