I’ve got this problem….

Just started up the Spring semester, so I’ve been busy this last couple weeks. I had to register the other week, so I got up early on the registration day so I could register before the majority of the student body was awake. Unfortunately, even though the registering website opened at 9, and I received an e-mail telling me as much, I was later told that if you had registered before 1pm, then your registration hadn’t gone through and you weren’t registered (the website of course had given me the message “registration confirmed”). So of course a good half of the students on campus had issues with their registration. In the end I got it all sorted out, but it was a bit frustrating. After I settled in to my new schedule my body decided it would be a good idea to get sick, so I’ve been dealing with that for the last week as well. It isn’t anything serious of course, but it has been sapping my will to write lately (as well as to eat, breath, and live) which is notoriously low already. Anyway, since it’s been so long since these events were current, I’m going to try to start pumping the entries relating to my trip with Mom and Grandma out a little more quickly.
The day after we got to Kyoto we got up at nine so that we could try to sort out our money issues. I thought it was going to be a big hassle, but it turned out to be pretty simple. We walked to the station, which was about a five minute walk from where we were staying, in the hopes that someone would be able to help us find an ATM that would accept Mom and Grandma’s cards. We went to the information desk, where we were told to try the post office, which was located right next to the station. Fortunately enough, the ATMs at the post office worked just fine, and both Mom and Grandma were able to get money out, which was fortunate since we were all burning through money at an alarming rate. Throughout the trip, I think Mom and Grandma had a lot more money on them then they thought they did, as we were a at least five days in before they started using coins for things. Japanese yen comes in 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 yen coins and 1000, 5000, and 10,000 yen bills. The 1 and 5 coins are generally pretty worthless, with the 1s feeling as if they are made of aluminum (and they may well be). A good general rule of thumb is that 100 yen = $1 (though at the moment it’s closer to 94). That means that at any point in time you are probably carrying a considerable amount of money around in coins. As an American, it is easy to forget how much something is worth when it’s in coin form, as the biggest coin we are used to is the quarter. Anyway, the point is that Mom and Grandma both kept breaking 1000 yen notes, and just holding on to the change (I myself have long since moved past this phase, though unfortunately I have found that money in coin form gets spent pretty fast, probably because I still don’t associate coins with large sums of money).After the post office, we went around the block to something called the “Campus Plaza,” which was really just a place where we could check our e-mail. Nothing really interesting about the place, although I don’t think the guy I sat next to liked me being there. He kept giving me funny looks, like I was invading his space. We weren’t there for very long, and headed back to the area where our hotel was to try to find something to eat.
We ended up in a grocery store that for some reason reminded me of Mexico. I have no idea why, since there wasn’t a Mexican theme and the food was very Japanese, but something about the place just gave me that feeling. Anyway, that aside shopping was quite a bit of fun. We picked up a good amount of food for lunch and spent an unreasonable amount of time in the candy isle. We headed back to our hotel and ate lunch there.
A brief aside here, but there was a ginger cat that liked to hang out outside of the hotel, and it was adorable. Reminded me of Diablo. Anyway, this cat appeared to hate me with a passion I found somewhat disturbing, as seems to be the case with all ginger cats.
After lunch we headed back to the food market that we had visited the night before but which had been closed. During the day it’s a bustling, crowded place packed with all manner of people and food. It’s a great place, and I really enjoyed it. I few of the things I was able to find while there were: Tofu doughnuts, squid on a stick, candied tomatoes, $2000 knives the size of a broadsword, every imaginable kind of fish, and roasted chestnuts (which are made using a steaming machine that is perhaps the loudest device ever conceived by mankind). Not really too much to say about the food market, as all we really did was wonder around and look at the food (I ate some of it too). After we had been there a couple of hours we headed back to the hotel. I took a nap in the cab on the way back, and when we got there we just rested for awhile while we tried to figure out what we were going to do with our evening.
In the end, we ended up trying to find a performance that was taking place at a festival on the other side of town, which would probably have been easier if we had know what exactly we were looking for and where it was. As it was, we only sort of knew where to go, and so we took a cab to a really cool part of town. It was quite a bit more cramped than where we were staying at the time, but in a cozy and interesting sort of way. There were a lot of really neat looking shops and restaurants in the area, and since it was night everything was lit up. Once we got to where we thought the performance was, we wandered around near a shrine until we saw something that looked like it might be what we were looking for. Once again, Mom almost barged in on something that we had no business barging in on, and we left that building in an embarrassed rush. We followed a large group of people in the shrine we were near, and spent a while wandering around while we debated whether or not the performance we were looking for was likely to be taking place there. We never did find the performance, but the shrine was hosting a festival featuring a wide variety of interesting displays and light shows (after a fashion). The whole place gave off a really halloweeny vibe, so of course I loved it. Some of the things on display included sculptures and really elaborate ikebana (flower arrangements in the traditional Japanese style). We spent a couple of hours there before heading back for the night.

Yakitori Yakitori Yaitori

We got another late start on Saturday, since there wasn’t much that we were going to be able to do before we had to catch the train down to Kyoto shortly after noon. We had enough time to catch a quick bite to eat, but after that we had to pack up the room and head to the train station. Packing up for me isn’t usually a big deal, as I tend to just live out of my suitcase. I’ll have dirty clothes, books, and the like scattered around, but the bulk of my stuff is usually still in my suitcase, and it doesn’t take too long to pack up (this is of course ignoring the fact that I’m very lazy). Mom and Grandma on the other hand unpacked when they first got to the hotel; clothes in drawers, toiletries in the bathroom, that kind of thing. Because of that it took them a little while to pack up (not to mention all the rearranging needed to accommodate all of the new stuff we had bought). We ran into a bit of a hitch shortly before we left. Mom and Grandma had run low on cash in the few days that we had spent in Tokyo, and needed to get some out of an ATM. The concierge told us that we could get money out of the ATM at the am/pm (a Japanese convenience store, though I’m not sure if it’s actually Japanese or a foreign company). I walked over with Mom, but unfortunately, neither her nor Grandma’s cards worked. In the end I ended up withdrawing 100,000 yen (about $1000). After we sorted out the money situation and checked out of our hotel we caught a cab to the Tokyo station and caught the Nozomi Shinkansen down to Kyoto.
The ride down to Kyoto from Tokyo only takes a couple of hours, and it’s really a pleasant ride. Not only are the trains comfortable, as most Shinkansen are (they have enough legroom that the person in front of you can fully recline their seat without crowding you in any noticeable way), but the view is pretty spectacular as well. Once we got to Kyoto we began the arduous task of finding our hotel. We were to stay at a ryokan, a traditional style Japanese inn. We had a map of the area, and it seemed that our hotel was close to the station, so we decided to walk. As it turned out, our map made almost no sense, as the geography that it was attempting to portray had changed since the map had been made. The result was about 45 minutes of wandering around small streets and alleys in the area around the train station with five large suitcases trying to find our hotel. In the end we did find it, but not before Mom stuck her head in the door of someone’s house thinking it was our hotel (fortunately no one was home, and Mom made it out of the situation without scaring some poor Japanese person). We checked in and Grandma began her process of exploring the room. The hotel itself was small, and had the feel of a bread-and-breakfast in the sense that it was small, cozy, and run by an elderly couple. It was actually two small buildings that were held together by a courtyard with a small decorative bridge and a garden (as well as the world’s smallest beer vending machine). Our room was small, but still large enough for the three of us. The floor was tatami mats (woven bamboo placed on the floor in large tiles), which gave the room a pleasant smell. Our bedding consisted of three futons that you would fold up at during the day to make room, a pillow, and the softest down comforter I have ever used. It was like sleeping with a cloud on you, and not the real kind of cloud, but the kind of cloud you imagine exists when you are a kid. There was a table and some cushions to sit on, as well as a TV that got maybe six channels, but that was about it. It was comfortable though, and I enjoyed staying there. We didn’t check in until around five, and after that we took about an hour to figure out what we wanted to do and get unpacked. As we were unpacking Mom realized that she had forgotten her camera on the train, so we headed back to the station to try to figure out if someone had found it. We had to ask someone at the information desk where the lost and found office was since we couldn’t find it on any of the station maps, and the guy I talked to ended up drawing us one. In order to get to the Kyoto Station lost and found office you first have to leave the station via the main entrance and take a right. You keep the station building on your right and go until you reach an alley. You follow the alley for a couple of turns and you will see a sign saying “lost and found” above a door that you wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for the sign. The Kyoto Station lost and found office itself is a room no more than 8 by 8, if not smaller. In that room, which is painted a sickening white, are two Japanese men with large folders, telephones, and absolutely zero proficiency with the English language. After about 30 minutes of phone calls and me speaking in broken Japanese with one of the men manning the office, we managed to figure out that Mom’s camera was at the lost and found office two cities away, and we scheduled to pick it up on Monday. After that, we decided to head downtown and take a look at a food market, even though we weren’t sure if it would be open. We caught a train and got off after about ten minutes, and made our way to the market. In the end it was closed, but there was a shopping arcade attached to the market, and we looked around there for a bit before catching a cab in search of something to eat.
Mom wanted yakitori (grilled meat) since I had recommended it earlier and I was able to ask the taxi driver what his favorite yakitori place was. One of the staples of Japan is very nice taxi drivers, and this guy was certainly one of them. Not only did he take us to his favorite yakitori place (conveniently located within walking distance of our hotel), but he also came in with us and talked to the cooks, telling them he had recommended the place, and where our hotel was so they could help us find our way back if we needed help. We thanked him, and after he left we had a fantastic meal of grilled meat, everything from chicken to gizzard. After dinner we headed back to our hotel, making it back without any trouble, and called it a night.