Tokyo the last days

All the things we didn't see and didn't find again...
all the people we haven't met and spoke with...
all the trains we didn't catch and enjoyed...
and all the rest what makes Japan so awesome.

See you in 2020!

Tokyo day 11

We arrived at our forth and last hotel.
This is a special one, it is the Wired Hotel Asakusa.
For any of you who willing to visit Tokyo, I would recommend to stay at least some days in this hotel. The rooms are like you want your perfect apartment to be, all the details, the design and the architecture is special for a hotel, and the officials are young students with good english and nice asshole personalities...hard to find in Japan I guess.

On the way to Tokyo, Mt. Fuji took off his fog cape. Stil hard to shoot at 320 km/h...

Kyoto day 11 / Fushimi Inari - Taisha & back to Tokyo

Fushimi Inari - Taisha is a sacred hill with its path to the top framed by thousands of Torii, gates to pass through. You see them at all of the shinto shrines.

We tried to be there as early in the morning as possible, but we always stay up late at night and try to process the day, so we don't loose a day of going out and explore.

This first picture shows the Torii's uphill view. They are painted with a orange we would associate with street workers in Austria, not that nice.

The next picture shows the downhill view of the gates with the name of the sponsor and his wish engraved.

This is a sacred site, but street art is present. Can you find my stickers?

F I R E !

I did notice these red buckets of water everywhere. I thought they are some kind of first aid buckets for small fires and they are!

Ahhh, is it a dog, is it a cat or his inbreeded son? Who knows...

After a small lunch with Redbull and Onigiri (Pyramiden) the Shinkansen brings us strait back to Tokyo in about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Kyoto day 10 / Sanjusangen-do Temple

The next site was the Sanjusangen-do Temple. In the inside, which is very impressive with its over 1000 hand carved buddha statues, taking pictures is prohibited.
The hall it self is that long that it was a measurement unit for a long time. Now they have the metric system, thank god for that. But they drive on the wrong side of the road.

The best thing, on the way we passed this Porsche 356 Speedster. He smiles at you because he knows that you can't afford him.

The temple, yes.
Archery competitions are held there. They had to remove some of the wooden beams over time because they where crushed by arrows, thousands of arrows. These competitions are also very popular with woman. The winner gets them all - bad joke.

Exterior shots:

And finally a sewage runoff with its proper facial expression, AAAAHHHHHGGGG!

Kyoto day 10 / Arashiyama bamboo forest

We are at day ten. This is by far the most stressful but beautiful vacation if have ever experienced. So much to see and so little time.

To see the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest without to much tourists always blocking your way is to get up very early ~0600, eat no breakfast at your hotel (would take to much time) and than get on the train and change at the right stops.
We did make it ~0930 there, but this was a bit too late. The whole site was just filling with people.
It is ok, I will find a spot to take a picture without having some random dude with his sweatpants on it.
These tourists man, they just have no style...
And I did.

Timber!

Next stop, a temple. Who would have guessed that?

Kyoto day 9 / just browsing & beer

On day nine we tried for once the breakfast at our hotel. Not good enough for ¥ 2200.

The whole day was just walking up and down the streets of Kyoto and browse all the nice little stores. There are quite a few vintage stores near our base, but the prices are well over my budget and all the cloth are american style cloth.
I'm in Japan for god sake, I don't like to by any american crap for too much Yen!

A typical shopping street looks like this:

For lunch we visited the Spring Valley Brewery in the center of Kyoto. We had a perfect grilled swordfish with fries on the side and tasted us through their beer assortment. All the beers were good and well over 5%. Dizzy.

I might get a vintage kimono tomorrow...

Kyoto day 8 / sushi and sleeping

Our hotel in Kyoto is the Royal Park Hotel The Kyoto. Our room is on the sixth floor (616) with the window to one of the main streets.

Did I tell you that in Japan there is no ground floor. They count from one. To get the equivalent floor in our system you have to subtract one.
Your room is on the fifth floor then? Yes.

It was late, ~2130, when we arrived in Kyoto and our stomachs where empty. So we looked out for a good sushi place and found one. When we arrived there, we had to put our name and the number of persons on a list.
I wrote "SEINFELD, 2" and the guy yelled "seinfeld, two", hilarious!

After a few good plates of sushi and a cold beer, back to the hotel and sleep well for tomorrow.