Adventure to the East

Obligatory picture of some 桜 (cherry blossoms) because I'm in Japan and they're blooming.

So I ventured out all by myself (to prove I’m a big boy now, I guess?) and found the sushi place I was looking for. Admittedly, I had to ask someone for directions, and I was a block away at the time, but the nice lady showed me the way there as it was on the way to where she was headed. That’s the second time someone’s done that for me here.

Once I was there, I stood outside until they opened, checking out their menu. I didn’t see anything that looked amazingly delicious, or even edible, so I just ordered something that didn’t look too bad. It was a good choice, apparently, as the only part of the meal I wasn’t fond of was the wasabi they had hidden in the sashimi. Oh yeah, I tried something with sashimi. It was a lot more edible than I expected it to be.

In addition to finding and eating at the aforementioned sushi shop, I managed to find the train station, which was a whole two blocks away. That didn’t stop me from crossing eight different intersections on the way, though.

The train fare was a pretty reasonable $1.50 to get there and the same price back, so I dug out a ￥100 and a ￥50 coin, and got a ticket from the ticket vending machine.

See, the way the fare works is pretty ingenious, I think. You pay fare X. It spits out a ticket that I think has data encoded on it magnetically. Then, when you go into the train station itself, you pass the ticket through this very aggressive feed mechanism, which then encodes where you started from on to the ticket. When you get off the train, you pass it through the same thing backwards and it eats your ticket.

My guess is that if you went farther than your fare allows, the nice man with the asp has choice words for you, along with a fee. I haven’t seen that as yet, though. I would’ve been completely lost if it weren’t for this guy about my age who helped me buy the ticket and showed me what to do with it. I had been relying on the fact that if I stood around for a while, I’d find someone approachable-looking to ask for help. As you can see, I did.

You might recall from my last post that I purchased a compass and thought it was kind of lame. If you don’t, that’s basically what I said, so don’t bother reading the other post. Eh.

Here's a picture of some hats. The cheapest was $98. Want to guess which one? I don't remember.

I found the place that the かんりんりん said would sell compasses, and it does indeed sell compasses. They had compasses for your pocket, your keychain, your backpack, your zipper. They had compasses integrated with barometers and loupes and all sorts of things, along with ones specifically for use with paper maps. It was pretty cool. The thing is, this was a very, very small part of their store. Maybe a ten square feet of hookboard. The rest of the shop was just as awesome. They had bags, ponchos, shoes, boots, boots for shoes, hats, waterproof hats, umbrellas, “bear bells”, loops, random little pouches, backpacks, slippers, keychains… It’s not a huge store, mind you. But it was very nicely laid out. It was underground, so it was a lot bigger than most stores in Japan. Probably a couple thousand square feet, so fairly average by US standards. Point is, the store is awesome. I think I have pictures.

I only had my 50mm with me – which is not a great indoor lens due to its rather telephoto nature – so I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but I did manage to find a compass, and grabbed a couple other things I’d been meaning to buy. Ended up spending almost $60, but I think it was worth it.

On the way there and on the way back, I managed to – completely by accident – run across the 花まつい(flower festival), a festival not listed in my book on Kyoto. I wonder if it was created in the last three years – I doubt it given Japan’s nature – or if they just missed it. In any case, there were a bunch of little munchkins

being cute, as munchkins are wont to do, some old guys and some cheerleaders that could’ve been anywhere from middle school to high school. I completely fail at guessing Japanese people’s ages. One of them glared at me, as you can see in the picture that I hope I will remember to attach when I post this.