The Japan Trip - Day 09

The last day in Kyoto was reserved for sightseeing. Bryan had "the plan" and we discussed it quite thoroughly the night before, and we were all prepared for whatever the day could throw at us. What we didn't prepare for, however, was what we could throw at ourselves. I woke up late. Well, at least later than usual. Everyone was ready to leave, so I quickly grabbed a quick breakfast from the naerby konbini (yakisoba-pan, or fried soba in a bun, which is rich in both carbs and novelty).

To get to our first sightseeing location, we needed to take the local train. It's very similar to our MRT, except for the fact that they still use tickets, which you buy from a very primitive-looking machine, and slot into the turnstile. Hilariously, XM didn't know you had to collect your ticket after you were through the gate, so he had to go back to get it. Luckily, it was still there.

Not pictured: the ticket-eating machine. Nom nom nom.

We first got to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, located in the southern district of Kyoto. It's got a huge temple in lovely shades of red and orange. At this point I'd like to highlight the beautiful architecture of the Japanese shrines and temples, the huge gates and high walls and the ornate roofs. It's all very nice.


I don't know if I pointed it out before this, but one thing we noticed is that almost everywher we've been or gone to in these first two weeks are swarming with school children on a field trip. They're easily recognisable: if they're primary school kids they're really tiny and have brightly coloured caps with a chin-strap; if they're in secondary school they're a bit bigger and in school uniform; if they're in high school they're very attractive (the girls at least).

The combination of architecture and cute schoolgirls is quite alluring.

I guess it makes sense that in a country with such a deep history and ancient culture, you get a lot of schools organising field trips to all these heritage sites and national monuments to learn stuff. I was a bit jealous that they got to go to such awesome places - I mean, why couldn't I, as a student, be brought to Japan to learn about awesome monuments?


Anyway, I made true my promise to follow the local traditions as much as I could, so I went up to the main shrine with the bells and pulled it and bowed twice and clapped twice then bowed again. I didn't know what to wish for, and I didn't think the gods would have listened to me anyways, so I asked for a Japanese girlfriend. I mean, it couldn't hurt right?

My current situation proves gods do not exist.

I didn't know at the time, but apparently the shrine's dedicated to the Inari Okami, goddess of rice, fertility, agriculture and foxes. It's also the taisha, which means it's the head shrine of this deity. Not that we knew anything about that when we were there; the main attraction for us was the large number of orange torii gates, disappearing into the distance up the mountain. They were all painted bright orange, and they all had a short string of caligraphy on them, possibly (we theorised) noting the date the gate was installed, and who had donated to the installation of aforesaid gate. There were also a number of stone torii, interspersed every, oh, say thirty to forty orange ones, and I presume they're the original torii that were there before the wooden ones were installed.

Bollywood torii.

It was like walking through a long, orange tunnel. There were so many! I thought I could count them on the way up. I gave up after about two hundred. And that was half an hour before we reached a mid point on the mountainside, and had to come back down because we had to get to the next stop. Thousands! And all beautifully and arbitrarily orange! A sweeper we met midway told us that there were about ten thousand torii in total, according to XM's translation, which is a pretty impressive number.

You're welcome to count them yourself.

As it was a shrine, our trek downwards brought us through many stone carvings and statues. There was also a small graveyard. There were also a couple of two very lazy cats dozing in the mid-morning sun. I purchased a small wooden replica of a torii as a souvenir.
 

It's like a little napkin to keep themselves clean while devouring your soul.

That's where they go after sitting on cashier tops and waving at customers all day.

We took a quick train to Arashiyama, the western district of Kyoto, to visit the Arashiyama bamboo forest, which is famous for being the place where a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed. After being surrounded by a claustrophobic pillars of orange, being surrouned by thinly sparse green pillars was not as majestic. It was still very beautiful, and once again it's a testament to the dynamicity of the flora in a temperate climate. It was very humid, but cool, and also a bit surreal.

You can't see the tigers and dragons for the bamboo.

There was a toppling bamboo shaft, which slid at is base at about thirty to forty degrees across the road, and we (obviously) had to stop to take a photo of us pushing it back into place. It was supposed to be a parody of the Iwo Jima Memorial, but of course it's very hard to parody a statue, especially when you're not wearing the right clothing.

"Put some backbone into it!"

Also, in the absence of anyone doing any crazy kungfu stunts, we naturally had to take some of our own, and we found a quite side road with a nice background to take some Street Fighter-esque shots. I vaguely remember some big shot driving past once in a very expensive car and a number of bodyguards, and we were guessing that maybe he's a movie star or something, but from Bollywood, because he clearly looked Indian.

Rebel One... Fighto!

"Low kick- ah, dammit!"

Shoryuken!

Obligatory jump shot!

The walk through Arashiyama took us through some of the local-ish neighbourhoods, which promised us "beautiful traditional and historic architecture" but broke it. We headed for the famous Togetsukyo Bridge, which Bryan says is famous for being in the Top 100 of something but he couldn't remember what it was. 

This retiree was painting in watercolours. Try as we might, we couldn't identify the two mountains in his picture.

The river was relatively empty, but I only say that because there were islands of land spaced between the streams - it could just be really shallow. The Japanese like to string ribbons of reflective material across them; I suspect as a type of charm, but I'm not sure what for. I also identified a side channel, made of stone, used to divert a portion of the water downstream, after the bridge, to ease some of the river's force and reduce the erosion. Brilliant.

Looks like they didn't... give a dam. AWWWWW YEEAAAAAA

Lunch was nearby, at a small restaurant with normal priced food. It became a bit of a running joke for the trip, since Bryan kept assuring us that around 1000 yen was the "normal" price for a meal in Japan, and so to not keep looking for "cheap" food because it'd be hard to find. 

The most creative menu display I have seen so far.

I had a tempura udon, which was decent; the prawn itself wasn't very fresh, but that's apparently because the best prawns don't get made into tempura. It was decent though, and the soup was invigorating. But it was a really hot and clear day, like maybe 30 degrees in direct sunlight, so I went to try, for the first time, an ice cream from a vending machine. It was refreshing on such a hot day, to bite into a cheap ice cream which was really good for its price.

Also: Kimono shot!

Arashiyama is also known for being a geisha district, but we never saw a single one until we were coming back across the bridge, when we spotted two coming across with an umbrella. They were being stopped by various tourists along their way, and of course Bryan immediately wanted a photo. One of them was really camera shy but the other was alright with photos, and Bryan got his "uniquely Japan" shot.

Not something you want to see on Fatal Frame.

The tram station we had to get to to travel to our next area was oddly familiar when we arrived there at first. I was wondering where I had seen it before, and then I remembered: in a Chinese lifestyle show about Japan, and they visited this very station. There apparently was a hot spring where you can soothe your legs while you wait for your tram, but I didn't see it; or maybe I had got it confused with another location.

"It's a foot towel! (Laughter.)"

We went to visit one of those Buddhist shines (Note: find out name and insert here) and went to take a look at the Zen garden. And there again was one of those beautiful things in the world which I don't know enough about to appreciate. There was a couple of large rocks, set on islands of perfectly manicured grass in the middle of a gentle sea of pebbles, raked in concentric circles and intricate patterns, like waves on the surface of the ocean. It was very pretty, and must have taken someone quite a lot of time to set up, but I couldn't see the point of it besides its aesthetic value. Apparently it's supposed to help you relax and reach that state of mind where you can ponder the meanings of the universe, but all we could think about was, "What if a bird crash lands into the middle and ploughs a trench in the pebbles?"

This would be an awesome location for a table-top battle.

A bus was taken to the next and final stop of the day, the famous golden temple itself, Kinkaku-ji Temple. I have to make a note here about Japanese public buses - the entrance is at the middle of the bus, and you exit at the front, where you pay your fare where the driver can see you. It was a flat fee for this bus, so we trundled along the winding roads and dropped off behind the Ritsumeikan University, where Yumiko-san and Inoue-san study.


The temple grounds were swarming with people, tourists and tour groups and a lot of locals as well. There was an admission fee, probably to buy more gold to maintain and upkeep the temple itself. We didn't mind it much, though, because the ticket was beautiful, caligraphy printed on a thick parchment, which in and of itself was pretty much worth at least half the entrance fee.

You gotta love Japanese fashion.

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion, was technically not completely golden. It was certainly gold-plated, on the second and third levels, and there was a large golden phoenix perched on the roof like the world's most expensive lightning rod, but the ground level was prominently wooden and didn't reflect the afternoon sun. I bought a small keychain replica, which had the nerve to be completely golden.

It's like Midas went crazy with the interior decor.

We took a bus back to our hostel and had an early dinner. Xi Min was craving curry, and JX had spotted a curry restaurant nearby on his morning walk (he wakes up unnaturally early, that one) and it was cheap too, so we were sold. It was a homely place, but it was playing Spanish or Mexican music, or at least that genre, but with Japanese lyrics, or something. We ordered our curry, and it was fantastic. There is something about Japanese curry that I prefer over our local Indian varieties - it's not spicy. The large puddle of sweet, savory sauce mixed with the traditional sticky rice is simply one of the best dishes in the world.

Food of the gods.

We dropped by a shop selling second hand CDs and stuff on the way back to the hostel. I was quite surprised that they were still quite expensive even though they were second hand - I guess they'll still be quite worth it if they are of quality.

They also have a selection of really old game cartriges.

At the hostel we were prepared to mingle with the other guests, so we trouped up to the common room and broke out the Monopoly Deal that I had brought, in the hopes of attacting a curious foreigner. It failed, because we (and everyone else) were all focused on the large television, which was showing The Last Samurai, which I found very ironic, especially when subtitles appeared for the English parts but not the Japanese ones. The actor who played Peter Pettigrew was there in one of the scenes, and I distinctly remember making a reference to Harry Potter, and the Hungarian girl sitting in the beanbag chair in front of us gave a chuckle. Bryan later mildly pissed her off, though, because he made some comment about how stupid the Japanese people were, charging to their deaths like that, and she said it was about honour and chivalry.


I enjoyed staying in the hostel, and I think I should mention some of the dramatis persona during our stay there. There was this Japanese guy, sleeping below Bryan, who apparently had a very strong smell hanging about him. He also seemed to drift in and out at all times of the day, and looked like one of those indie artists with his bedraggled hair. There was also a student from Hong Kong, whom we didn't talk to much (but apparently JX did, of course).

*All pictures in this post courtesy of Bryan.

The Japan Trip - Day 08

We awoke early that morning to go on a free walking tour around Kyoto, hosted by a couple of local university students from their volunteering club. We were met by Ohno Yumiko-san and Inoue Yukari-san, two girls from Ritsumeikan University. They were really nice, very friendly and very informative. We were also joined by Soon-sensei, a Malaysian from Australia who was now teaching English in Japan; an older lady from southern France, I think it was Marseille; and a similarly-elder lady from Oregon, USA, whose names we didn't catch.

The 16th Free Walking Tour on 22nd April!
*Picture courtesy of Khaosan Kyoto Facebook page.

It was drizzling slightly, but we went on anyway. Our first stop was Chion-in Temple, the biggest of that Buddhist sect in Japan. It had an enormous gate. They also had a huge bell, which is only rung three times a year, on specific important dates which I cannot recall right now. Yumiko-san also said that it was rung for a fourth time once, when Einstein visited and wanted to test a theory he had on destructive interference.

How badass can you get when you disrupt a centuries-old tradition to test scientific experiments?

We also walked through a street lined with souvenir shops, which I think was called Kiyomizu-zaka. Yumiko-san also explained the white charm hung over the doorways, which is supposed to be a charm for rain, with the curled rope bit at the top representing clouds, the zig-zagging ones representing lightning, and the vertical strings representing rain. Being surrounded by the stuff, we didn't understand why someone would want more rain, but I think we rationalised that it was a traditional thing when farmers needed the rain; now it's something similar to a good-luck charm.

It's a symbolic metaphor thing.

There was also a stop at a Studio Ghibli shop, which sold merchandise from the famous anime movies such as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. This was more popular with the others; I had only watched Spirited Away before, so I didn't recognise much. There was an adorable cat character though, from one of the shows I didn't watch, Kiki's Delivery Service. Soooooo adorable.

It's adorable! The cat, I mean.

The afternoon stop was the Kiyomizu Temple, which means "pure water temple". There I learned that the large demonic-looking statues were usually guardians of temples, while the guardian dogs usually were sentinels of shrines. We purified ourselves at the spring water, then went in. It was a gigantic temple, built over a cliff face. Apparently one of the stories is that if you jump off the temple to the courtyard below and survive, your wish will come true. Bit of a risky investment, that. There were also giant weights inside, and apparently if you could lift one, you were a man. It took three of us to life the women's one. Just goes to show.

So if you manage to jump into the pool, you might survive.

There was also a smaller shrine, and a set of "Relationship Stones", and the story goes that if you could walk from one stone to the other with your eyes closed, you'd be able to find your soulmate by yourself, but if someone had to help you, you'd need assistance. Well, I made it across completely, and I haven't been visited by any matchmakers yet, so.

Also: Wow, English signs!

The main reason the temple is called the "pure water temple" is because the pure water from the mountain springs flows through the area, and it's collected in a small shrine pool, where you can go and drink the water for good luck. There were three spouts, one for health, one for love, and one for studies. They had these metal cups with long handles, which you could use to collect the water. I took a bit from each spout and drank the lot. It was really cold and very refreshing. They had a really interesting system: the cups were public, but to clean them you put them back into their slots with ultraviolet light to kill the germs. Very efficient.

Hopefully I digested all the luck before I peed it out that night.

We had lunch with the girls and Soon-sensei at this delicious cheap udon place. I ended up talking to Yumiko-san a lot because we had to split up to sit at different tables. I remember she said she didn't live in Kyoto, but traveled two hours here everyday for classes at her university. We never really appreciate how tiny our island is until you go overseas and see how insanely huge the world actually is, and how much time people spend just getting there.

Try hiding behind that menu.

The udon shop was located near the main shopping street, and so after the girls and Soon-sensei left we walked through it. I bought churros, sweet delicious cinnamon churros which I have not eaten for years. It was so good. It reminded me of youth, when my dad used to buy them for me from those small funfair carnival things with the small rides and multiple safety violations. But it tasted way better.

When we got back to the hostel we threw all our used clothes into the washing machine for the first time ever on the trip. Keep in mind that I only brought a total of four shirts - I had been rewearing some of them if I considered them to be clean enough. We had to wait for a dryer, because someone had left their clothes in there, but they weren't coming back to get it. We were hanging out around the living room area until dinner, and then nipped out for dinner. I voted to try a McDonald's, since it's always interesting to see how food that's supposed to be the same around the world is actually slightly different. I had a teriyaki burger, which was not bad, but everything else was the same. I think I should have tried a McPork, because that's something you can never get in Singapore.

That evening we visited the shops around our hostel area. We dropped by the Toranoana, which is a huge anime shop chain. There's a whole bunch of anime stuff which I guess is popular this season, but I haven't watched yet, but so I don't recognise them. Bryan wandered into the adult section.

I wanted to round off by saying that I recognised the song that was playing in the hostel today. It seemed very familiar, and then I recognised it as a Final Fantasy song, but I wasn't sure if it was called Eternal Harvest of Melodies of Life. I went to ask the counter and they said it was Eternal Harvest. Haha, I recognised a FF song wooooo!

*All pictures in this post are courtesy of Bryan.

The Japan Trip - Day 07

We had a bit of time after breakfast this morning. We took a short walk from our cottage down the neighbourhood street. Most of the buildings were houses, large ones; we passed a huge compound with the house nowhere in sight, but only with rows of trees and a small farm.

The flowers were really beautiful, though. It was a sunny day, and most of the sakura (the ones that were still alive, anyway) were in bloom. There was also a delightful breeze, and the overall effect of the falling petals and swaying leaves was nothing short of beautiful. A landscape becomes so dynamic once it has seasons (and of course, trees).

That's Bryan's artistic shot of Mt. Daisen with a cap cloud.

Inoue-san was putting a table together out on the neighbouring tennis court, and we went over to chat to her while some people were getting their luggage ready. She seemed very impressed that Bryan and JX were heading to London for university, and she mentioned that her daughter was studying there as well. As she drove us back to town, she mentioned that she was an architect by trade, and she was married to a teacher.

That's Inoue-san in the front row.

At the station, Xi Min's hat got blown of by the wind, and it landed in the middle of the tracks. And instead of being intelligent about it and asking station staff for assistance, he daringly risked his own life and climbed onto the tracks to save his own dear cap. I'd say he narrowly avoided being electrocuted by the third rail, but Japanese trains run on the overhead power lines. We then proceeded to buy Xi Min better life insurance.

The train rumbled by mere minutes after he reached safety.

Most of the uneventful day was spent travelling to Kyoto, our next destination. No interesting delays, no exciting mishaps, no unorthodox adventures. Just a normal train ride through miles of beautiful countryside, most of which I think I slept through. It's something I noticed I tend to do on moving vehicles: if I have nothing else to distract me, I will fall asleep. The swaying of the carriage, the rhythmic rumble of the wheels and the blurred landscape passing by is like sleeping pills and lullabies to my conscious mind.

Farmland and suburbs and countryside.

Any more bento pictures and this is going to become a food blog.

We got lost trying to find the hostel when we reached Kyoto. After a week in small towns and countrysides, city life was a minor culture shock. Like, wow, roads! Junctions! Intersections! People! We wandered through the streets for a bit, mostly because we were navigating with an atlas not a street directory, and stopped to ask for directions twice. What I noticed about these large city streets is that a lot of them are narrow one-way paths that go through the backs of buildings and stuff, but there are shop fronts and car parks and doorways all along them. They're like sideroads and alleys, and they are a twisty, confusing maze to the uninformed tourist. But we managed to find it in the end.

One of the best non-hotel experiences you can ever hope to have.

The hostel, Khaosan Kyoto, is a small quaint place near one of the main shopping streets in Kyoto. The staff at the reception were friendly and spoke good English. They even had a lucky draw for a free drink; Bryan was the only one who didn't get one.

This is the kind of reception which would play Final Fantasy music in the lobby.

The bags were duly dumped and we traveled to Pontocho Street in search of a ramen restaurant recommended by the hostel staff. It's not a very big street, but it was busy with office people and full of nightclubs, bars, and other assorted restaurants. We were lost on the labyrinth of shops for a good hour, looking out for that ramen shop which had an "iichiban" in its name, but that was all we could remember because we didn't write it down.

It would be a lot easier if we knew what iichiban was in kanji.

Eventually we ended up trying a random ramen place. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall types, where the owner does everything: he's the cook, cashier, and waiter, just like in a Flash game. It was a delicious bowl of hot steaming noodles, and tasted even better after a cold hour wandering the streets.

All right, five stars! Now here's a tip and clear out my plate because the next customer can't sit down before then.

Also: KITTY DOUGHNUT

That night was the first time I slept in a hostel. The room was very narrow and the beds weren't very thick, but the quilt was fabulously warm, and overall it was better than anything the army could come up with. There was free Internet on the ground and fourth floors, which I gratefully capitalised on, and there was also a kitchen and living room on the fourth floor, which housed the only television and most of the sofas. We met a guy there who was taking a year to travel the globe; he was almost done and had travelled to Scotland, Africa and Russia, where he met his girlfriend. Hostel living is a wonderfully unique experience, and I definitely recommend it next time you travel.

A picture of our cozy bunk, overlayed with Bryan's crotch.

*All pictures in this post courtesy of Bryan.

The Japan Trip - Day 06

I think I should probably mention our morning rituals.

JX is the earliest to wake up, being the earliest to bed after all, closely followed by XM (usually). Then Bryan's stupid alarm goes off and I'm forced to go over and kill it (and him). I don't know what JX does in the unearthly hours of the morning, seeing as I'm not even awake yet, but I presume it involves a lot of household-y things like making breakfast and hot chocolate and writing and stuff, although he usually writes at night. There is usually breakfast involved, and much discussion about "the plan", which is Bryan's way of making sure we don't waste a second of the very expensive daylight.

It was drizzling slightly that morning, which disappointed us because we were supposed to go hiking that day. Nevertheless, we got in the car when Inoue-san came to pick us up, and trundled along the frigid country roads towards the little town on Mt Daisen. There was a lot of snow lying around, or at least it was ice, and Inoue-san told us that it had snowed the previous week, which was unusual for this time of year, and therefore there was still much frozen water lying around. I guess it was fortunate, since there was enough time for people to get the snow off the roads and paths, but still recent enough such that we could trudge through the drifts, which was very exciting for me since I hadn't seen ice lying around on the ground before.

I tried scattering ice cubes on my floor a while back; it didn't have the same atmosphere.

Our first stop was supposed to be the information centre, but it was apparently closed when we got there. We thought it was because there were no hiking trails in what was effectively still winter. Seasons slow down the further up you go. So Inoue-san brought us into the town, where almost everything was closed - it was early in the morning and I think most of the business caters to the winter skier tourists and similar. She went to ask questions in a building, which turned out to be the real information centre, and then went to inform the local police about us. Not because XM was taking on the role of "party lolicon", but because it was dangerous to go hiking in this inhospitable weather, and so to make sure that someone with all the ropes and grappling hooks and snowshoes can go look for us in case we don't get back by sundown.

But seriously, who wouldn't want to get lost in such an adorable wilderness?

She then dropped us back at the alleged information centre, which turned out to just be a starting point for campsites and hiking trails. We found one nearby, apparently snowed out with a thick layer of melting ice overlaying the staircase. We then decided that slipping and dying on a remote mountain slope would put a dampener on our plans, so we walked back into town to escape the persistent torrential drizzle.

Not pictured: the winter-starved mountain bears waiting at the top.

The first shop that we reached specialised in mountain-climbing and winter supplies, which we didn't really need but what they did have was a roof, so we went in. There was a wide variety of jackets, hiking shoes, carabiners and other assorted equiment. JX bought some waterproof spray for his shoes, which he complained were getting very soggy.

They also sell door handles in the shape of ice picks.

As we wandered the empty streets, we stumbled upon the Daisen Museum of Natural History, which we also entered because it was warm and had no entrance fee. It mainly catalogues the wildlife of the Daisen area. There was a flower-spotter's guide by the entrance, some illustrations about food webs for little kids, and a lot of taxidermy. It was also the place where Bryan took a picture of the O RLY eagle.

YA RLY

We went to the information centre to get some directions, and at the same time stop for lunch. The lady at the counter apparently had been to Singapore before, some ten years previously, and mentioned Orchard Road. We got a good, robust English map of the area, and settled down to have lunch. I had cold soba, which I had bought from the combini, and it was delicious because it was so cold. Somehow the conversation came around to TNN, and somehow Bryan came up with the evil Shogun of Swing and his army of Disco Ninjas, which came about because Bryan kept singing Smooth Criminal that it got stuck in my head.

So cheap yet so good.

We trudged up the main street, which was at a slight angle and was still very empty, even after lunch. We passed this huge drift of snow, and got the idea to all do something with it. Xi Min got an "explorer" photograph of him surveying the land from the top of the mound. We carved the words "Hi Mom!" into the snow and took a picture, with the intention of sending it home to let our moms know we were alright.

Xi Min, scaling Mt. Hugepileofsnow (reenactment)

We never managed to send the photo though.

At the top of the town was a large Buddhist temple. It had many beautiful statues carved from solid rock, a lot of Buddha-looking people and a few Chinese dogs, and the whole effect was something out of a Tomb Raider movie. Most of the statues had red ribbons tied around their necks, though, and it was theorised that this was to keep them warm.

Then they came to life and started attacking the well-endowed young woman with the dual handguns.

We followed the mountain path back down into a dead forest, trees with branches but whose leaves had moved south for the winter. It was a beautiful sight, one rarely seeing in my native country unless there's a toxic spill somewhere. We followed the path down to the river. It was very wide and very deep, but not filled with much water. I presumed it was because the summer meltwater had not arrived yet; it was still lazing around at the top of the mountain.  There was a stream coursing through the centre of the rocky and uneven banks, and we carefully picked our way across the shifting boulders to it.

Fearless mountain explorers.

The water was fast (relatively), and icy cold. It was also crystal clear and very refreshing. Against everything my mother would have shouted at me were she there, I ripped off my footwear and plunged my feet into the frigid waters. It was sooooooooo cold! I felt my extremities go hypothermic. I couldn't leave them in there for long, but it was such a great feeling. It's probably like the reverse effect of a hot spring.

One of the best feelings in the world.

The rugged mountaineer skips merrily across the rocky landscape.

His pants are wet.

I helped Bryan take a picture of him in the middle of the river, which he spent fifteen minutes getting to and another fifteen minutes drying off after he slipped on a stepping stone and fell in. Xi Min wandered off upstream, and then tried to climb a snow-ridden slope, managed to get halfway, then slid down again. I also took a picture of myself topless, not as exciting or attractive as you might think, but in that rugged mountain explorer pose, just for fun. It was freezing, but also very liberating to just thrust your bare naked chest out into the wind.

Saxton Hale, eat your heart out.

Xi Min, climbing back up after wrestling a bear at the foot of that slope.

After this hydrolic encounter, we wandered over to another mountain path, paved with stones all over, all the way up. There was a foot or two of packed snow and ice lining the sides, so it seemed like a corridor of snow leading all the way up the mountain. In effect, we got the winter landscape scenery as well, with the bare trees scattered all over. It was a long way to the top, even though we didn't want to rock and roll. I entertained myself by observing the melting ice, the way it usually starts melting from the bottom, because that's where most of the heat comes from, and so you end up with shelves of ice then a gap then the ground.

An icy walkway into mystery.

At the top of the climb we were rewarded with a huge Buddhist temple, the type where you go to learn kung fu, and it even had planks for visitors to traverse across the flooded area at the entrance. When we arrived, we found out that we had just climed the longed stone path in Japan to get there. I mean, isn't that the sort of thing you tell people at the beginning of their journey, not at the end after they've spent the last hour going, "not long more now". I guess it adds to the whole "you have endured the long journey to get here; now we shall practice kung fu" atmosphere of the place.

"Ughhh... just... go on... without... me..."

As expected, we were not very interested in the temple, and so we wandered over to the wilderness, where the snow had piled up five feet thick, and someone had dug a small pit to a buried signpost to illustriate this fact. Naturally, I climbed in, because where else can you be surrounded neck deep in snow? It was a hassle climbing out again, though. Bryan and XM climbed in, pretending it was a dugout, and posed with their umbrellas as rifles as I took photos.

"Grenade! Uh, I mean, snowball!"

It started to drizzle, so we made our way back to the temple. Xi Min bought a fortune, but he couldn't read a word of it, so he ended up asking the monk on shop duty to read it for him, which he understood, I guess, in a way. We made our way back down the longest stone path in Japan, slipping slightly here and there because that's the nature of wet stone. I ate one of my momoji manju on the way down. I really needed the toilet.

Bryan really started practising kung fu.

As we were walking back through the main street, we stopped by a rest house so I could empty the ballast tanks, if you know what I mean. The rest house was a large place, which I guess also doubled as the town's art museum, because there was paintings all over the panelings. We also stopped by a souvenir shop, where I picked up a small pin to remember Mt Daisen by, and as I was paying the lady asked us where we were from. I told her, and we found out that she was actually Chinese too, from China, and spoke to her in Mandarin. We chatted a bit and then left, but as we were talking outside, she came to us and gave us a small badge each, on the house. It was really nice of her.


The only other interesting thing on the way back was SUNTORY BOSS, who is THE BOSS OF THEM ALL. It's a brand of coffee sold in vending machines across Japan, and Bryan and I each bought a can to try (and because it was so freaking cold - Japan has warm drink vending machines).

Like a SUNTORY BOSS.

When Inoue-san brought us back to the cottage-mansion, she said she had provided a barbeque dinner for us. It turned out to be a home-style teppanyaki dinner, and she provided all the raw meat and vegetables and rice. We roasted some of the pork and bacon and sausages and walked over to the neighbouring house - which is also apparently hers and she rents it out as well - to give it to her.

Grillin' and chillin'.

We spent the rest of the dinner watching Japanese programming, which is mostly dramas, variety shows, and awesome commercials. There was come cooking show for kids which starred this very young idol-looking person. There was a irritating half-Arabic girl who looked exactly like Kumar, and she was being sickeningly cute and just pissing us all off. There was a Power Rangers-esque show with a cute female lead. And there was also some local news about some bears who had wandered into someone's backyard and killed him, I think.

The poor girl.

We then karaoked for the next three hours.

*All pictures in this post courtesy of Bryan.