6 June

Another day dawned – at about 4:30 the strong sunlight burst through the curtains and woke me up. I was left in no doubt that the new day was upon me. When I pulled the curtains back, I could feel the heat in the sunlight and see the view from the room. That was in comparison to yesterday’s overcast, rainy and generally poor for viewing day. Alas, we were not going up Mt Fuji today!
I prepared for breakfast, went down and ended up sitting with a fellow from New York who is doing a similar tour here to me (in fact, there are a multiplicity of tours and no matter which one, they all seem to be the same price!).
I was also chatting to the lady from Georgia and so breakfast turned out to be quite a busy time.
I went back to my room, finished and finished packing and was down in plenty of time. All of us were going on the bullet train, but some were on the earlier one and some on the later (9:37) one. The greens went on the 9:07 and the yellows came with we blues, but they got off in Nagoya. We stayed on until Kyoto.
The trip on the train was interesting. We had allocated seating and, I presume, were in economy as we had five seats (three on one side, two on the other) abreast across the train. They were still wider than aircraft seats and certainly both wider and of greater pitch than EuroStar seats. The train was reasonably smooth, though if memory serves me well, the 125s in England were smoother. The train was fast, accelerating to its speed quickly, which you didn’t notice if sitting down but you certainly did if you were standing.
With the pictures I took, I tried to capture the views from the train, which went from suburban and industrial, through to areas with rice paddies crammed into all available spaces, through to scenes with mountains in the background (BUT NOT MT FUJI!), scenes with tea growing, nets around driving ranges and baseball parks, city and factory buildings and rivers. If the foreground is blurred, it’s because the train was going FAST and if the scene isn’t framed properly, it’s because of the shutter delay. By the way, if any railway engineers read this: REMOVE barriers to the side of track because in the train all you see at some spots is barrier; don’t have bridges with above-track trusses because when you take a photo all you get is trusses; have overhead wire supports alternately in the centre of the track and the outside so they don’t appear in every photo taken!
By the way, they have sixteen cars, take eight seconds to pass when one is still and take four seconds to pass when both are moving.
After three hours we arrived in Kyoto, got off and met our guide, who dutifully marched (at the double, I should add) to the hotel, which was only three minutes away – so we arrived before check-in time. It would have been better to have perhaps shown us the Tourist Information Centre in the station, walked more slowly, and then we could have checked in when we arrived.
After ten minutes we were able to check in. Luggage had arrived and was in the cloakroom, so the bellgirl got it and took it and me up to my room. Letting her take it went against all my principles and it was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing it from her and letting her carry the room card (no key). Once in the room I unpacked (put shirts on hangers so they don’t look TOO crumpled), set up the computer and found a tourist guide to Kyoto and found I had walked right past the Tourist Information Centre on the way out of the station.
Out I went to the Tourist Information Centre, found an “English Speaking Desk” (actually a desk manned by an English speaking person) and got a very good map, good walking directions, hints on what I would NOT see on the tour tomorrow morning and the comment that the train museum I wanted to see was really for kids.
I went to the train museum and found he was right – kids from twenty-five to seventy were really enjoying variously watching or playing with the trains, but kids of two to seven were more interested in the sand pit. After an hour I dragged myself away and went to the Toji-Temple.
Here I paid the admission charge, got my guide and looked around. Memo to self: do NOT greet counter staff issuing tickets and guides by using native greetings as you then get a guide in the native language, NOT English. As an aside, the mark of ENGLISH SPEAKER on my forehead in Europe must have worn off because today three schoolchildren tried to converse with me in Japanese and got terribly embarrassed when I couldn’t reply to them and then the girl at the Toji-Temple gave me a Japanese language guide because she thought I was a fluent speaker (but I used one of only the two words I know: hello and foreigner).
The temple is old, but the buildings have been rebuilt a number of times – wooden structures are prone to fire, from man and from lightning. The peace and serenity inside were amazing, considering they are on a main road and only a few blocks from the city centre.
After that I walked back to the hotel, sat down with my shoes and socks off (these shoes ARE NOT MADE FOR WALKING), processed the photos, wrote this, posted both, did my email and went “phew!”
Some observations from today:
The gardens in a park I walked through were being maintained by volunteers – removing the old flowers, planting out the new ones and composting the old.
Smiling at people and nodding, even if you can’t speak to them, elicits a smile, often a nod or bow back, and sometimes a polite greeting.
Few if any of the bicycles in Kyoto are locked up to secure them.
People are as familiar with bicycles as they are in the Low Countries, with loads and children being easily carried by people of all ages.