Josh Deprez

Welcome back! Last episode, our heroes had suddenly found themselves with rapid-onset heart attacks and Pocky, and had gone past a giant crab. Well I’m pleased to say we got back to the hotel just fine. After chilling in the hotel room and blogging for a bit, we went for dinner.

Next morning: woke up, did the cursory internetting for a few hours, then we went for a walk. Our path today: the Path of Philosophy, a trail going for a couple of km’s that goes past ever more shrines and temples and gardens, following a stream. It was really enjoyable (AAAAA++++ would walk the path again).

After checking out what looked like the final shrine on the path, we headed west, past the university, to the Kyoto Imperial Palace Gardens. Who needs a palace so huge? Some school kids had the right idea (or perhaps it was their teachers): run around the thing. The whole place is 1.3km by 800m.

Southward, about another k, and we got to the final attraction: the International Manga Museum. Photos were not permitted for most of the place, but if you could imagine a three-floor building with lots of manga (a collection of over 40,000 volumes) stacked on the walls, an exhibition of western comics for girls and women, a display of wood carvings, a reading room for kids, and lots of people sitting around just reading manga, then you’ve got the idea.

Finally, we were walking in the vague direction of the subway, when we came upon a garage-like sale at a shrine. It was “garage-like” in that it had the feel of a garage sale, and yet was clearly well-organised and with some interesting goods. My eyes happened upon a golden fully-mechanical pocket-watch, with no internal cover over the clockwork so that you can see the whole thing in action. Had. To. Have. Got the lady down to ¥8000–coincidentally, the amount of money I had on me. This is why I need to go to an ATM again so soon.

After all the excitement we headed back to the hotel, and promptly ran out of internet (because when they say 24 hours, they mean 24 hours!) but I bought some more. I’m not here to be so cheap as to make life totally inconvenient.