Erica & Todd go to Japan! Day 6: Tokyo / Kyoto

Tokyo station is HUGE! It was crazy to walk through and find our train. The train (high-speed bullet train = shinkansen) arrived & left very promptly w/ perhaps only 5 min of station time. Ride was easy and fast. We went something like 200mph. Very smooth and relatively quiet. Makes Amtrak look like crap!

The Westin Miyako was a great choice. Comfy rooms & beds(the best beds in Japan!); excellent staff. Turns out, also great coffee. Pretty good location: walkable to most things.

We tried to use the subway, but a combination of not enough being in English & the things we wanted to go to not being too far apart changed our minds. Supposedly the bus is very tourist friendly, but we didn't try it. Kyoto is actually pretty walkable. It has quite a different vibe than Tokyo. Tokyo is huge and neon, while Kyoto is not so much. There are temples and shrines of varying sizes on just about every block.

It was raining in the evening when we went out for dinner. Walked around downtown for a bit, including the Gion neighborhood, which is traditional (& actually current) geisha territory. It has a very calm, pretty, historic feel to it. See the photo above. Very old-seeming (and probably old in truth). There are also many unmarked "rich old dude" clubs and peeking inside the doorways was very interesting. Beautiful anterooms & courtyards.

Saw a show at the Gion Corner Theater on traditional Japanese arts. I would recommend against it, unless you know only very little about such things or are easily amused. The performers all seemed uninterested in what they were doing. For the first performance, they had a Japanese Tea Ceremony (which was off to the side at audience level and so could not be seen by many people) going on concurrently w/ Japanese Harp playing (which was cool) and flower arranging (which was boring). The "geishas" were actually "maikos" (their apprentices) and were not graceful in the least. Plus, one had a freakishly large head and dead fish eyes. The "Japanese orchestra" was interesting, in that the conductor wears a costume and dances around. The comic play and the puppet play were somewhat interesting, but mystifying. There was no commentary given during any of the activities to explain the significance of any particular action.



Before the show, we ate some street snacks (savory and sweet rice balls) and stopped by for one of those JP omelet things at this cheesy little place. The waitress brings by the menu, which is basically just a photo of the omlet and asks what you want. That's all they serve, BTW, so it's pretty amusing. It was great until some ass started chain smoking nearby.