Day Fourteen: Kyoto

during the mid 1940s, when folks from all over the world were killing and blowing each other up, the US was doing its part in the war by sending folks to the fighting lines of Europe and the pacific

one of the united states favorite places to bomb stuff was japan. as it turns out, prior to the devastating bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki that finally ending the war, there were also firebombs dropped on Tokyo leaving the city in ruins, destroying a good part of many ancient temples and shrines, and eventually killing about 100,000 civilians.

one area of Tokyo that sustained little damage from bombing was the kansai area, and one of its most beautiful cities, Kyoto, still has many of these ancient wonders still intact.

I started by landing in Kyoto station somewhere around 10am. richey had taken me to the station in gifu and I took the shinkansen to Kyoto.

I got off the train and wandered hopelessly around, I had no idea where I was or where I was going to stay, which is obviously something I deal with every day, but I also had nowhere to get on the internet and find somewhere to stay and no guitar to attract anyone my way that could give me somewhere to sleep.


I found my way to the ninth floor of the station where the foreign people go that don’t know what the heck is going on, got on the internet for a while, found out my last resort place to stay was dropped, and then I got off the internet and picked up a magazine hoping to find something around.

there was a young woman standing at the counter looking for a place to stay. at first I noticed she was looking for somewhere to stay, like me, then I noticed she spoke English really well, like me, and then I noticed she was very cute, of course like me.

so I went up to the counter after she was done and looked for a hostel. she was standing a few feet away and urged me to stay at the same place as her, a hostel in gion, the heart of Kyoto, known for the nightlife and geisha. so I did, I was booked to stay at a hostel in a room with seven other people.


we took a bus to the hostel and made it there in about 30 minutes. during the ride, she told me a little bit about herself.

she was Noelle lee from Singapore. she was all alone traveling japan for about ten days. I asked her if she ever felt lonely being by herself and she said not really. she made friends at hostels and just talked to people.

judging by her looks I could imagine she could probably be befriended by guys from all over the world anywhere she went.

it was nice to have a friend though, and it made me so happy to have someone else to see the city with that was in a somewhat similar situation as me.


we got to the hostel and got our room assignments. I would be on a bed made close to the floor and she would be sleeping in the one about two feet above me.


she was in bed seven, i was in eight

after we got our goodies squared away, she took a balloon I had and made a flower and attached it to her beltloop. as it turned out, her job in Singapore was to work as an entertainer for kids, so she knew the balloon animal deal well.

we were off to see some of the sights.

first was this place.


I don’t recall the name, but I know it had something to do with water.

then we took a break and ate some sushi and rice in an alleyway.


after some more sightseeing we were determined to find geisha walking around. as this is Kyoto, this is where the real, genuine, 100% for freakin real geisha hang out.

the hunt began.

we asked around and tried to figure out where we could hire a geisha. some guy sitting outside a store told us that they hung out on a street called pontochou-doori and in gion, the district where our hostel was. he also told us they didn’t come out until the sun went down.

the sun was still up slightly, so we took a bus to another temple that was supposed to be legit, once again, I forgot the name but it had something to do with silver.


when we got there, it turns out it was closed. it sucked pretty bad cause it took us forever to find it.

we ran into some new animal friends on the way


we took some pictures pretending we were really inside, even though as it turns out, we werent.

but then we returned back to pontochou-doori, the geishas stomping ground.

we walked around and didn’t find a single one, like they might be hiding from us or something cause they knew we were close, kinda like how when youre not in your room, your dolls come to life and have parties and stuff, but when you come around they become lifeless again. that’s about what the geisha were like.


I took some old school pimp pictures of myself in the alley before meeting some new friends. one of them was named moniek from Holland and the other was Michael from Ireland. we talked to them for a while about what was going on. Michael was doing the same thing as me, seeing the country with no real plan and just a bag of goodies and moniek was a writer seeing all of asia over about 8 months. she was a good lookin gal herself.


we had talked to them for about 15 minutes, and then, like a miracle out of the blue…

I saw her…


a real geisha. the kind you see in movies, except seeing one in person was so much better. I can only imagine running into Michael Jackson in person would have been cooler. they do look somewhat alike.

we all eventually realized that we were standing outside the very set of buildings in the alleyway where all of the geisha came out before they eventually went to their appointments, entertaining drunk businessmen by pouring tea and doing stylized dances among other things.

so everytime we saw one, we took pictures. some of the geisha were pissed when we tried to take pictures, but some of them were very very kind. we liked the kind ones a lot better.


before we went back to the hostel, we all went to a rice place and got some food. the rest of the night was spent in the hostel preparing for sleep, trying to sleep, waking up from sleep, and eventually sleeping.

we had made plans to see another temple the next day. Noelle, moniek, myself, and a Swedish guy name bjorn that told me how to hook up with Japanese girls in clubs in the most explicit way possible. I figured the whole “meet a Japanese girl that’s in heat and then 30 minutes take her to a love hotel for a couple hours and then go back home” idea was very much the opposite of what I would like in a relationship, so ill avoid it.

I went to bed at about 2am, Noelle slept above me and snored louder than any female I have ever heard, which might be more common that not since I don’t often find myself sleeping in the same room with one or more girls.

there were four guys and four girls in the room.

it was a fantastic day.