Kyoto 京都市

It has been almost three very very very busy weeks since I went to Kyoto, Japan with Alex. But obviously as it is one of like four cities in Japan that the average American has heard of, I think it's probably worth while to write about it.
I had planned to go to Kyoto the previous weekend with my friend and another classmate of mine, but the real reason I wanted to go to Kyoto was because I would get a chance to see my good friend from my high school, Eri. She was an exchange student my senior year of high school, and she and Mizuho (who I stayed with during the Tokyo portion of this trip) are my two best friends in Japan. Eri is also a pro at English. Eri lived in the US for a short time as a kid, so she got a lot of exposure at a young age, and then on top of that, she studies her butt off to remain fluent. Although it's unfair of me to want to only speak English, I think it helps that both she and Mizuho speak English so well, since it means they can understand my sense of humor, and they UNDERSTAND WHAT SARCASM IS! That is very important. Japanese people just don't ever ever ever use sarcasm, not the way we do, which means that if someone (an American for example) makes a silly sarcastic remark, they take it literally, and sometimes become confused and offended if they think they are being made fun of >_<. It's really frustrating. But I can't just turn my sarcasm off! It doesn't woooork! (An interesting article, if you are interested)
Ok, but I really sidetracked there. Anyway, the previous week, Alex didn't want to go because of the Tanabata festival and then things with Eri were really hard to work out because of her busy schedule, so we postponed our trip until the 27th.

Eri <3 

After class that day, we got a text from Eri. She said she accidentally slept in until noon, which meant that there would be no way for her to get from her city Kobe (another huge, really awesome city, but it's a bit far and a bit expensive for me to get to. But it's the 5th largest city in Japan, making it bigger than Kyoto, and it's famous for the Yakuza, the Japanese mob, and Kobe beef! :D) to Kyoto in time to meet when we planned. So Alex and I took our time eating and getting to the station so that by the time we arrived it would be around 3, the same time Eri would arrive. But because our meeting was shortened a few hours, Eri decided she'd take a sick day from her job as an English teacher at a cram school, a Japanese school at night for students to study and prepare for tests, because tests make up their entire life. The ride didn't take long at all, and when we got to the station we were floored by the vastness of the station. It was so shiny and new and expensive looking! I felt underdressed just being in there! We didn't really look at much at the station though, because we started doing the whole "I have no clue where I am, but I'm going to name everything I see in the surrounding area so you can hopefully find me" thing with Eri on the phone, until she found us and I was so flippin excited to see her!
We then caught a bus to our planned tourist destination, 金閣寺 - Kinkakuji, the English name of which is Temple of the Golden Pavilion. If you know anything about Kyoto, you probably know it's known for being a very historical city, with old, beautiful buildings and touristy things you can do, like going to an Onsen or dressing up like Geisha. Obviously Kyoto is a modern city too, but visiting this old temple is the one real thing I had planned. The bus ride took a while, but we got to the temple with enough time left to look around before it closed. There were many tourists there from a variety of countries, and despite the rain, it was a bit crowded. I wikipediaed this stuff before hand, so I know it was built in the 14th century, but like the majority of 14th century buildings in Japan, was destroyed at some point, and this is now a recreation- however, it still is completely covered in gold. Yeah, it IS gold. There are supposedly a lot of historically symbolic places in regards to Buddhism in Japan there, but Eri couldn't completely explain the whole stories to us since she didn't even really know them. Which reminds me, I should write an entry about religion in Japan...hmmm...
Like I said, it was raining there though, but I did get some pictures. My favorite is when the 6 ft 7 Australian guy took our picture, so it's taken from a perspective way above our heads XD.

cool looking ticket

kinkakuji

By the time we got through there it was time for Kinkakuji and all the surrounding stores to close. We got back on the crowded train and headed towards a busier shopping district of Kyoto whose name I forgot. Eri took us into her favorite mall, where on the ground floor everything was 70% off! There were hair pieces, jewelry  and the like, and I think I went overboard- yet still hardly spent anything! XD Japan is sooo expensive- I mean every once in a while you find bargains, but for the most part when you go to a store, the sign will be like 20% off, and yet the price of a shirt will still come out to be $50. But Kyoto is a little bit more lax than Tokyo, so I was able to film and take pictures in a mall for once!

This is what a mall in Japan looks like! Not like American malls, eh?

This is an LL shoe, the largest size they make in Japan, on my foot :'(

Basically all the floors are for woman's clothing XD

It was running late, but we wanted to do one more thing before Eri had to go back home and we moved on to the next stage of our Kyoto fun: purikura! :D And for once we weren't completely weird in all the pictures XD

decorating

Eri had them sent to her phone

Kyoto at night

Such a cute arcade! I want it all!

I will miss this girl! I cried when I had to say goodbye :'(

We ate lots of cool types of gyoza in a restaurant while we waited for a girl named Sofia to meet up with us. She had told us we could drop off our stuff at her place and we could go hang out together, but then she...sorta just left without waiting for us. But luckily she wasn't too far away, so not after long Sofia and her friend Lawler showed up (she's a girl, Lawler is her last name). As soon as they arrived, there was a big change in the atmosphere. I think I've gotten too used to being around quiet Japanese people, because Sofia and Lawler were loud, hyper, and attention drawing, partially due to their clubbing attire despite it being only like 8:30. Eri then left, and Alex, Sofia, Lawler and I headed over to the clubbing street- basically a street dedicated to bars and clubs- to go to a club their friend was DJing at. 

The main plan of ours was to go to this well-known club in Kyoto called Club Butterfly- it's very popular with not just the JCMU kids, but foreigners from all over, and obviously Japanese who want to hang out with foreigners. We asked Sofia to be our guide since she is doing a year's study abroad at a special international school in Kyoto, where surprisingly a lot of Swedish students attend. Alex met her through a friend online so that she could have some connections in Japan, but this was the first time either of us met her in person. Lawler was the only American at that school, but you would never have known Sofia wasn't American because her accent was a perfect American accent, and even the weird sense of humor was very American-esque. But after stopping  by at the first very very empty club (where Alex and I changed clothes in the bathroom), the four of us went down a few alleys, dodging drunken foreigners, until we reached the bar they frequently haunt on weekends. It was about as big as the bedroom of my dorm room at JCMU with only enough bar stools for 6 people. But I guess they love talking with the bartender there. Their Japanese is amazing. They know as much as we do, plus they can speak Kansai-ben, which is VERY awesome to be able to do in Kyoto (I've finally been able to understand it to a certain extent...more like the Shiga variety of the Kansai dialect rather then the big city versions), and they came to Japan only 9 months ago, knowing nothing other than the basics of the language. I guess that is what happens when you are thrown into a huge city in Japan for a year and do nothing but take Japanese class and your only common language with the other students there is also Japanese...but then again, that isn't that weird, since I did just now technically cover a full year's worth of Japanese in 2 months. But we hung out there for a couple hours just talking (and oogling the really hot Dutch guy up at the bar with us), then we went to Butterfly.

Club Butterfly

Wow, and when I was told it was popular, they weren't kidding. There were tough looking bouncers who searched through our bags and whatnot before going in and paying our 500 yen (and getting only one free drink ticket. what a rip off!) The place was packed with people already, and over half of them were obviously foreigners! I couldn't believe how crazy it was. People dancing, singing, fog machines blasting, film cameras rolling. Alex and I were having a ball dancing like crazy people to fun, dance-able pop songs. Lawler and Sofia kinda did their own thing, and any attempt of communication from outside our foursome was met with panic and distancing themselves. Alex and I though danced with anybody and everybody, but eventually they switched DJs to some guy who thought he was hot stuff by remixing songs until they were unrecognizable and then switching them after 20 seconds to music you could barely just bob your head to. So after a while of this and I got my foot stepped on in a slightly painful way, we decided it was enough time so we left and got some Japanese food at a place that was open all night.

the lights in the tunnel change color :D

Lawler and Sofia

For being 3 in the morning, there were so many frickin people out, 80% of them foreigners. Alex and I thought we would be able to stay in Sofia's apartment since she has a pretty big place, but she sprung it on us that we couldn't because her roommate had people visiting. We would have been more upset, but we were practically falling asleep in the restaurant, so we were like whatever, and just went to the river near the club. This river is notorious for the foreigners who hang out there all night, some sleeping, many not sleeping at all. Alex and I settled down a bit away from the drinking and partying people under a bridge and I pulled out my pillow and blanket to lay on. So yeah, we slept under a bridge. But there were lots of other people there, so we were safe. Sleep though, is a relative term. It was ridiculously uncomfortable to sleep on the concrete, and since it had rained in the afternoon, the night was still cool. Alex and I dozed on and off while listening to my mp3 player and being all snuggley for body heat, but after waking up to a crane a few feet away just staring at us at 4:30, we both were like, "that's it, can't do this". We got up and went to Lawson's the convenience store (why Japanese people would chose to give their major convenience store chain a name starting with L, I have no idea). After searching forever I finally found some doughnuts (there was like nothing there!) and I bought us some coffee. Outside the store, I asked a passerby a question, and when she responded, my anccent was tingling. "Where are you from?" I asked her, suspecting the answer to be Germany. "Germany", she said. So I started speaking German to her, and she is apparently a student at Tübingen University (which if you followed my German trip, you would have seen lots of pictures of XD) At one point I answered "Hai" to one of her questions instead of "Ja", but she laughed because she said the same thing has been happening to her since she has been in Japan. So yeah, that was fun :P.

The river at 4:30- yes the sun is up by this time here

Alex and I ate some doughnuts and then walked to the train station. It wasn't the main one, so we needed to figure out how to get back, but Sofia had told us we could get to Nagahama with this train. Not the case. We wandered around the subway station, but we couldn't figure out anything. We asked a guy and he seemed...out of it because he got so frustrated and confused trying to figure out how we can get there. Of course he gave us the wrong directions in the end, so when we saw some people our age, we asked them instead and they told us they were headed that way so they would go with us. It was very simple, and they were even so nice as to go beyond where they were getting off to make sure we got all the way to where we were going ^_^. If we had stayed in a place that, well, wasn't outside under a bridge, we probably would have stayed and done some more sight seeing and shopping, but actually it turned out ok, cause we had absolutely no money left and we were exhausted beyond all reason. I kept falling asleep on the train, and I'd wake myself only to fall asleep 10 seconds later. There were a surprising number of people on the train that early in the morning, many of them kids with sports gear going to before-school club practice. By the time we got home, it was actually 8 oclock, but Okaasan and Otousan were awake of course. Okaasan made us breakfast, and although all we wanted to do was sleep, she kept us up for a while longer with talking to us and then we got to see Otousan's studio!!! That's a big deal, because he only lets the kids who he likes go up there ^_^ (the previous kid didn't get to see it and he was here for a whole semester, so I was like Ha!). After looking around there for a bit, Okaasan took us into the 3rd spare bedroom on that floor and she took out her Okoto and gave us a mini concert XD. She made us play some too :P.

So yeah, that was that. We finally got to sleep at 10:30 and slept til dinner time XD. This post took me two days now, so I am really tired. Niiiight.

Mary

Location: Bed

Mood: Impassive（・−・）

Listening to: Kaze ga Fuiteiru - Ikimonogakari. Tis the Olympic theme song in Japan :)

Japanese for the day: お世話になりました。本当にありがとうございました。O-sewa ni narimashita. Hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita. - Thank you very much for taking care of me. (Very good to know in Japan if you are frequently helped out by someone or if you stay with someone for a few days or something).