13 March 2014
No more rain
Various weather radars suggested it was going to stop raining. The quality of this data compared to bom.gov.au was really crappy though, so I came up with a better plan, check webcams of nearby cities.
This worked great, the weather was coming from Hiroshima direction so I looked at webcams from there and could see the tail end of dark clouds in the distance and clear blue sky overhead.
About an hour later it stopped raining in Kyoto, and theres been no rain since, now I can see stars. Its very cold now as a result!
My feet finally dried though, along with my shoes.
This evening I just wandered around locally looking for food, found a protest, had a really really strong chai latte, played some games, and even looked in a few stores like loft and tokyu hands.
Tomorrow I go to Osaka, dont want to get there too early so probably time for one last lap around Kyoto in the morning.
I considered going to giant animated crab restaurant for dinner. Their plastic window fake menu food looked to be of poor quality though.
Next I found a shop selling fire man and various other rescue persons clothing and gear. In case you want to start your own private fire brigade or make a saucy calendar women love despite being full of average looking men who happen to be firefighters.
Then I came across a protest complete with police blocking the street and loudspeaker vans. Japanese loudspeaker technology is years beyond anything we have. It was deafening yet clear.
I dont know what the protest was for, I want to say it was for no nuclear power since its close to the Fukushima anniversary, but I dont know.
Might have been for no more cat cafes for all I know.
Nearby under the road was a quiet long mall called Zest. This reminds me of Taiwan, where I will be next week, it follows a train line and is mainly restaurants with no one in them.
I decided on curry again, because the restaurant had signs proclaiming it was for charity and all workers were over 70 years old.
I suspect the lady who served me was 90 years old. She spoke great English, probably because she was a comfort girl for American occupational forces.
The curry was really good too, but in hindsight I wish I had ordered root vegetable curry for something different. I asked for spicy and got something that might be medium spicy.
Next I went into a games arcade. Most of the games are multiplayer mecha things. You have to wear a headset and play in teams. At the end of the row of machines you can watch on a big screen all the action from third person perspective.
This is a new type of rhythm game, that appears to be a front loading washing machine. There were other types of games I had not seen before too which seemed to involve a glass cube with lasers projected in it.
Final photo for tonight is my snack, chocolate covered potato chips.
These really do taste fantastic, the crunchiness is preserved.