Lost In Translation Update : Hello and Goodbye to Kyoto

Sorry for the sudden drop in the frequency of updates but I was just too hungover and couldn't be stuffed writing yesterday or Saturday.

Kyoto was pretty lovely. It really does remind me of Melbourne. On Saturday I jumped on a Bus and went to two temples on the outskirts of Kyoto: The Rokuon-ji Temple and the Ryoan-ji Temple. Both were very beautiful and serene.

At the Rokuon-ji temple a local university was doing free guided tours so I was fortunate to have a guide describe all the features and give me a bit of history on the temple. It was great. At this temple is a massive Golden Pavilion that was built by Yoshimitsu (eheh Soul Calibur 2!!) entirely to demonstrate his superiority in Japan.

At the Ryoan-ji Temple was heaps of Moss and Rocks. It housed a wonderful rock garden and it is suprisingly peaceful to sit and look at it.

After getting all templed out, I wandered down the road to the Peace Museum. This is a museum dedicated to recognising the futitily of war and promoting peace through understanding. It mainly focus, quite interestingly, on the terrible things Japan did during the "15 year war" and why they should never happen again. Kinda like saying: yup, it happened: we're sorry, we're dealing with it.

That night I went to an Irish bar in Downtown Kyoto, then a traveller who had been in town for a while took me to this awesome tiny bar that you would have no idea existed and then from there we went to Sam And Daves, which was too western for my liking but decent fun. I got very pissed and caught a taxi home at 5am.

Sunday morning, still drunk I got my shit together at 10am and checked out of the Hotel. Luckily they had a little bus that dropped me to the station where I got a ticket to Osaka on the Shinkansen. That took me to Osaka-shin, where I had to switch trains to a metro line. At the switch I got very confused and standing around with my massive bag I was getting tired as buggery. Luckily a local helped me out, walking with me all the way to the right train I needed. They are all so lovely here.

Next it was trying to find the hotel from the station and after walking in completely the wrong direction for about half an hour, I managed to turn myself around and find it.

The swissotel is pretty fancy. The rooms are well appointed and the staff are nice. The facilities are great, though I am yet to check out the bars and restaraunts. I had a big rest in the hotel most of Sunday, before venturing out for some food. I found a hawaiian burger place and had a nice meal before returning to my room for some much needed sleep.

Today I am going to wander around Osaka. The people seem lovely here and I can't wait to get out and see whats going down.