29 October 2017
Better than forecast
The temples and shrines of Gion
The rain vanished at about 5:30pm, thats a full 2.5 hours ahead of the forecast.
I was convinced I would be getting wet again when I looked out the window at 5pm and so I got re-dressed into my damp clothes which had been drying since I arrived home earlier. You see theres no point in making all your clothes damp, might as well accept defeat and further dampen the dampened.
So when I checked the weather radar and saw the rain was all but gone, I felt quite foolish, and then when I stepped outside, it was gone, I could even see the moon.
It gets dark here in Japan by 5pm each night, and properly dark suddenly. It must get dark at 4pm in the middle of winter. I like it.
Tonight I went on a long loop, over the river, along the river, all through Gion hunting zombie geishas, back along the main street, kept going past the station, looped back around another main road I had never been down before.
I was highly envious of the people out running, and there were lots of them, every day, I lose a bit more fitness, once I get back, in 3 weeks time, it will take me ages to get back to record fitness - assuming I dont succumb to Japanese respiratory acute failure first.
It was also surprisingly quiet in the busy areas tonight, maybe the rain scared people off, I could actually walk at a normal pace.
And now for my rant...
Make up your mind what side you want to walk on! Short rant tonight. Its not just me, I observed Japanese people walking head on into each other, reading their phones, cause one went right and one went left and they both went smash.
In Australia, we always keep left, walking and driving, in Europe they keep right when walking, even in England, in Japan we have this useless situation....(I am quoting random internet)
'The Japanese usually divide their escalators into two sides: the right and the left. In Tokyo, people keep left and leave the right side open for rushing people, especially passengers for trains. This is the reverse for Osaka wherein people usually keep right and leave the left side open instead.'
Well, its the Kyoto tower, you have seen it before, you will see it again, here you are seeing it with my new camera.
The quiet Gion area. I stood right in the middle of the road, not even at a crossing, no traffic was coming. A police officer stared at me as I walked back off the road after I had been standing there for 30 seconds fiddling with camera settings.
The back streets of Gion, where the internet will tell you geishas run about to tend to their masters bathing needs. Slavery is a thing in modern Japan still. I never saw a real one, just girls pretending to be one, or perhaps heading to a different kind of work.
I really like the red/green/blue in this photo, they are even in the correct order!
Now I am ascending the steps to the shrines / temples at the end of the street. I went here years ago, its nicely lit up at night as you will see.
Obviously a long exposure, note the 13 point starbursts coming from the lights.
Shrine 1 of 3.
Shrine 2 of 3 - blinded by the lantern things.
Shrine 3 of 3, guy with umbrella thinks hes special.
Bonus exiting shrine photo, looking back down the street.
This one came out really well for 1/20 handheld. Managed to keep the ISO to 1250 and theres almost no noise. Thats enough nerdy photography info.
My dinner. I did not get what I ordered. I think they served me up the tourist trap set menu item as it was more expensive than the single bowl meal that I did order.
It was also deep fried. I originally intended to catch the train back, now I had to devise a longer walk, and even now I still feel fat and lazy from eating all that deep fried mystery food.
Whilst it was nice enough at the time, I have regrets, definitely need to extend my mountain hike tomorrow somehow.
I should go back there and exercise my right to bulimia due to tourist food substitution - a new by-law I just made up.