Shoe man commeth

Guess who was back! Mr. take advantage of women's weaknesses. This time he came with only about 1/3 the inventory. It had only been less than a month since his last visit but he wasn't hurtin' for business. This time I got photos!

Takayama or Bust

Takayama was the next place on the winter vacation tour. It is a small city in the mountains known for its old history and buildings.

If the guy was doing this in the U.S., he would definitely have back problems

First lets revisit the Kyoto blog. Remember the ATM's that were closed down. They were closed for Jan 1st, 2nd, and 3rd since those are all New Years holidays in Japan. So we were stuck with $100 cash for 2 days. That doesn't sound horribly bad because there's credit cards.

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2 rice balls for lunch ........ $2.10
1 train ticket from Kyoto to Takayama ........ $80
1 hotel room in Takayama ........... $130
Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no cash .... Priceless

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.
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Have you ever seen the small print on one of these MasterCard commericals? I believe it reads, "tag line not applicable to Japan"

We went into a convenience store and asked the clerk if they took credit cards. He gave us a blank stare. So I pulled out my credit card to show him and he laughed......... then said no. This was pretty much the same response for the entire town and most of Japan. Therefore, we walked around the town for the day and went on a temple walk in the mountains. Luckily, Buddha doesn't charge (But he does at larger temples).




That night we splurged and treated ourselves to a nice dinner. Chashu Ramen.

At least it's not cup o' noodle

The next day we walked to a historic site where they had transported many old buildings and homes for people to see and walk around in.



It was really interesting to read about these homes and to walk around in them. One very interesting thing to note was this one house. It just goes to show times have definitely not changed over the centuries. Notice where the husband had to sleep when he pissed off "the boss".


And that rounds up Takayama.

Next Stop: Tokyo

So Sorry

I was writing about Takayama but I'm tired. So I'll leave you with this for now. Only in Japan...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope everybody had a great Holiday season. Unfortunately today was the first day back to work after winter vacation. I believe 2 words can sum up the day: DRAGGING ASS. On a positive note, I had a great 9 day vacation. I'll summarize the trip in 3 blog installments.

KYOTO
(Dec 30th to Jan 2nd)

First we took a 3 hour bus ride to Kyoto. After checking in and eating we went to a shrine famous for its torii gates. A torii gate is usually found at the entrance to a Shinto Shrine in Japan. Well, this shrine was special and popular because it has a 'few' more torii gates than usual. I guess back in the old days, the guy that kept the gates decided to dig in the closet and dust off a couple extras and put them up at this shrine. Below is the entrance to this torii gate path.



We followed this path of toriis for at least 20 minutes and only got half way down the path before turning around due to lack of light and honestly, there's only so much torii one sane individual can take in a day. FYI, I haven't seen Memoirs of a Geisha, but apparently this is the shrine where she's running through all the torii gates in the movie.

The next day we visited Kinkakuji Temple. This is a temple covered entirely in pure gold leaf. It was really neat but personally I could think of better things to do with gold (hint hint, plasma TV and a power hitter for the Dodger's lineup). I guess Buddhists aren't Dodger fans.



After that we went to a rock garden. This is the kind of garden I want at my house. Why? Lets put it this way. How often have you had to water a rock or rake up it's leaves?



Then we visited a bamboo forest. No flying people fighting in this bamboo. You have to go to China for that.



For New Years Eve night we visited Kiyomizu-dera Temple. This is the most popular temple in Kyoto. Japanese tradition is to go to a temple when the year changes. Therefore, there were a lot of people. The turning of the new year was pretty anti-climatic. It consisted of a few random groups of people counting down at different times/intervals and the monk would ring the temple's bell at 1-2 minute intervals. And that was about it. Would've been much better if Dick Clark was the Buddhist monk ringing the bell. After that we went to a bar and met some Japanese people that taught me lots of dirty Japanese words.



New Years Day! Little did we know that 7/8 of the city shuts down on New Years Day. So we walked around for awhile looking for a place that was open to eat at. After that we went to the ATM to get some funds. When I said 7/8 of the city shuts down, the ATM's are part of the 7/8ths. My guess is the little guy in the machine that pushes the money out of the machine needs the day off too. We honestly had no clue why they didn't operate on New Years Day. After that we went to a shrine which is Japanese tradition on New Years Day. There were LOTS of people there. It kind of felt like a peaceful mosh pit.



And that rounds up the Kyoto part of the trip. Stay tuned for the sequel: Takayama or Bust.