We woke up very late this morning, around 8:30, since we weren't rushing to check out of any hotels and didn't have to pack or anything. It was a relief for the first time since we got here! Our clothes managed to dry the rest of the way overnight, which is good because we were totally out. We got dressed and vacated the ryokan towards the station around 10:30.
Breakfast was obtained at the panya in the station, then we went around back to the bus terminal, where we bought two all-day bus passes for the Kyoto bus lines for 500 yen. The passes allow you to ride any Kyoto Municipal bus as many times as you want for one day. They're really handy. They also gave us an english map with a great description of how to use the bus system.
We ate our food in the bus terminal; Molly saw some really good things to get at the panya in the terminal, and said we should come back here for breakfast tomorrow. We then walked to the far end of the bus station, where we entered the Kyoto post office trying to change Molly's money. We asked at a desk, but Sunday is a holiday for those services. For some reason I answered her "daijoubu desu" which means "ok." Not something more suitable, like "wakarimashita" (I understand) or "arigatoo" (thank you). Dork.
We caught the 206 bus to Kiyomizudera at station D2. We exited at the stop before Kiomizumichi, which they announced in english was convenient for Kiyomizu Temple. As we exited, we put the day pass card into the card slot next to the driver, and it stamped a date on it. The GPS was working perfectly, and we watched our route up towards Cloyce's waypoint (a saved point on the surface of the earth that you can navigate to). We stopped into a
shop nearby for a moment, and it was filled with very touristy things. The temple entrance was 
surrounded by a rainbow-colored shroud; it must have been closed for cleaning. We walked around it and 
into the temple proper. We paid our 400 yen apiece and walked to the front of the temple where we 
washed our hands in the dragon water spout (it's a Bhuddist cleansing ritual) and entered. Molly and I saw people lifting heavy metal geta (shoes with two planks sticking out the bottom), a heavy metal pole, and a lighter metal pole. I mimicked them, not knowing exactly what they were for. We crossed out onto the 
main deck, which is one of the high points of Kiyomizu. It's a 6 story high deck that looks out into the tree-lined hills, across from which is a 
three story pagoda, which in summer peeks out of the trees. In winter, it's more clearly visible due to lack of leaves. Molly realized we didn't have any film, and I raced back out to the shop to get some (it was a rip off at 800 yen per roll of 400/36). She had pointed out the film in the store earlier, I just wasn't paying attention. We loaded up the camera and continued through the temple. We refrained from doing the Love Rock, a major attraction at the temple. You're supposed to walk from rock to rock with your eyes closed, and if you can make it, you get your wish granted. It was too crowded, so we didn't try. We visited the pagoda, then walked down the hill. There's a really pretty garden down there, but for some reason it was blocked off. We stopped off to drink from the water of knowlege; there is a three-streamed waterfall that people dip cups into, and drink from it. Behind the waterfall is a sterilizer that you put the cups back into when you've finished. We continued on the way out of the temple, filming and taking a picture of a girl in a really goofy getup with high shoes, fishnet stockings, microshorts, and a weird coat. She also had bleach blonde hair. We exited the temple and began our long walk down the hill. I stopped in the automatic cake making shop to buy some little cream filled cakes. It has a neat little machine that pours batter, puts in some filling, adds batter on top of it, bakes it on a flat griddle, flips it, stamps it with a brand, then pops it out and cycles the cooking ring. All at like 6-10 a minute. We continued down stopping only in one other shop to check out the huge selection of Miyazaki merchandise from Totoro, Kiki, and all of his other films, including the new one. We got a small taste of a mochi thing from a shop clerk which was soft and doughy and filled with a creamy soft paste. I liked it, Molly didn't. We turned right at the corner immediately before the Y intersection, and took the staircase down to the shops below. We followed this street which was loaded with people around the next right turn, and across a small street to a huge Kanon image. I can't ever remember who Kanon was, but she (I think) was a religious icon. (I'm sure my Japanese buddies will kick me when I get home) We continued down the staircase opposite the Kanon, where we turned right on a road headed north. The road wound around for a bit until we reached Maruyama park.
It was about lunchtime, so we thought we'd try our luck in the few remaining food stands from New Year's. There was a yakisoba place for Molly, and I thought the big frankfurters on a stick looked pretty good. We asked the woman at the yakisoba place if i was niku nuki, and she said "niku nuki, hai!" and started warming up the yakisoba she had already made. We immediately noticed the big chunks of meat in the yakisoba, which SHE PULLED OUT TO MAKE IT MEATLESS. Yeah THAT'S vegetarian all right. :( Molly said she could eat it anyway, despite me offering to eat it for her. I got the frankfurter, and Molly ate a little of her yakisoba. She didn't eat much though, and put it down. I don't blame her. I ate my frankfurter, which was pretty tasteless, and then bought an okonomiyaki. I ate mine and some of her yakisoba so that it wouldn't go to waste. I asked if she wanted anything else, but she didn't. We continued on, worried a bit about the gray clouds that were spitting on us. We didn't have our umbrella with us. We passed Chion-ji, and walked up "love road" towards Heian Shrine (jingu). There's a HUGE orange toori one block from the temple, and directly to the left and right of it are two museums. On the left is the Modern Art museum, and on the right is the Contemporary Art Gallery, or something to that effect. We started to buy tickets for the Modern Art gallery until we relized the art inside was actually Italian, and Molly wanted to see Japanese art.
We went in to the Contemporary art gallery, and Molly's student ID actually came in handy to get a 300 yen discount. We entered the first gallery, and realized the entire downstairs for the most part was filled with scrolls full of kanji script. We didn't know what or who they were, so it wasn't very interesting. We went from room to room and finally arrived at the central gallery, which was full of human form sculptures, mostly nudes. There were a few that stood out, like one called "te, te, te" which was the hiragana te, katakana te (hiragana and katakana are like the Japanese alphabets), and kanji te, which is for hand. It was a round block with different hands holding an apple, a drink can, and different everyday life items. It was cool. Another facinating one looked like a misshapen tree with mangled baseball players as roots and branches. Upstairs also had a lot of interesting things; it contained some pottery and shoji screens (like partitions) and a lot of oil on canvas. We wandered for some time, taking in the beautiful, elegant, and bizarre. Several rooms later, we walked back down the stairs and out north on the street in front of the museum to the Heian Jingu.
Heian Jingu is a huge Shinto shrine just north of the museums. It's bright orange and has a huge central area. As we walked in, there was a large group of high school age men and women in school uniforms, who began singing a song as they surrounded a song leader in a circle. At first we heard it sound normally, but later we noticed that the song leaders were belting it out sounding really horrible, and their faces were all contorted. Lots of people were watching, and when they finished, people were unsure whether or not to clap. We taped and watched them go into their next song, and really began to wonder who the heck they were. We followed the crowd up to the main temple, where we were unable to take pictures. People came up, threw money into a bin, clapped twice, put their hands together and prayed with their head down. We watched a small Shinto ceremony going on behind the bins for a bit, then walked out. The crowd of people singing were still there, and we really had no idea who they were or what they were doing. It looked almost cultist. No one clapped after their last song.
Out of the shrine, we walked west, then realized that Ginkakuji (the silver pavillion) was the other direction. We turned around and began to walk, headed to a bus stop. After a long while, we finally got to a bus stop, but the bus wasn't due for another 30 minutes. It was already getting late (4PM) and Molly was hungry. We stopped in to a Lawson's for Happy Turn, then continued walking up the street, realizing the bus wasn't coming for a while. We hung a left up the main street towards Ginkakuji, but Molly was ready to go home. We crossed the street and caught the bus back to Kyoto Eki.
Our plan was to get naan and curry from the curry house on the way back to the hotel. We stopped in to the Curry House, which is one block down. Molly looked at the menu, and as we were deciding a waitress came over and gave us an english menu. There were several vegetable curries listed. The waitress returned and we asked if she had anything niku nuki. She pointed at the plain curry, which in english said, "pork curry". That should have tipped me off. Molly ended up ordering the vegetable curry the waitress also pointed out because the naan set included spicy curry that had meat in it. You get to choose your level of spice and how much rice you get (if it's more than normal, you get charged a small amount extra per amount you want). We amused ourself realizing they have a contest; if you can eat 1300 grams of curry rice in 20 minutes (every last grain) it's free. They also put your picture up on the wall, as evident by the Polaroids. I thought about it and realized that it's over 2 and 3/4 POUNDS of curry rice. There's no WAY.
She brought out our curries, and I noticed almost immediately; the curry rice had pork in it. :( Molly teared up, because she was starving. "Niku nuki" does NOT mean vegetarian; it means it doesn't have big chunks of meat in it. It doesn't necessarily mean it was cooked without meat either, as evident by this and the yakisoba. I scraped the curry off Molly's plate and she was able to finish the plain rice. I ate as fast as possible and we dove out the door and over to the Family Mart to get her food. She bought salad and yogurt, avoiding the bread since it was slathered with margarine. Molly said, "I just want to get back to somewhere I can get food I can EAT, and not have it covered in butter."
We went back across the street where Molly finished up her food and felt better. After eating, we headed back out to the arcade to play a little Samba. Upstairs, I really wanted a crepe filled with fruit. They have these in several places we've seen and they're bloody brilliant. :) They have a huge display of all these fruit and ice cream filled
crepes (plastic) which you choose from, and then they make a 20" crepe right in front of you and fill it with whatever you ordered. I got a peach and strawberry crepe, with strawberry ice cream. Molly just had a taste, then she wanted a few more bites. She said she really didn't want anything, but after tasting mine she really wanted more. The smell is fantastic too, but the taste is awesome. We decided it was time to play samba. We plopped in our 400 yen and played our first game. We did so-so, but not great. Occassionally, someone would come up and watch. A man, woman, and two other people we had watched playing the tambourine game came over to watch our second game. At the end of it, the man started clapping frantically, impressed with our ability. Molly gave up after the second game as her arms were tired, and I used the last 200 I had from the 1000 bill I changed to play one more game. I realized my left shakes weren't registering, and after I thought about it, I realized it wasn't the GAME that was the problem, it was the fact that my hands were so tired, I couldn't shake the maracas! The game ended and I got my name in one last time. We grabbed our things, but were waylaid moments later. There was a video game that Molly HAD to play, and I swear I am not making this up. It's a
DOG WALKING GAME. It's got a treadmill and a leash hooked to a big plastic dog at the head of the treadmill. You walk the treadmill and tug on the leash to aim the dog. As you walk, you keep the dog happy by leading him around and walking fast. Molly dropped in her coins and a dog selection screen came up. (again, I am not making this up) Take a wild guess as to which dog she chose! Anyone who knows Molly would know IMMEDIATELY that she picked the PUG. A 3-D pug appeared on the screen, and instructions went past. Eventually she began leading her puglet around, who became very happy and began prancing along with her. Occassionally the pug would smell something, and she led it past. At one point, a cat breaks out of a house with a woman chasing it. Molly became the pug for a short time, and had to run on the treadmill after the cat. The pug eventually caught the cat, and the woman grabbed it, scolding it. Later, she had to avoid dangerous things, like a motorcycle, a car, a bus, and a man on a bike. She avoided the first two successfully, but the bus slammed on its brakes and the pug looked sad and lost a bunch of happy points. Later the bike aimed RIGHT at her, and she couldn't avoid it. The pug again lost happy points. After that she arrived at her destination, and a graph showed her happy points over time. It was a lot of fun, she said, but it was surprisingly strenuous. We walked back to the hotel, watched part of a weird movie with Andy Garcia, then went to bed relatively early.
-- Hik