Day 3 - Bamboo Grove

Today its very rainy, though maybe it will dry up this afternoon. We've gotten out into it, hopped on a train 20 minutes out to Arashiyama. Apart from a beautiful bamboo forest, there was also some great food.



I've left out the embarrassing pic of Cliff trying to eat this giant pickle on a stick. Nice and crunchy, yum.









We're not sure but we think these may have been green-tea coated chestnut balls. They were fantastic!












This bird was posed on a rock, while another in the water was diving down, and gobbling bright orange goldfish! Camera ran out of batteries then so I missed it. (BTW. Pearl I'm snapping these on your old Olympus, it is working great for me, thanks!)







Up the valley.















:-) Cliff said he feels like he's in a carnival walking along beside me with my hunchback under the raincoat (a bag) and my emergency see-through umbrella.













It was very otherworldly, walking through this strange bamboo grove, with drizzle all around and birdsong in the air. It was very beautiful, but the photos totally do not do this justice. Here, check out this page for super dooper shots of it, its stunning



Nice tree-pot behind someone's yard eh?









Interesting design on this rail-stool.




Sushi-train, the real deal! This was so cheap, and so nice.



And here we have raw sardines, and Cliff's feast on what the menu charmingly described as "The green stuff from inside a crab's head." Why he ate this, I have no idea.




Menu said I had "the skum that forms on top of soy-milk", which I assume means soft tofu... Cliff had a fishy one this time.



Finally we got home, and I needed to use this interesting appliance, an automatic shoe-dryer.



Ok, our rainy morning is done ... now to chill out for an hour or so, then off to Kyoto Uni, hopefully for our first Judo session!

Day 2 - the Onson! And some weird food & signs.

Ok this is just a blurry picture from a brochure, as they wouldn't allow me take a camera inside. Everybody is naked inside (men / women in separate rooms) so fair enough ... but jeez there have been so many weird experiences inside this bathhouse ... and squeals of terror ... a video would have been priceless!

So the deal is, you strip off and go into the bath room, and squat down on a little seat around the edge of the room, in front of those mirrors. You soap-up, wash with the shower hose, get thouroughly clean. Only then are you allowed to climb into a tub. My journey through the onsen / sento experience:

1. I approach one of the big tubs in the middle, step over the edge, climbing in. Hmmm, "Those are unusual rubber mats along the edge, are they for a back-padding?" I'm thinking. As I start to wade deeper, I get a curious sensation ... a tingling ... it gets stronger ... I must be tired ... I lower myself deeper, and suddenly my thighs start twitching! AHG! I've found the ELECTRIFIED BATH! Its the small one beside the pillar. GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT! An old Japanese man is giggling at my discomfort :-)

2. I beat a quick retreat to the bubbling hot one, that is like a normal Australian hot tub. Very nice. I watch the old Japanese man show me how tough he is - he sinks down into the electric bath without any expression disturbing his placid face. How, I have no idea! I'm not going back there. Its meant to simulate the sensation of gettings shocked by an electric eel -- apparently that's good for you? Well I suppose the physio's do it for rehab, after all.

3. Over to the murky brown tub. Its very warm too, but has a strange smell. No, no in a good way - this is not sewage, it must be herbal & medicinal. It affords me the perfect view of this bearded Spaniard who enters the room, looks around uncertainly, and starts climbing into the electric eel tub ... you should have seen his face as he started to realize something wasn't quite right, just too funny!!

4. Cliff has been enjoying the hot bubbly one like his at home for ages, then wanders upstairs, so after a few minutes I climb up too to see what's there. First thing I see is a nice clear tub with a heavy 'shower' dropping down. I'm wary now, but its great to feel it, I see its a cold tub. This I'm ready for, after my cold-water dousing stints in the past. Its beautifully refreshing, not too cold, about 5 or 6 degrees? Not sure. It does certainly take your breath away and its hard to stay in for long. But a great relief from:

5. The sauna. This is hot. I stumble in, see Cliff through my fogged up glasses, walk over, and BUMP crash into the glass door separating me from the _very hot_ room. Giggling at this madhouse, I melt onto the wooden bench. I don't recall enjoying saunas in the past, but this is actually really great. Close my eyes and drift into a meditative repose ... after a 5 minutes I need a break, stumble out to the cold-tub, immerse for a minute, then back into the hottest sauna. Repeat two or three times, and I'm done.

6. One last dip in the cold-tub, and the bearded spaniard approaches. He hops in and gets another surprise, poor bugger! We have a laugh about it, and he tells me about climbing El Camino del Rey, the lucky guy. Oh btw I suppose I should link to the video of that crazy/famous, in case you haven't seen it:



7. Ok I've had enough of baths, so I'm about to go downstairs and dry off, when I see a strange corner of the room with pink tiles and nozzles over the walls. I approach, and there are three buttons to press, which I do. Suddenly the wall jets start spraying water on me, from my ankles slowly up to my neck. Then a heavy drop of water from above, then fine mist from all around, and fine spray from up top. This is a very invigourating shower! Really great for those of you like me who appreciate a good shower. Down the stairs I go.

8. Cliff is there, and I goad him into trying the electric-eel bath. The cheeky bastard wades right in, and slowly sinks down, all the way to his neck!! My jaw drops, I am so impressed with him, it is really quite amazing he can endure it. He looks almost as calm as the old guy who was in it, almost no expression on his face. Top marks Cliff! How do you do that??

9. Unfortunately, he offers to tell me ... but it comes at a price. And the only way he'd tell me was if I promised to go back into that hell-tub! It took me some time to work up the nerve, but finally he shamed me into it. I was thinking about my friend Malcolm at work, he'd certainly expect me to woos-out after the way I locked myself in the bathroom to avoid playing the electric shock ball game so, it was too much, I just had to learn to enjoy the soothing pleasure of electro-shock! I gingerly climbed over, waded in to my knees, looked over at Cliff cacking-up laughing at me, then fast-all-at-once i went down to my chest. I can feel my shoulders & thighs convulsing! I use the secret, it helps, can I get out now?

I see Cliff still laughing, "Down!" he says, so ok, down to my chin I go. I've been moan and panting heavily the whole time, and this kicks up a notch - trying to breath, it takes my mind off the electric twitching sensation inside my chest. Cliff will never forget the grimaces on my face and the HUH-HUH-HUH panting :-) Afterward he says it was quite a spectacle, all the old Japs were laughing at me, LOL. I won't forget it ... and maybe I think I'll try it again!

What an amazing experience the whole Onsen facility is! SOOOO cool. I wonder if it could work in Australia?



This was really gross, with sticky goo all through it, fermented beans I think? I poured it in my Miso soup, and that saved it -- too much protein to waste.



yum.



is this the mother of all swiss-army knives or what?



cool bike, it telescopes in and out for easy portability, right now its collapsed in.



Your shop Claire?



Here's a little bit of Engrish on a restaurant sign. We think they meant 'open 24-7' :-)



I had a beautiful tofu-steak, while Cliff had some fried chicken gizzards -- he's made it his mission to have the grossest food he can find, he'll try everything. This took him back to his days in Greece cooking at his restaurant.

Day 2 - Exploring Kyoto by bike

Well this is a fantastic city, we absolutely LOVE it!!!

Its so easy to get around - they are really bike-mad here. Everyone cruises around on these oldfashioned looking girly bikes. That's what we've been doing all days. Mine has a nice shimano 3-speed hub, but really, doddling around in 1 gear is just fine. It is such a relaxed way to ride, instead of always going top-speed as I do back home. Expect plenty of bike photos tomorrow, you have to see all the strange frames, drum brakes, weird locks etc. Oh, no one wears helmuts, you can't even find them. Its a wonderful relaxed feeling cruising around like this - and everyone on the sidewalks too.

Really feels quite a lot like Bali, except much quieter abnd cleaner. -- Cliff is shit at directions*, but man he can find beer! He just came back from a walk with cans of 'Dark Bitter' and 'Special Black'. KAMPAI! I was worried it would only be amber stuff, this is much nicer. (*he's been getting turned around all day, and luckily I've redeemed myself from the 6-block debacle last night. We use the big tower as our touchstone for directions here. Photo later maybe) Time for some photos:



this place is opposite our Hostel (called "Kay's house" btw. I feel safe here :-)



What do you think it is - a feather-massage service, choose your bird? Japan is a _weird_ place, wouldn't be surprised!



Ok now I'm trying the 'large' picture setting on this blog. Here you can see this very nice river that runs through town. We use the pathway beside it as our freeway up to the north end of town. Along it are lots of people fishing, watching birds, or practicing musical instruments.

At this one spot beside the river there were all this big eagles - Cliff counted eight of them wheeling & whirling about overhead. Very nice!

And these are a specialty of nearby Osaka - octopus balls! With weird little rice-crispy things in the batter, covered by mayonaisse and spring-onions. Yum and cheap, but rich so you don't have too many



And here we've made it up to one of my goals for the trip, we've visited the Kyoto Budo 'The ways of combat' Centre.









We were so lucky, we saw a Kendo contest!



About to lose his head?





This pic might be a favourite - looking at it, pretty hard to tell its modern-day, eh?



And this is what it looks like live.





There was also a Kyudo 'archery' contest being held. The women in particular looked so serene, graceful, and focused. It was awesome, we were very impressed.





this is my favourite



Now we're at the University Gymnasium, and we're searching for the Judo dojo. On the way we get to watch the Fencing club practicing. Check this out Abbey!





skewered!





















Ok, we finally found the Judo dojo, but it was empty. We then hunted down the office, and the guy there said lots of stuff to us in Japanese, then pointed to a sign on the door. We were quite puzzled, but we told him we'd wait until training was due to start. Unfortunately it seems they must have known we were coming (afraid?) as it turns out they'd arranged a public holiday, and cancelled the Judo training that evening! Be that as it may, we will be back to try again tomorrow night.

Here is a pic from a room dedicated to drying sweat-soaked gi's. Oh, also blood-soaked gi's ... Cliff is examining one now. What do you think he is thinking?



On the bike ride home, people were walking dogs. Well, I saw one lady pushing a shopping trolly, that had two white fluffy maltese in there. Then suddenly ... we met 'Bi-bi' the pig! It was soooooo cute!



Then my batteries ran out, or I would have shown a very hungry looking Boxer dog that was walked past -- it looked soooo hungry :-)

Now we'll go find some dinner, then next ... the Onsen Experience!