Familiar Territory

Let's see....where did my story leave off? ....Oh, saki, that's right. So I go back to the common room after posting last night and the saki hasn't been served yet. So I go up front and kindly ask if I can help them out with this little chore, as I can tell that he has been quite busy all night. He says sure, that would be fine. So I fill the little saki container full and and pour saki into the tiny cups for the 3 girls sitting at the table. Then I ask if someone walking through would like some. Within 15 minutes we have everybody from the dorms sitting around the table and talking about where they are from. One lady from Mexico, one from holland, two girls from England, a guy from Spain, 2 from Canada, 2 from Germany, one from Australia, me and a guy from Ireland. So that is obviously more than one little container of saki. I had to refill it several times. Okay the truth is we ended up finishing of a 3 litre container of saki. At some point I asked the reception dude how much the container cost. And when he said 800 yen I turned around and said drinks were on me. And we laughed and chatted for a couple of hours (way past curfew I might add). We talked about everything: travel, sports, sex and politics. Of course I had to apologize on behalf of America that we don't have enough intelligent people in our country to elect someone who isn't clueless. Well, we eventually got kicked out of the common room for making too much noise. That's okay the saki had run out and it was late. So this morning I said good bye to the gang, checked out and headed for some more sights. I took the subway (another confusing hurdle I jumped) and headed back to the east side. I started at Nanzenji temple. That was a very hot/cold sorta place. I would like one thing alot, and then I would get mad at the place for another. Such as they have a lovely zen buddhist garden that people sit infront of a meditate. Unfortunately there is a recording of someone telling you about the garden which really takes away from the tranquility. It also the only place I went with no signage in English (and this is one of the really big tourist places). So when I finished that I headed up the Philosopher's Walk to the next sight I wanted to see. A pretty place but a little odd. Can't explain it, but there just seemed to be something missing. But still it was a nice stroll. I ended up at Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavilion), the little brother of Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) which I saw Sunday. The problem is that the guy who built the Silver Pavilion went bust before the silver was ever applied. So it isn't Silver at all. And the sight where it is built is not nearly as wonderful as the Golden. But I still got a nice couple of pics, even though my camera battery was seriously out of gas. By then it was time to find a bus (another hurdle) to Kyoto station to grab a sandwich and hop the Shinkansen back to Hamamatsu. It was really nice arriving back in Hamamatsu. Nice familiar territory. I grabbed my bike, packed my stuff into the basket and peddled quickly back to the aparto. It was looking like the heavens were gonna open up at any second and I had to get ready for my 6 o'clock class. From the time I left Kyoto to the time I was back at my door was less that 2 hours. Do you know how cooooool that is? It takes 2 hours just to get to the Atlanta airport, let alone do any other traveling. Ah, but now I'm exhausted and need to get out the sleeping mats. Nighty Night y'all.