We checked out of Dormy Inn in the morning and headed for Kyoto. Our ideal choice of hotel there would be Roku Roku, the quaint little hotel near Gingakujin, but as it was the Gion Festival period, all the rooms were snatched up way beforehand. But luckily I found Kyoto Century Hotel, a 3~4 star hotel that was offering promotional rates for the rooms adjacent to the renovation works. Grace had a mental struggle with regards to whether or not she should change into Yukata at Okamoto again, and eventually decided to do it. As the Okamoto people can't speak English and we can't speak enough Jap to communicate efficiently, we had to get the hotel frontdesk's help to make last-minute reservations.
Kyoto Century Hotel turned out to be more posh than the rest of the hotels we've stayed (duh). The lobby was huge and elegant and the staff were mostly proficient in English and very helpful. A lady manager took over from the frontdesk receptionist when I was enquiring about Yukata reservations, and offered to help me make the call. The number I had in my notes was actually the number for the headquarters of Okamoto, so she had to make several calls and use plenty of "sumimasen" and "gomenasai"s before securing a timeslot for us. After thanking her profusely, we bought the Kyoto Roku bus one-day pass and jumped on 206 bound for Gojozaka (near Kyomizu Temple).
Along the way there were already quite a number of people in Yukatas, and it was pretty easy to tell the local japs apart from the "fake" ones like us. The japs all had very elaborate hair and heavy makeup, and walked with their toes pointed inwards, whereas the "fake" ones had little or no makeup, wore spectacles, walked awkwardly and had tons of things and cameras on hand, and usually with a boyfriend in normal clothes beside.
We found Okamoto without much trouble, and it was already overflowing with Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans doing the changeup just like us. After plenty of gesturing and pointing, we managed to get ourselves what we wanted. Grace opted for a dark-navy Yukata, a sharp contrast from the cream-colored Kimono she wore last year. In order to look compatible with her, I chose a white set of Yukata, which wasn't all that fantastic (the best ones were already snatched up by the others, we reached only after 12 noon) but beats my monk-colored kimono last year.
And as we were planning to go for the Gion Festival night celebrations in the evening, we chose to pay a whopping 1500 yen per person to have our belongings delivered back to the hotel, and for us to return our yukatas the next morning to the hotel reception rather than the shop itself. All went well till we had to put on our clogs. The few pairs of clogs remaining were brand new and ABSURDLY tight. The shopowner, and nice old lady, bent down and tried to help me squeeze into the clogs, but I pleaded for larger ones as we were both yelping in pain. Grace managed to find something relatively comfortable though mine were still tight, but I decided to settle for it and suck it up (a terrible mistake in retrospect). A pretty picture at the door, and we were off to tour the city~!
Our first stop was Brown, a "cheap-and-volume" local restaurant by Mr Goto's description. The boss remembered me, and we ordered the Brown Special set meals, boasting of a spread like this:
all for a mere 700 yen per set. Absolutely delicious and filling, so much so that Grace could hardly walk after finishing. While we were munching away, the boss helped us to locate the important places for the festival on our map, and recommended the routes we should take after painstakingly using his handphone's dictionary to translate what he was saying. After the meal we went to Heian Shrine, one of the very few FREE shrines around (Grace refused to go anyway that required admission tickets, declaring that the money would be much better spent on things that could go down her stomach ). This time wasn't as pleasant an experience as last time, for (1) the weather was VERY hot and we we were both in Yukatas and (2) there were no nice Australian ladies to snap pictures of us, but rather two pervert-looking PRC middle-aged man who kept staring at us and GIGGLING (yes giggling. pukes) to themselves. We left soon after.
Next stop was Higashi-Honganjin, yet another free temple. It was already quite late then, about 5pm, so the temple was going to close soon and there were few people around. Thus we had quite a fun time snapping pictures of ourselves (mostly Grace of course). Then we went back to hotel. For the first time in our trip we had someone bring all the luggage up for us (we stayed at mainly business hotels previously), and the service was really outstanding. Our room turned out to be really spacious and comfy, with two large, soft beds that promised a great night's sleep. After resting briefly, we went out again, this time to Yasaka Shrine area where the night celebrations would be.
It wasn't really dark yet, but there were thousands of people there already. The entire street was cordened off entirely for pedestrians, and the festive atmosphere was contagious. There were traditional Japanese drum performances at several places along the street, drawing large crowds of audiences that wowed and cheered the performers on.
Then we reached the junction where little stalls offering food and games stretched out almost endlessly in all directions. Overwhelmed and sweating like a pig, Grace suggested that we head back to the hotel soon. The subway would cost about 500 yen for the two of us, and being extremely cost-conscious, we decided to walk back instead (according to the policeman it would take about 20 minutes, a gross underestimation). Along the way we squeezed into the crowds and grabbed a okonomiyaki and an interesting pancake, but the long walk back nearly killed us.
Our feets were blistering and hurting awfully bad from the clogs, and we couldn't go very fast, so it took us ages to get back to our hotel. By then, many of the blisters on my feet were already broken, and the balls and soles of our feet were swollen. Utterly exhausted, we hit the beds almost instantly after showering.
DAY 9
went to Nagoya, which was just an hour's shinkansen ride away from Osaka. Nagoya is the 4th largest city in japan and was the birthplace of some of the most famous warlords during the japan warring states.
chanced upon a great place for hamburger steak at the station and u bet the food was real good.
decided to go to the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology bcos it sounds cooler than another castle or many other temples and shrines (no offense). there was a sightseeing route bus but we missed the departure so we walked there instead. its a crazily long walk. took us more than 20mins cos we had virtually no directions. good workout i guess.
500Y admission per pax. learnt tt Toyota was actually started by Toyoda Shokai. company later changed its name for superstitious purposes. it actually started out as a testile machinery company (nobody used cars back in 1920s). quite cool to see how the manual loom got transformed into an automatic one.
then it was his son who perfected the Model AA passenger car. so they went into the automobile industry. we were treated to a demonstration of metal working technology (forging) where a nice uncle tried his best to provide english explanation and offered us a souvenir at the end.
lots of other exhibitions on the ingenuity of the Toyota company, including just-in-time system where storage costs and inventory are minimised. and just fyi peeps, lexus is actually made by Toyota! no, its not some posh english brand.
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