Welcome to Kyoto

I arrived at the Katsura train station about 20 minutes before the agreed time. I found a place where I would not bother anyone, set my stuff down and sat down to read.

Soma arrived at exactly the apointed time. He was taller than I expected, above average by Japanese standards. We greeted eachother and then set off towards his apartment, which was about 1.5 km away. On arrival I was again surprised, this time by the size of the apartment. I expected something along the lines of a 15 m2 dormroom, but what greeted me was a full 30 m2 apartment - not at all unlike the first floor in my home, even in layout although it did have a separate kitchen. The room was nice, but not the perfect epitome of cleanliness and order like I expected a japanese home to be. Typical student apartment, quite comparable to those back home. One thing I also noticed fairly soon was that it was cold there - maybe 15 C.

After I had set my stuff down into a corner and presented the gifts I had brought from Estonia (chocolate and candy by Kalev for both Soma and Natsuki), he took me to the supermarket to get stuff to eat for the evening and next morning. Thefood isles at the store were... well completely different from what you get in the western world. At least half of the stuff I saw probably cannot be had even in specialty stores in Estonia. We grabbed just a few things and then went back to the appartment.

Soma cooked dinner - rice, fish in soy sauce and miso soup, a pretty stanard meal in Japan. He then helped me plan the next days activities, writing down the place names for the places I should visit as well as the station names for the railway. He also said he would print me a map of Kyoto but can only do so for the next day. I showed him my phone/GPS which had an offline map and said that it should be enough. He agreed :)

Soma then dug out the additional blankets and helped me set up the sleeping arrangements. He himself slept on a matress on a slightly elevated wooden frame (which served the role of a bed) and I got a blanket laid on top of a heated carpet (the floor, by the way, was cold, so the heating did come in handy). Since I had a long day behind me, I turned in and fell asleep fairly quickly.

I woke at around 7, and so did my host. For breakfast, we had the sushi I had bought from the supermarket the previous day. I left the house at around 8, expecting to arrive at my first destination just at 9 when it was about to be opened. This I did actually manage.

Kinkakuji or the Golden Pavilion. Complete with a nice Japanese garden, like all the other temples as well. Supposedly the most visited place in Japan. Frankly, though, I do not see what the fuss is - yes, it is beautiful but many other temples are far nicer. Starting there was probably a good idea though, as it wasn't horribly crowded yet at 9 a.m.

A kilometer down the road was the next larger temple, Ryoanji, famous for it's rock garden. Its normal gardens were also very nice, though. The rock garden was.. a lot smaller than I thought, as I kind of assumed the rocks to be human-sized while in actuality they were much, much smaller. Still beautiful, though. Its amazing how Japanese discovered abstract art hundreds of years before the Europeans.. and in a form so much more enjoyable :)

As I was heading for the next temple down the line, I suddenly noticed a staircase leading up the mountain that was not marked on the maps. Curious as I am, I decided to follow it up. It led to a small Shinto shrine behind which there was a hiking path. Which I (of course) walked. It took me up to the mountains there and I got a first-hand account of the local nature, as well as a fairly good workout (as the path went up and down the mountain range). When I finally exited the woods, I found myself in a fairly rich neighborhood which the GPS claimed to be somewhere between Kinkakuji and Ryoanji. However, it lacked the street map for the area so I just had to use my sense of direction to get back to where I needed to go.

After a while, I found myself at a fast food place I had passed by before, and since it was lunchtime, I entered. Turned out that they mainly specialized in beef dishes, but when I showed them the text "Im a vegetarian and fish is also ok" that I had asked Soma to write up for me, they recommended Udon noodles with deep fried tofu, which turned out to be pretty tasty (although, udon noodles are a bitch to eat with chopsticks). I then set off towards the third temple.

Ninnaji or the old imperial palace. Distinct from the previous two, mainly in scale and featuring vast empty spaces, giving a very grandiose feeling to the whole temple. Fitting for the imperial family, who had been its head priests for centuries. Possibly not as famous as the previous two but definitely worth a visit.

I now headed to the nearest rail station to go to Arashiyama. Only thing I knew about the place was that Soma recommended it. There seemed to be one bigger temple quite nearby the station and then a few smaller ones both to the north and south. In practice, it turned out to be tourist district, where the temples were mixed with gardens, natural woodlands and private manors. I walked about, exploring and visiting different gardens until it got dark, at which point I sat down on a river bank and watched a mountain range, which I hoped they would light up (as the spotlights could be seen all around the place). Sadly, that did not happen, and as it was getting fairly cold, I decided to call it a day, walked to the railway station and headed back to my Host.

He again prepared dinner, this time noodles and rice with mushrooms and vegetables. Both good. I then went to the supermarket to get some foodstuffs to bring back to Estonia with me. Soma then gave me the itinerary for the next day, which promised to be very packed, so I again headed to bed early to be well rested for all of it.