Kyoto felt like the center of spirituality and history in Japan. It was more countrylike and in the suburbs it was very peaceful and the shrines and temples with nature in the background made fantastic portraits. The first day we arrived, we checked in at a very cosy and Japanese-style pension. I unfortunately do not have any pictures of our room (the guys shared a room while the girls shared another). I was there with one of my friends in Japan and 6 of his friends who were all bilingual in Chinese and Japanese except for a very nice Thai girl, with whom I practiced Japanese and English. I will try to find pictures of a tradtional style room (washitsu) to give an idea of what our room looked like. We also slept on Futons (basically, it is a mat on the floor with bedsheets).. Those futons take all the space of the room when it's sleeping time and during the day they are folded and stored in a closet and the room resumes the role of a living room. ON the first day we visited some shrines, ate crab (I heard it was crab season, so we should eat crab). The meal was delicious and very affordable. The only thing I had trouble with was seating: there is a table and you sit directly on the floor (no space for legs!).. I am not very flexible and it was difficult for me to find a comfortable position. I found that besides the traditional dining arrangement, the restaurant was very high-tech because the waitors took the orders on a wireless pad that seemed to send orders directly to the kitchen. There were also wireless devices on every table to ring in waitors. That day we also celebrated one of the person's birthday and we had some sort of party. We drank, played card games and there was the birthday cake and all. Beforehand we had visited a liquor store for champagne, drinks and beer. (We were 7 - 3 girls and 4 guys) and there were only 6 beers so I bought 6 more and apparently that was too much! (I guess parties are tamer here? I was the one that drank the most with 3 beers! The second day we visited another area with well known shrines called Kuramayama. (Many pictures). The nice thing about going there is when you take the train and at some point you are not in the city anymore, but rather in deep nature with trees all around. It is quite special being in an electric train that left from a dense city and now is at the edge of a mountain. (pictures). We walked up the mountain and there started being snow on the ground. We took a cablecar up (to save a 30 minute escalation in the cold weather) and we continued walking up paths and stairways until we got to the peak of the mountain, where there was a shrine. When we got there, it started snowing lightly and the scene was directly out of a Japanese epic movie. I filmed and took many pictures, but it will never be able to capture the feeling that was in the air at that moment. That will certainly be one of my most memomorable moments in Japan. When we returned to reality at the bottom of the mountain, we headed to the Kuramayama Onsen (hotspring) for another very special and Japanese experience. Going to the Onsen (hotspring) or Sentou (public bath) is an integral part of Japanese tradition and some visit public baths daily. (Espcecially at the end of the day to relax from a long day). The special thing about the sentou I went to is that it is completely natural, in outdoor settings as well. I had read alot about the etiquette of those places so I did not have any trouble. Basically it is important to wash up thoroughly at the small "washing stations" with a bench and a "pot" for rincing water. Once you are done you are now ready to dip in the extremely hot water. Where we were, we first can bathe in a Sentou (interior public bath) and then go outside to go in the hotspring... to do that, we had to go outside and walk to the hotspring in 0 degrees weather with nothing other than a summer bathrobe! (pictures). Of course going to these places may cause problems for some as you have to be naked infront of the other users (but women and men bathe in separate areas). I found that this was very relaxing and I am looking forward to go to another one! The night ended with an unexpected stop in an Italian restaurant... nothing special to mention except how funny I found it was that some people were slurping their pasta with the plate up to there mouth, which is completely acceptable in Japan, but in an Italian restarant setting made it, well, funny.
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