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I have seen shrines and temples here in Kyoto built to appease gods of fire, water and lightning. Yet I have seen none trying to appease the gods of irony. I think I may well build the first one...

I had a lovely day hiking, I really did. I began at Nanzen-ji temple, which was yet another slightly too expensive for a rather touristy sight type thing. Despite being known as one of the top 5 zen temples, it felt distinctively un-zenny. However, lonely planet recommended a sub-temple higher in the mountains, which barely anyone visits, so I went to check it out. I figured that being published in lonely planet would mean its secludedness would have all but vanished, but I was shocked to find a completely abandoned shrine complex. Every romantic image of trekking around suddenly came true...I was praying at a shrine in a moss covered forest, I was inside a dark cave cut into the side of a mountain, I was napping on the top of a cliff with the warm sun on my face.

I then walked through the mountains, past yet more graveyards (photos of all this will come soon), eventualyl finding my one on the other side. Monks popped out just in time for me to listen to their chanting while I walked around what really was a lovely, secluded zen temple, and the sound of the bell rang throughout the entire garden. I took a walk to the bus-stop via the "Philosophy Road", a quite path made famous as the walking route of a well-known philosopher. And philosophical it is indeed.

But, the ironic part of the night lurks in the distance, the reason I can only use this computer for a very limited amount of time. You see, after dinner (some strange chicken, rice, raw egg combination), I pay and walk toward the McDonalds. Not very cultural I know, but I'm trying to live on a budget, and a $1 snack (cheeseburgers and McChicken burgers, as well as fries and stuff, are $1 here) to make up for a rather small dinner seemed like the smart thing to do. When I reached the McDonalds 10 minutes later however, I couldnt find my wallet to pay for my delicious snack. I started looking in my bag for it, and thought to myself:

"Its alright, I can't have lost it...I never lose anything important".

As soon as I thought it, I realized with horror what I had done. The gods of irony descended on me quick as a flash, destroying whatever chance I had of not having lost my wallet. It wouldnt matter now if my wallet was in my back pocket, irony alone would now ensure it was forever lost. I retrace my steps twice, but cannot find it anywhere. Oh, ye mighty gods of irony!

A little annoying, but not a disaster. I had $70 cash in my wallet, and my drivers licence. But my ATM cards, my passport and so forth, were all in my money belt thing, which I still have. I put them there because I always knew I would lose my wallet at some stage, and now that preparation has paid off. Still, losing $70 is annoying, especially when I just spent $20 on a bus ticket for the rest of the week. I'll check the police tommorow, but until then I have 0 yen, just a smile and a pocketful of dreams. Therefore I had to borrow 100 yen to use the computer, in order to tell you that I don't have 100 yen. Ah, the joys of travel!

I ended up staying in a youth hostel type place on the east side of town, near the mountains. Looking on a map I couldn't help but notice that it was close to the main clubbing area of the city, and since I now had a private room (It's sad that I get excited about that), I figured I would give it a try just to see what happens. By the end of the first hour, the flaws in this plan started to reveal themselves. Here's just a few of my big mistakes:

Assuming rain will only add to the ambience
Rain is wet! WET WET WET! And when you walk in the rain, YOU GET WET. What seems close on a map turns out to be a 30 minute walk. The walk was not scenic, but it was wet. My feet are wet, my pants are wet, my hair is wet, and the novelty of rain begins to wear off along with the skin on my feet as I grow blisters. The rain didnt do much for the hundreds of year old streets by the river, as it was now packed with little plastic umbrellas

Judging something by its face
By now very, very wet, I went looking for a place to eat. I found a place called "Ganko", with about 1000 students milling out the front. I figured they were all waiting to get in, so it must be either very cheap or very good. Furthermore, Ganko's logo was a man wearing a bandana pulling an angry face, so I figured it would be the usual bargain basement chain store. Going inside, Ganko is a very classy restaurant far removed from its logo, with kimono-clad waitresses pointing me to the umbrella storage room, the shoe storage room, and finally seating me at a bar with a much better ambience than the plastic street. The meal is lovely, the bill is far less lovely.

"Oh, why not"This is the stupidest question in the world. Is something worth doing simply because there is no good reason NOT to do it? Why not touch your foot right now? There's no good reason not to. If everyone thought "why not?", we'd have people spending their whole time touching lampposts and making bird noises.

I deserve it!
No you don't. No you don't. No you don't.

After this mistakey part of the night, my luck got better. I saw a group of people hanging out like trolls under a bridge, listening to free live music, which seemed quite cool. I met some American college students from New Jersey (I've now met people from Carolina, New Jersey and Pensylvania...why is no one from the states that I know something about?!), and we spent the next 45 minutes vainly attempting to gain entry into incredibly small bars. One of the guys swears we're being discriminated against, and calls the door guards Jews for some reason. So we give the tiny bars a miss, and I am introduced to the pleasures of a $3 bottle of whisky instead (there are very few pleasures, trust me). We then go down to a massive club at about 10pm, and we have the whole dance floor to ourselves...fantastic...

Eventually people do come, thankfully. Lots of them.
Soon the drunkest of the American guys jumps out and starts dancing energetically in a way that can only make me laugh. I shake my head. The next song is one I know, however...I end up giving the other guy a run for his money both in energy and unco-ordination. The DJ is GREAT (I end up jumping onto the stage to tell him this, just so he knows for future reference). I've never heard a really good DJ, it really did make all the difference.

Generally, it takes a while for people to realize just how cool I really am, but here, they recognize it instantly. Guys shake your hand, hit you on the back and all those other Macho things. Girls giggle when you look at them. But the best part of it all is...THEY ASSUME I CAN DANCE! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Back home, when I start doing some strange 360 degree robotic pimp dancing, people assumed I had a motor neuron disorder. In Japan, they assume its some exotic dance style they haven't got over here yet. I even try to turn slipping over on the wet floor into a breakdancing move, but I don't think that fooled anyone. Even more hilarious though, was when people started doing the same moves, and you got a glimpse of how you looked. I succesfully introduced them to the Dance Clock, Emma Kerr's Hand Dance and many, many others. They loved it, I loved it, everyone had a good night.

And then it was time to go home...

Unfortunately, we had walked further AWAY from my place as we wandered the streets, so a 30 minute walk was now a 45 minute walk. It was still raining, and still wet. As I got closer and closer, an unexpected guest arrived. It was daylight. It was only 4am, and dawn was very much unexpected at this hour, so I spent a long time in denial. But the sun had the final say in this matter, and it was certainly rising. I make my way home in almost full cloudy daylight, then crash on the bed.

I wake up 4 hours later (9am), and go to extend my stay at the hotel (with every intention of coming back immediately to sleep). Then I decide I might as well get a drink of something from a vending machine. Then I decide I want breakfast. Then I see a samurai exhibit at a museum. Then I end up in a ridiculously over-priced internet cafe.
So its finally come down to this... I am favouring my blog over sleep. Are you happy now?

Everything is looking up for my tourist lifestyle!

It all began last night, when I came back to the hostel after a night out on the town at an Izakaya, basically a Japanese pub. Since I could speak Japanese, the hostel manaer took me with him when he went to his favourite drinking place. I was expecting a seedy underground joint with mould growing on the walls and a surly guy staring at you from the corner, I think its just somethin about words with Z in them. But when I got there I found a clean, white, classy place, where I was served strange, very exotic Japanese foods I'd never even heard of back home, but which tasted quite nice. One was raw octopus with wasabi, and the other was a kind of fish egg paste with cheese mixed into it (both salty and cheesy, really yum). We spent the night talking about all sorts of things, and I got a lot of recommendations of great Japanese books, movies and so on. The beers are huge here, and very frothy...

I woke up from the floor of the Japanese room at 7am, having gone to bed just past midnight. I then had the unenviable task of waking the two swedish girls (THEY WERE SWEDISH! Hahahahaha). I had no idea what I was going to do that day, but once again disorganization was the best plan. As I was up early (not by choice, they needed the room back), I talked with everyone over breakfast about where they were goin and what the best places were. I caught someone saying a japanese place name, combined with the comment "very beautiful", and said "I'll go there!". Neil, who just finished law school in Canada, and is being called to the bar in a few weeks, accompanied me there. He turned out to be the adventurous type, and we not only walked the 4km track through the mountains, but took every strenuous detour possible, with the justification that "We might as well, since we're here!". Ah...finally someone who understands my way of thinking. Not content with just spending 4 hours walking through the 10,000 vermillion gates in the mountains, we then went to a nearby zen temple, which required another hour or so of walking.

Tiredness fixed by starbucks (very culturally important), sore legs fixed by onsen (jumping in and out of boiling hot, and freezing cold baths, watched by Yakuza people), and need for adventure fixed by lots and LOTS of adventure. I'm all adventured out. Which is a real shame, beacuse my chance to relax is almost certainly not now. I have another night on the town with the manager ahead, this time a FRIDAY night!

Wish me luck...

It is very important, while you are in Japan, to master the art of head nodding.
When you have no idea what is going on, you nod your head. Nod vigorously when the person is excited, and thoughtfully when the tone sounds more philosophical, and the person will assume you have followed what they are saying. Furthermore, add conversational comments on the few words you do pick up "oh, the higayashi temple?"..."Yes, I've heard it has walls".

I have gained a mastery of this tonight whilst staying at the Tour Club Youth Hostel in Kyoto. I went down to the local Yakitori place (they serve whatever you want on a stick, I had chicken and shitake mushrooms)...one of the best tourist sights in the country I believe, but never written in any guidebook. A tiny little Japanese joint, where I sat on a stool and talked with the friendly staff (its run by a family of people who sit around yelling at each other in between cooking), and ask them about Kyoto, the shop, and life in general. The air is warm from the fire they cook my food on, and the conversation is just as warm...the mother sits and cuts chicken in the corner while we talk about global warming and its international ramifications. It is interesting to compare observations from the other side of the world; I tell him about the drought in Australia, while he tells me about the onset of the rainy season, which despite being predictable for thousands of years, is now anybody's guess. Conspiratorily, we add in hush voices "somethings just not right..."

I am sleeping tonight on the floor of the common room, a tatami mat which looks quite comfortable. They were full when I first arrived, but someone at another youth hostel made a phone call, and it turned out they weren't that full. I have to wait until 11pm for everyone to go to bed though, until my futon is unrolled. I am sharing this floor with two swedish girls (I assume they're swedish, as they are blonde and don't seem to speak english that well). This place is heaven on earth, the owner even brought us out some warm sake while me and a couple from Wales chatted over a copy of lonely planet.

Yes, I finally bought one...Walking down the street today, I thought to myself of the huge numbers of tourists in the area at the moment. Then, a quick look at my own giant backpack and copy of Lonely Planet later, it suddenly hit me...I'm a tourist! I jumped down the streets with glee. I'm a tourist! I'm a tourist! I'm touring, or whatever it is that tourists do!

Speaking of whatever tourists do, my back hurts from my backpack (how stereotypical :D), so I'm going to the public baths for a hot soak. Its just down the alleyway, a quick walk through the streets of pre-western era Japanese wooden houses, and across the road from one of the centuries old temples.

Ah Japan, you've done it again...