7/10/13 - Tokyo to Kyoto

Now the backpacking starts. And so did the packing this morning. Struggle! My deal was to fly here with 10kg in my suitcase and I was between 9.9 and 10kg at the airport. I was seriously impressed. Anyways that's not the case anymore. The shopping here is cheap and the quality is good. So after somehow being able to jam pack everything into the bag I thought to myself how the hell did Alicia travel with that for a month last year?! Especially with the amount of shopping she did.

Leaving Niks apartment was a strange and surreal moment, he won't be coming back to Melbourne until he has to leave Japan next year. Although that's not what I wanted to hear, it's what he wants to do and I must respect that. As he explained it was like he was a guest when he came back last time. That's understandable.

So as I set off, the beautiful old lady down the road, Fujitu San was standing out the front. I said thank you to her for all the ice creams and being the lovely lady she is, she gave me things to take on the train to Kyoto. Another mint choc ice cream and custard filled pastry in the shape of fish. Beautiful beautiful lady.

Now sitting in the train I can't help but feel that my holiday, althought I didn't go up close to Mt Fuji, may not be gong to Nara or watching sumo wrestling, this holiday wasn't a holiday from the get go. It was to visit Nik. It makes sense how mum keeps saying a holiday is where you relax. It makes sense that it's not what I see, not what I miss out on, it's not the amazing people you meet and see. It's what you make of it. This is all bringing back such amazing memories of last year, I need not to do this every year to remind myself that life is actually pretty amazing at home.

Now for something a little less serious, everywhere I go I see these Japanese people bowing. For example when the staff get in and out of the cars and between them, they bow. When I got onto the lifts in Tokyo, they'd bow. When I got something from maccas they even bowed. I couldn't help but think how shit my customer service must have been. All I did was "here's your order" and that's it. What a cuntbag I am. Even when staff were going out the back of a shop they would bow and it made me realise the culture is something we need to adopt a bit of.

I got to the hostel and was told that I needed to come back at 3pm to get to my room and to leave my bag in reception. So I did that. But I got a drink and roll at a small store so that there was something for me to at least eat. Then I got to the hostel after walking back eating my roll and realised it tasted like a maccas cheeseburger but it was fish. Eh. 

I got to the room and had a nap thought. Nice room because it was new and had a massive tv in it. Not sure why you'd need that but anyways. It then go to 4 so I enter for a walk and nothing was open. I walked all the way to the Nijito Castle and it was shut but I got some good photos. Even the temples which are all around the streets were amazing at sun set. There was a market which seemed to run for so many streets and it was so beautiful so I walked for most of it. Then I got back I the hostel in time for happy hour and spoke to Britney, Ken and Maddy. We went and got some dinner from the supermarket, 50% off that, 3 beers, only cost me 899¥. That's $10 for 1.5Ltr of beer and a big plate of dinner. We sat outside on the terrace and just chilled until about 11 then went to bed.