Day 21: 21 April 2009

LOCATION: KYOTO (CENTRAL KYOTO)
MOOD: WEARY
LISTENING TO: DJ GREEN LANTERN FEAT NOTORIOUS BIG AND CASSIDY – 2 GUNZ UP

ALL MEDIOCRE THINGS MUST COME TO AN END:

Today was my last full day in Kyoto and the end to what has been at best a mixed experience. There have been some elating highs, some frustrating impediments and some deep disappointments. It was therefore fitting that on my last day I woke up to find that it was raining.

I had a few administrative matters to attend to, namely activating my Japan Rail Pass in anticipation for my next major journey and cashing some travellers cheques to keep myself afloat. Luckily I could do both in the Kyoto Central Station complex.

Kyoto Central. Residents are divided over its appearance, but I thought it looked nice. It made for a nice break from temples and shrines.

Arriving by bus, I decided to take a look around Kyoto station before I went about my business. The station is more than ten stories tall and houses Kyoto's central post office as well as cafes, shops, an observation deck and a department store. The annex also includes more shops and a hotel. The rain was quite heavy so I wasn't able to go to the rooftop observation decks, but I did still get a couple of photos from the tenth floor indoor observatory.

Kyoto Tower, as viewed from the station.

Downtown Kyoto. Apparently the city has enacted a law prohibiting buildings from exceeding a certain height limit, apparently to preserve the atmosphere and prevent Kyoto from turning into Osaka. In my opinion it just creates a halfway-house effect where you're not sure whether Kyoto's supposed to be a big city or just another town.

Having taken a look around the station I then went to activate my JR Pass, which was fairly simple. The next task I had was cashing my travellers cheques, which made me a little more apprehensive. I had read a few horror stories on the backpacker forums, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I rocked up at the Kyoto central post office. A post office may seem like a strange place to cash cheques, but Japan Post happens to be the largest savings institution in Japan. It's a financial beast of such magnitude that its privatisation is regarded as one of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's crowning achievements.

Luckily it turned out that I had worried for nothing. There wasn't much of a crowd given that it was the middle of the day on a Monday and it was raining outside, which meant that the attendants were free to help me. After filling in a short form and submitting it at the counter the clerk vanished for a few minutes before returning with a wad of cash. Simple as that. Strangely the form required you to submit your Japanese address. It wasn't a problem for me as I put my friend Henry's place (given that was where I was going after Kyoto), and most tourists usually just put their hotel address. But it does seem to defeat the purpose of a traveller's cheque to require a Japanese address.

SUNNY DAYS WOULDN'T BE SPECIAL IF IT WASN'T FOR RAIN:

Having finished my business I decided to take a look around the area. There were a couple of temples that my Lonely Plant Guide recommended I visit, so I went to take a look. Unfortunately they were both under repairs at the time, so I was only able to get photos of the facades. Apparently there's a fascinating back story regarding feuding schools of Buddhism behind the two temples (I was hoping for some Shaolin style action), but I had to make do with the other slightly more mundane points of interest.

At least the exterior was nice.

The interior left a little to be desired.

For some reason both of them seemed flooded with pigeons; there was a counter at the front gate selling bird seed that was unmanned, and somebody had scattered seed in the front courtyard. Another point of interest were the weird self-help slogans that were plastered all around the outside of the temples. To their credit the administrators had managed to procure proper English translations, but that didn't make them any less random. This, combined with the strange mixture of ancient architecture with modern scaffolding made for a very odd experience.

Well I can't really argue with that.

"When you think that you're always right the world becomes a darker place."

I didn't want to dally for too long as it was raining so I set off for the Nishiki market, which was a couple of city blocks away. The Nishiki market is essentially a long narrow covered walkway lined with stores selling all sorts of weird and wonderful foods, both ingredients and finished products. I've never been a person who can appreciate fine cuisine, but even I was impressed by the fact that Kyoto cooking requires stores to stock several different grades of eggs.

The entrance to Nishiki market.

The market was packed and it was difficult to take pictures without somebody thinking I was snapping them.

It was also pretty difficult to get pictures of the food without giving the vendors false hope of a sale. The sheepish look and apologetic bow are a must.

I'm not entirely sure what these were, but they were interesting enough to photograph.

Beans, beans the magical fruit...Is it still okay to make fart jokes when you're 23?

Seeing this many eggs made me realise how long it had been since I'd had french toast.

Nishiki market links up with another covered shopping walkway, Teramachi. Teramachi is one of the fashionable shopping strips in downtown Kyoto, but it was interesting to find that even there the stream of shops crammed with American fashion was broken by a random temple every now and then. Teramachi terminates near the entertainment district of downtown Kyoto, where I had been the previous night. It was just as quiet as it had been the previous night, but was substantially less charming in the daylight. The girl from the train promised me that on the weekends the place was off the hook, but it took all my imaginative faculties to picture it.

New Japan meets Old Japan. And promptly tucks it away in the corner.

The nightlife district in Kyoto.

I was heading back to the nearest train station when I found a second hand bookstore that sold CDs, so I browsed there for a few hours (making a few substantial additions to my collection) before heading home for a final dinner with the Kyoto Uni crew.

For our last dinner we decided to try a gyoza place near our apartments that always seemed to have a queue spilling out onto the streets. After half an hour we finally got a seat. Food was aiight.

We mooted the idea of another drinking session, but coming across the crappy beer from the night before led us to decide against it.
As a side not, it's somewhat ironic that the name of the beer, Ajiwai, means 'taste' in Japanese.