After some bikebox hauling and train travel we arrived in downtown Kyoto. Immediately it was obvious that this city was smaller and less crazy. I was dispatched in search of a place to live for the night and after an hour or so of wandering found a place that was quite reasonable, 9000 Yen per night for both of us. For comparison, the hostel down the street charged 10,000 and another Japanese place with no space charged 4000. With some hand gestures I secured a dolly and returned triumphantly from my hotel hunt. The dolly won me some brownie points as we could load both bike boxes and both duffels and push it with ease. Some may wonder why the bikes are still in boxes at this point. Well, we made the call to visit Tokyo and Kyoto and see their sites instead of immediately hopping on the bikes and going like mad to make our ferry(about 1000km away) which departs 6 days after we arrive. Since having them boxed made for easier train travel we just left them....like x-mas presents, wanting to be opened.
If I was to describe Kyoto in 2 words I'd say "shrines and temples". We saw lots of both - very impressive. We also saw a very cool castle which had floors called 'nightingale floors' that would make chirping and squeaking noises to warn sleeping folks of intruders. I did my best ninja impersonation as I went through to assassinate the shogun. I thought I did alright but a giggling B blew my cover.
To be honest, I was getting a little citied and shrined out by the end of it. Time to think bikes. The boxes had started to become a bit of a "thing". We knew that once opened, it'd change everything. Never having bike toured, we didn't exactly know what to expect so they were a cross between Pandora's bike box and the Bike box Ark of the covenant. In retrospect, we could have built them up in Kyoto and used them to bike around town for a day...live and learn. Instead we did an early morning bike-box-hauling-marathon to a bus stop and boarded the bus bound for Tottori. Tottori, I discovered, can be pronounced many ways-only one of which means the place where we're going. So I'd repeat myself with different inflections and accents until the person in front of me finally understood. *Sigh*, it would be nice to speak a little Japanese.
Off to Tottori.
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