roganjosh

I’m in Singapore now. The last couple of days in Japan were great! On what was meant to be my last day in Kyoto I went to a public bath with a couple of guys from the hostel. The tubs of water were so hot I thought I was going to pass out from sitting in them too long, but it turned out us ignorant gaijin had got in the baths in the wrong order so I’d started with the hottest one first! It was good though, in an energy sapping kind of way, and Chris from Arizona who speaks some Japanese got talking to the locals. One of them had been in movies, possibly as a Samurai or a Cowboy, it was a bit hard to tell from the miming…

Back at the hostel I got talked into not going back to Tokyo, but instead travelling down to a place called Koyasan to stay in a buddhist temple with a couple of people from the hostel. Koyasan is way up in the mountains, and the train ride there was stunning – just mountain after mountain. We stayed in a traditional japanese room, i.e. we slept on the floor, and ate the same food as the monks – which I liked, though not everyone was keen. The tempura vegetables were particularly nice, and the strange thing that tasted and looked like a damp sponge is probably best forgotten.

After that we went back to Kyoto for one last night on the town, which involved getting smashed at the hostel playing a drinking game before heading into town. It seems to be standard now that if I have a long journey to take I don’t make it back to the hostel till about 4am, though I made it hard on myself this time by walking home from the club, which took me an hour.

Next day I took the bullet train back to Tokyo, which is obviously very cool (and expensive), and caught a glimpse of mount Fuji on the way. Well, I think it was Fuji, it was certainly pretty big.

On my last day in Tokyo I was just bumming around buying souvenirs when I suddenly remembered that I’d booked myself onto a samurai sword acting class in Shinjuku! I rushed across town, and get lost very near where I was trying to get to. In the end a guy working in a coffee shop actually took me to the building I was trying to find, which was lucky because the building name was only written in Kanji. The people running the class didn’t speak much English, but luckily a British guy who’d been living in Japan for 17 years translated most of it for me. I was taught a few moves, and then shown how to act out a mock fight, which they let me win! I had so much fun I was grinning like an idiot on the way out.
And that’s it for Japan! I had an absolute blast, met some great people and learnt how to attack people with a sword. What more can you ask?

Singapore is – well I know it’s wrong to travel to asia and complain about the heat, but – Singapore is damn hot, and horrible humid! The hostel I’m in is nice and air conditioned at night though, and again I’ve met a good crowd. Next stop Malaysia I think, but hey, let’s take each day as it comes!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 2:22 am and is filed under travelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.