Kyoto Adventure

Yesterday (Saturday) Dan and I went on our first adventure outside of Ritto by ourselves. It was a success! We got to Kyoto and back with our broken Japanese and our trusty phrasebook. It was great. The train ride there was only about 25 minutes (including the transfer in Kusatsu) and the train ride back was only 20 minutes. We didn’t have much of an agenda, we just wanted to go somewhere, so when we got there, we just wandered around the Kyoto Station area for a while before heading to the Downtown area. We followed a river for a good half hour and made our way to downtown. There were lots of restaurants (with romanji on the menus) and shops that we recognized. The highlight for me was that there was a Benetton and for Dan I think it was the Japanese soccer store. Kyoto was much more modern/western than Ritto. It was much easier to navigate and communicate with people. We found this huge covered arcade mall area with tons of great shops. We found a bar in it where we took a short break with some Kirin beer and edamame beans. We also found a great book store that had a whole section of English books- other countries always conveniently accommodate the Americans. I bought a lonely planet Hiking Japan book at the book store and Dan bought a Japan National soccer jersey at the soccer store. Overall we had an excellent first experience in Kyoto (I must give credit to our friends the Willoughbys, for the Kyoto book they gave us came in very handy). The city was very big, but manageable. We haven’t even begun to explore everything there, but the impression we got was that it reminded us of San Francisco because of the smaller old architecture and the different districts and neighborhoods. So here are some pictures from yesterday:

This is Kyoto Station. It is the cities main train train station and is huge. It has an underground mall, an attached department store, hotel and tons of other stuff.

This is Dan and I by the Kama gawa. It is a large shallow river that flows through the city. You can see the mountains in the distance. All of the towns and cities that we have seen are surrounded by mountains.

This is another view of the city with the Kama gawa and the mountains.

This is me purchasing a biru from a street vending machine. It still felt kind of wrong.

This is Dan taking in the Shinkyogoku covered arcade. It was endless. We were in there a really long time and didn't see half of it.