More Kyoto pics

Kyoto pics

Alone in Kyoto

This year's school festival has come and gone and I decided to make the good use of the extra vacation time that came with it. I was originally hoping to take a trip with some friends somewhere close, but things came up with everyone so I decided to head down to Kyoto by myself for the 4 day weekend.

This was my first time traveling alone, and I was actually looking forward to the experience; being able to do what you want and and at your own pace initially sounded like it would be great. Unfortunately, since it's me we're talking about, it just meant that there was nobody around to keep me from screwing up.

I headed down Friday afternoon with a monster hangover. I actually ended up missing the faster bullet train because the bus from Fujiyoshida was so damn slow. I swear that at every stop some old man/woman with a cane with get on or off the bus; usually taking a ton of time to dig the correct change for the bus out. The bus took about 40 minutes longer than it should have and I missed the express shinkansen by about 4 minutes. That 4 minutes added about and hour and a half to my travel time since I had to wait about 45 minutes for a slower train down to Kyoto.

I got in to Kyoto about 4:30. That was too late to do any sightseeing since most every temple closes about 5:00. I still had my monster hangover so I just went straight to the hostel to check in. Of course, that didn't go smoothly either. For some reason they had me booked for only one night despite me having my receipt that said I was staying for two. The woman who worked there begrudgingly let me stay for another night under the condition that I change beds the second night. Not rooms. Beds. I had to, for some mysterious and unknown reason, change beds within the same room the second night I was there. Whatever.

Anyway, I tried sleeping off my hangover for a couple of hours before heading into downtown Kyoto for the night. This is where I learned the first big crapping thing about traveling alone: you have no one to go out with. I couldn't even try any restaurants that looked good because I felt weird going in by myself. The same went for bars. I hadn't even spent one night in Kyoto and I was already feeling a bit lonely, a little sad and really bored. This brings me to the #2 crapping thing about traveling alone: nobody to stop you from doing stupid stuff...

To pass the first time on the first night I tried out two expensive habits: pachinko and the medal games at the arcades. Pachinko is a weird form of Japanese gambling. It's like if a pinball and a slot machine had a love child (don't ask me which one would be the father). Anyway, the new ALT in town got me into pachinko so I decided to kill some time that way. All I ended up killing was 4000 yen ($40) in about 15 minutes. Yikes.

With the night still young and me still bored, I went to kill time with my second bad habit: medal games. I just picked this one up a few weeks ago. At Japanese arcade games they have these special games called "medal games". You got a certain amount of medals for 1000 yen and you play various games to win more medals. I'm not sure what you actually get with the medals you win, which makes this new addiction even weirder. Anywho, I killed off about 3000 more yen this way before going back to the hostel.

I was hoping to meet some cool people at the hostel to go out with. They were all jerks. I tried to get some good sleep for sightseeing the next day. The jerks were too loud all night long.

I actually got some sightseeing in the next day and enjoyed myself. Unfortunately I wasted a lot of time looking for a castle which I was never able to find. I didn't mind too much because I figured I had the whole next day to see some more stuff.

That night I had the name problems and night and made the same bad decisions. Fuck me.

The jerks were still there at the hostel and kept me awake all night. Of course, I forgot to set my alarm, so when I did wake up at 11:30 or so I had to check out right away and head straight to the station to get on the train I reserved, unable to see anything else in Tokyo.

So, in conclusion:

-I suck
-Traveling alone sucks.


I took some pretty pictures of Kyoto. If I ever feel like reliving the experience I'll post them on here...