EPTI finished each of the remaining days of the blog before posting this. Everything is 100% done, formatted, and ready to publish. I'm going to post once a day for the next five days. I sincerely hope you enjoy the blog, regardless of how long it took me to complete it.
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Taken on my way to the garden.
Ritsurin Koen, the garden at Takamatsu, was spectacular. Had it not been for the heat and my desire to make it to Kyoto, I could have spent the entire day there. Every view from every location felt as if it had been painstakingly considered and sculpted. Interconnected ponds dotted the landscaping, with well-groomed trees and trickling waterfalls adding to the tranquility of the garden. There was a balance about the place, not a single ostentatious feature. The trees and bridges, water and fish all existed in quiet harmony.
Well, maybe not the fish. Eager for a handout, these fish wrestled for position whenever a human being approached the water. Fat and happy, they appeared to subsist entirely off of the goodwill of tourists.
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The entrance.
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The garden.
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The garden.
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About a tree.
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The tree.
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Typically feline.
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About a bridge.
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The bridge.
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Fish!
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Fish!
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The garden.
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The garden.
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I couldn't resist snapping this photo.
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The garden.
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The garden.
![[image loading]](http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2118/35/36/64200053/n64200053_30594291_9406.jpg)
Probably my favorite photo from the entire trip.
After the garden, I made my way to the train station and hopped on a train to Kyoto.
I won't lie: my first impression of Kyoto was, "This is it?" From the way Lonely Planet presented the city, Kyoto was some sublime Japanese paradise, all traditional architecture and geisha. Instead, Kyoto, at first glance, was strikingly similar to Osaka and Hiroshima. As I walked to my hostel, however, I noticed that there did seem to be an abundance of small shrines littering the roads. The architecture, too, was less modern. There was something different about Kyoto.
My hostel was a positive start, anyway. With immaculate rooms, broadband internet access, real computers, and an enormous, sunny lounge at my disposal, I spent most of the afternoon catching up on my email and chatting with Sam, a 22-year-old plumber from England. Having saved up a sizable lump of quid, Sam was hoping to travel the world for a full year, taking in Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand in that span of time. His wild hair and outrageous beard obscured his thoughtful demeanor; we were able to gloss over the usual questions of occupation and homes and get straight to an interesting subject: our thoughts on the Japanese.
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My hostel.
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Sam.
"I love the women here, but they all dress like prostitutes, don't they?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," I replied. "I think the way they dress is pretty classy."
"Christ, I need to go to California, I guess," he laughed.
Sam and I ended up wandering the streets for a couple hours before dinner, talking on a vast array of subjects and sipping on beers as we wandered. A pretty Japanese girl waved to us from a bus. We lightly tapped our beers together in a silent cheers. Over dinner, Sam and I began to discuss food.
"French food is the best, mate, nothing better," Sam said. "But this French bloke named, um, Pascal—yeah, that's his name—is shagging me mum, so I'm a bit down on the French at the moment." I nearly spewed Asahi onto my plate when he finished this sentence.
"So your folks are divorced?" I asked.
"Yeah, they are. My dad, the wanker, gave me this set of watercolors before I left for my trip, you know? Told me to take the time to do some painting as I traveled, said it would do me good."
"Are you an artist? Do you paint? Did you ever paint?"
"No, that's just the bloody thing! I couldn't paint a wall! But it's... you know, it's a really nice set of watercolors. So this one night, wicked pissed, I sat down and just started painting, and I woke up with all these horrible, crumpled little things scattered around me bed. I put them in my journal, though. There's no way I'll remember that stuff otherwise."
"Watercolors, huh? I'll have to give it a shot," I laughed.
"Yeah, mate, you can buy little watercolor sets, the fucking things, for just a couple hundred yen."
I continued to laugh at the mental image of Sam, wasted off of cheap sake, sitting down to paint before passing out amidst his absurd creations. It was the kind of event I wished I could watch in a time-lapse video; everything's funnier, or at least less tragic, in accelerated form.
After dinner, Sam and I stopped at a convenience store to purchase a few more beers. I was standing in line when Sam emerged from an aisle holding it.
"No, no, no," I said.
"Bang for buck, mate," Sam grinned. "Split between us, it's barely four dollars apiece."
It was a two-liter red carton of sake, proudly advertising itself as containing 20% alcohol. I knew purchasing the carton was a bad idea—I had only budgeted one full day to see Kyoto—but there was some allure in getting to mingle with the international crowd back at the hostel. My mind began to spin fantastical yarns. Sam and I would be the combined life of the party. I envisioned us doling out shots from our magical red carton, laughing and pointing as we turned the hostel's lounge from a place of quiet typing into one of uproarious good cheer. The other guests just needed something to bring them together, something to bring us all together. Sam and I would be... we'd be heroes, really.
OK, so things didn't quite work out as I'd envisioned. After trying, and failing, to entice a couple wholesome Korean girls to join us for a drink or seven, Sam and I ended up playing cards with a Frenchman and two Australians. The Australians won the first few hands, which prompted Sam to comment on their luck.
"Well, we are Aussies," one said, "so we might be cheating."
"No cheating!" Sam bellowed, by this point quite drunk. "My country made you, but I will destroy you!"
A few hours and an uncountable number of shots later, I staggered up to bed, capable of little more than drunken babbling. I managed to exercise enough judgment to reach for my water bottle... which was bone dry. The bathrooms, no more than 20 feet away, seemed an insurmountable trek. I knew that the next morning would be unpleasant no matter how much water I drank. I climbed under the covers, resigned to my fate.
