Night of Day Two - 8/24/09

On Monday night, after the drive, we went out to eat a late lunch / early dinner, and had Chinese food at one of his old haunts from when he lived near Kyoto. Dinner was cheap and good, we had some fried shrimp covered with a sauce, along with some soup, beers, and gyoza. After that, we walked around a shrine, and then met with his friend Wik and had even more gyoza. This place sold a lot of gyoza, and if you ate 140 in an hour you would get it all for free, as well as an extra 100. While tempting, none of us took them up on the offer. I took some video of how they make the gyoza, as well as some photos of the very large loaf of filling.

Afterwards, we went out to an "English Pub", which wasn't special but we drank and met up with one of Wik's friends and headed over to their old haunt on the second floor of a non-descript building called "Ing". Ing is owned by this fellow and his wife, and it's all about drinking and rock-and-roll. As soon as we walked in, the owner put on a live Radiohead CD that I had given to my brother, and my brother had given it to the owner, it was pretty cool stuff. It was a great place (no pictures sadly), and we had plenty of drinks there before the night was done and we headed back to our hotel.

Driving to Kyoto

We drove to Kyoto yesterday with one of my brother's friends and his girlfriend. Driving on the highways in Japan can be rather expensive, so having a large number of people in the car helps keeps the cost down. His girlfriend is from Kyoto, and on the way home she is pickup up some stuff to deliver to their apartment back in Kasukabe so on the way back my brother and I will be taking the Shinkansen (fast train).

On the way, we went to a convenience store. There was no melon soda to try, but I got a Suntory CC Lemon recommended by my brother and some packaged coffee (much like a Starbucks one). They DID have melon soda candy, which is awesome and now I want more. My brother bought some food for me, which looked like a ball of dough and contained pizza like items inside (cheese, sauce, meat). I took photos of all of this of course (see the link).

Since we're driving through the mountains, there were so many tunnels. The view of the mountains is a bit obscured by the clouds. We entered Kyoto after seven hours of driving, drove by Nintendo's main office, and then got dropped off at the Hotel Granvia Kyoto.

Here at last!

The flight was long, but I managed to sleep a bit and stayed hydrated. It's now Monday morning in Japan, and I don't seem to have any jet lag effects so that's good.

In all, I took 1 taxi to the airport, 2 planes to Japan, 2 airport trams, 1 bus from the airport to the train station, 1 train to another station, and 1 car ride to my brother's place. I think I'm just missing the use of a rickshaw or bicycle...

I have a lot to talk about but unfortunately I'm heading out the door with my brother, his girlfriend, and his friend to drive to Kyoto. I've put up some photos so take a look at those instead. When I get to Kyoto I'm sure I'll have a bit more to talk about.

Going to go have breakfast now before we leave. Here's a link to my photos.