Day 75 - March 22 - Kyoto Day 3

Torii, Yukata, and Sbarro!

So today was Monday, and our final day in Kyoto.  It was technically another free day, but we had the option of going on another group trip to the Deer Park in Nara.  While I did want to go walk around in the middle of a bunch of antlered animals that supposedly have randomly bad tempers (simply for the historical and novelty aspects), it feels like something I may have done before...  Also, Li and I still had one more point of business that we had promised to take care of before leaving this city:  finding and acquiring yukata. 

Another major attraction of the area was the 1,000 Torii Shrine, which is a shrine that has - you guessed it - 1,000 torii.  Its definitely one of the most famous places in Kyoto, and I'm sure just about everyone has seen at least one picture before of the hallways created by all those red gates.  We had until 3pm to take care of our business and meet up with the group, so the plan was to go see the 1,000 Torii Shrine and then find and procure some yukata afterwards.

The entrance to the "shrine" (I use quotations because this place covered the entire mountain and consisted of tons of small and large shrines) was marked by a gigantic stone torii.  Though not as impressive as Stonehenge, you still have to wonder how they managed to get stones that massive up that high without breaking them.  Maybe it was cement actually, I'm not quite sure.  Either way, it was still an impressive sight.  The somewhat large temple at the base was very pretty, and while it did have some of the very bright accents customary to the Shinto religion this was one of the more reserved when it came to the main color. 

As we made our way towards the beginning of the 1,000 torii pathway we noticed something amazing:  a stand selling yukata!!  Surely the gods smiled upon us today, since not only did we find them effortlessly, but they had a good selection of men's and women's at rather inexpensive prices.  Men's were 2,000 yen and the obi was another 2,000 yen, while women's were only 1,500 yen and 1,000 yen for the obi.  I'm not a fan of the plain solid patterns for the men's (though Li is), especially since they're usually worn by older men, so I ended up getting a nice dark blue yukata with a light blue diamond pattern with the occasional wheel that look sort of like the Imperial logo from Star Wars.  I'm awful at matching colors, so I asked them what their recommendation was (these people didn't know any English btw) and they decided on a dark silver obi with light silver and white accents. 

Since I hadn't seen any place that sells yukata in Tokyo, and if I did find one later there was little chance the deals would be this good, I decided to get Tsuki a yukata here instead of waiting for her.  Unfortunately, this meant I needed to pick out something she would like, and women's yukata are significantly more colorful and have much more intricate designs.  I thanked the gods once more when I texted her and she actually responded.  After a series of text messages where I attempted to get her preference, she gave me the death sentence:  "Just pick one that you think I'll like."  Remember the part where I'm terrible with clothing and colors and such?  Well, of course no matter what I chose it would be the wrong one.  So what did I do?  Beat the odds by buying two!  Of course I also asked for their help with picking out an obi for each one of these as well.  All told I spent about 10,000 yen on three yukata with an obi for each.  Definitely not bad at all, since I was expecting to pay that much for two at best.  With our purchases made we once again resumed our trek. 

In order to fit 1,000 torii without scattering them randomly, it was necessary to line them all up into one massive pathway.  Each torii ranges from 6" deep to around 1' 6", so line up 1,000 of them with uneven spacing and you get a VERY LONG pathway.  Remember how I said earlier that this place took up an entire mountain?  Well mountains involve climbing.  Remember how yesterday we walked so much that our bodies could barely support ourselves by the end?  I don't know if I care to ever see another torii again in my life.  Yes, the hike was beautiful and some of the views were amazing, but dear god more climbing?!  The only thing that saved me was my mobile energy supply: kitties.  As you went along the path there would occasionally be a break for a small shrine or group of shrines, and higher up the mountain there were shrine cats living at these.  Some of them were too involved with chasing each other around at the time to let me pet them, but a few of them readily accepted me.  One of the first ones reminded me quite a bit of Roy, since as soon as I started petting him he absolutely loved it and did NOT want me to stop.  Whenever I did, he would become quite vocal about it.  I got several pictures of this cat and me petting him, but eventually we needed to move on and I had to leave the cat behind.  Fortunately as I left a couple little kids were walking past and went "neko~~!" and ran up to pet him.  Despite how much my body hated me for it, the 1,000 Torii Shrine was a very nice hike and definitely worth it.  I think I took around 200-300 pictures of this area.

After we left the shrine area we stopped at the conbini across the street from it to get some food before hopping on the train back to Kyoto station.  As we stood outside the conbini eating our assorted forms of chicken, we noticed that at the other end of the storefront there was a stray dog.  We could tell he was a very nice dog, since he was currently staring down this couple a few feet from him who were also eating.  Eventually, despite our efforts to avoid him noticing us, he caught on to the scent of our chicken and turned to face us.  He didn't run up to us and beg or even walk up, oh no, he just stood there, staring at us with his most pathetic stare he could muster.  As we avoided eye contact he would take a couple short steps closer.  This repeated for about 10 minutes until he was finally a few feet from us and he was looking at us so pathetically it was almost unbearable.  It was physically painful for me to avoid acknowledging this dog and his helpless stare.  Finally, we decided to 'accidentally' drop a bunch of crackers.  Thankfully, a delivery truck soon pulled up and the dog seemed to know this person since he actually trotted over to it and followed the guy behind the store.  We took our chance and ran to the train.

Back at Kyoto station we still had about an hour to spare, so we wandered around a bit looking for an arcade since we had not played Gundam since Friday night.  Here is where we finally decided that (aside from its historical aspects and geisha) Kyoto sucks.  Not only does the city shut down by 10pm on a SATURDAY NIGHT, but they don't have any arcades.  In Tokyo there is an arcade about every 50 feet, and usually a pachinko parlor right next to it.  Here, they only had the pachinko parlors and no arcades.  The only one we saw this entire trip was the one near our hotel.  So, we ventured back to that arcade once more, played some fighting games, and then returned to Kyoto station to meet up with everyone.

Things were pretty uneventful after this.  We got on the shinkansen and as per our agreement I got the window seat this time and Li got the aisle seat.  I was able to stay awake for a little while to watch as Kyoto faded away and we very quickly entered farmlands, but shortly afterward fatigue grabbed hold of me and pulled me down to sleep (which once again happened to most everyone else as well).  Once I had finished my nap I spent the rest of the time playing my DS until we got to Shinagawa.  It was around 5:30pm or so when we arrived, and we had two plans left for the day.  First, the grand opening of the Sbarro in Shibuya, and second, playing lots of Gundam to make up for the days we couldn't (plus there was an event going on). 

We met up with Allison in Shibuya and went to the Sbarro.  Their menu was surprisingly like a Sbarro in the US, with one of the only major differences being the crazy types of pizza they had.  I still haven't figured out what it is with Japan and it's random pizzas.  It was quite funny watching the confused Japanese patrons not knowing how to order (since the setup was very different from how things normally are here), while us gaijin just walked up and handled it like pros :P.  Unfortunately they did not have any pepperoni pizza (what is with this country and its hatred for pepperoni pizza?!?!) so instead I got a ham and cheeze stromboli, which was quite good though a little heavy on the ham.

After we had filled our bellies with quite good food we ventured back to Baba and the Big Box for some excessive amounts of Gundam.  I think we played about 8 games before we called it quits.  We had some good ones and some terrible ones, but ultimately it was a good time.

Well, thus ends the great Kyoto Saga of my time here in Japan.  It had its ups and downs, but I am really glad I decided to go on this trip, it was well worth it.