Tripping on a Trip Part 2

Sunday

So, I got to Kyoto all right and managed to meet up with my newly acquired friends Jason the Texan, Joe and Mark the simple Americans. I had met them all before, but because I live so far out in the Inaka (country) my contact was limited to only Jason, as we are fellow Gunnies (Goonies).

We were intent on seeing the many temples that are littered around Kyoto, theyfre like used condoms in a whorehouse, you have to be careful or you will step on one. With Joe as our human compass we soon found the 1st. It was a huge temple, which used human hair to make a huge rope, which helped pull the timber they needed to make it! Pretty gross, they still have it in a display case. I was tempted to wash it, but I figure that would just fuel the Gaijin (foreigner) stereotype in Japan. While we were there, there was a group of Graduates? And they were having their picture taken, I decided to do the Wherefs Wally routine, and jumped in with them. I donft know if they were too shocked to say anything, or too scared, I didnft care. We then marveled at the Temple some more before heading into the bowels of the city for lunch.

After having lunch, we met up with Jasonfs two friends, they could have been pygmies if it wasnft for their Japanese appearance, but man were they short! The two girls were from Osaka, and came along to show us around, but instead they got us lost, and we ended up seeing Kyoto from a bus window partly obscured by random Japanese standing in the way. The boys were super pissed off, but deep down I knew I was bunking on the conference, so I could come back. It was funny because we got to the Golden temple 2 minutes after it had closed, that was the only place Joe had wanted to go to in Kyoto, so he was major pissed. What surprised me the most was the way that the boys would openly say shit about the girls in front of them, even though they couldnft speak English much, but I am sure they could read the looks on their faces and the tone of voice. It works like that for me in my village, because I donft speak Japanese fluently, people assume that I am deaf, dumb and mute. Maybe the middle one is true on my behalf. Ahhhh assumption is the mother of all evils.

After saying goodbye to the girls and saying thanks for the cool 2-hour bus ride where we saw nothing, we headed off to get some dinner and beer, all you can do style. Then it was off to the train station to catch the train to Kobe, we were all stopping along the way to piss every 5 minutes. Jasonfs favorite expression was e I gotta piss like a race horsef. I have never seen a race horse piss, but I assume its just like how a normal horse would piss? The good thing about Japan is that itfs your god given right to drop your trousers where ever and piss up against the wall. Maybe New Zealand should rethink its laws.

When we got to the train station we collected our bags from the lockers. However Joes back pack had gone missing from on top of the locker where he had put it (it couldnft fit in the locker and we were in a hurry, so we assumed it wouldnft get stolen in Japan) Joe decided to go and see if it was in the Stations lost and found, we were redirected to the police station, the cops were excited to finally get something to do, so they started to ask Joe questions about the whole deal, all this time Joe and the boys were chugging away on their beers in the cop shop, they asked if it was alright and were told to continue intoxicating themselves. Kinda weird, but hey this is Japan. We were talking about how Joes bag would make the 7.00pm news in Japan. They probably would bring a few detectives out of retirement to try and solve the case. We started asking all the homeless guys in the station if they had taken it, but they played dumb and pretended they hadnft studied English in high school, likely story buddy!

Kobe looked all right and our hotel was a big mother, worthy of my presence I felt. My roommate turned out to be our friend Adam, a Japanese American who liked to spout gangsta sayings and other tough guy talk, which was funny due to his Japanese appearance and build. But he was a cool guy who would always look out for me, maybe he had heard of my reputation. After we were stowed away (the boys slept in our room, as they didnft have accommodation that night) and Jason and Joe had played Janken (paper, scissors rock) for the last bed we headed out, but not before Joe tried to tell Jason that they had to Janken for the beds mattress, as the previous match was for the beds frame, more debating and then we finally left for Kobe City.

Like most of Japan, Kobe had its no Gaijin policy for its bars, kinda like the Blacks in the 50fs in America. We eventually found a bar that was willing to accommodate some non-yellow foreigners, although they charged us a 300\ esitting down feef maybe if it was something more than a shitty stool I wouldnft mind, but this is Japan and all its craziness.

We eventually headed home and slept until noon.