Bethany's visit to Kyoto

So I woke up early last Friday, ready to catch my bus to Osaka and then transfer to the train on out to the airport. I kept getting woken up every few minutes because it kept sounding like someone was walking outside of my window / house and then it would stop, leaving me a bit confused. I kept sleeping through it, and finally when it was time for me to wake up I realized that it sounded like it was raining outside. I looked out and sure enough, it was, but the reason I kept hearing the walking was because it had snowed several inches before it warmed and switched to rain, so the snow was sliding off my roof and landing outside my window in the puddles making plopping sounds like someone walking. I made my way to the bus stop, and waited for my bus. my pick-up time came and went, and then an additonal 20 minutes, then 30. I was getting worried because the day before, I had told Kasuga I would see him on Monday (since I was taking friday off) and he gave me a weird look and was like (but tomorrow is friday) and I said, 'yes, but I'mgoing to kyoto tomorrow.' since kasuga had purchased my ticket for me, I was worried that he may have gotten the dates mixed up and made my reservation for saturday. I tried calling him but to no avail.

I finally decided I didn't wanna wait any longer (40 minutes past pick-up) and started walking back to my car. I was crossing the bridge back to the parking lot over the highway and saw a bus. I slowed my pace to see if it was potentially my bus, and lo and behold, it started slowing down. the only problem was that I now had to run back to the bus stop, and the road was covered in a goopy soupy mix of snow and rain. By the time I got to the bus I was soaked. LAME.

Several hours later I got into umeda, a stop along the Keihan line I rode when I was at Kansai. I just walked around for a bit and finally found a ticket counter; after looking at it for a couple of minutes i found that there was indeed a train that went out to the airport from there, as well as even having a rapid train, which was the next one that was coming. ( I asked an attendant to find out. :p) I got out to the airport with no problems (minus being 40 minutes late) I found bethany after just a few minutes, but she wasn't too happy about me being late. I can't blame her. I had accidently given her the wrong number to my cell phone so she couldn't get ahold of me either. bwah. :(



We then took the train on back to Kyoto station, and from there walked to our hostel we were staying at, which won an award for best hostel in Asia in 2004. the place was quite nice :-) We dropped our stuff off and went out to go to Kiyomizu-dera temple, so we could see kyoto at nighttime. We ended up hopping on the bus and riding it for a while, but unfortunately it ended up going back to Kyoto station, which left us a bit confused. I asked the driver if it went to kiyomizu, and it turned out we had hopped on 206 instead of 208. GAH. We got on 208 at kyoto station finally and rode it out to kiyomizu, and walked up the hill. Everything was dark though so it was kinda creepy. We got tot he top and found out it had been closed since 6 (it was about 7:15). DOUBLE BAH. So we went back. We stopped at a restaurant not too far from the hostel but they had an hour wait, so then we proceeded to a beef bowl place across the street and got some food to take home. the food was very delish and we just had a nice evening inside.



the next day we went to Fushimi-inari to meet up with my friend Alberto who lived in my seminar house when I was at Kansai Gaidai. Neither of us had been to Fushimi inari before. Inari's are these orange gates that are guarded by fox deities.


The place at Fushimi is famous because it allows local businesses to purchase Inari's so you end up having thousands of these things along numerous paths that go through the entire park. It leads to some gorgeous views:



After spending several hours there, the three of us tried to go to Kinkakuji temple, but again, it was closed early (stupid winter in Japan), so then we proceeded to find a Kappa-zushi place to eat at (converyer belt sushi, yum!)

Dinner pretty much rounded out our day, and from there we bid alberto goodbye and went back to the hostel.