Anyhoo...

Alright, now I've found a blog site that'll let me have pictures. So, let us begin.

This first one is the shoebox I lived in for the first week in Nagoya. A fairly typical business hotel room, which means not quite enough room to swing a cat. It serves its purpose, and obviously its not expected to do any more than that. If you go to a love hotel, you get something several times the size with all the trimmings (not to mention mirrors in odd places) for the same price, but I had as yet to find that out. But at least it proved a suitable subject for my lovely new camera phone, hence the low picture quality.


Shortly after my arrival, I had a job interview in Kyoto. It was a nice job, but their ad was rather less than clear about what it entailed. When it became obvious that I was unsuitable for the duties they had failed to advertise, I was sent on my way with a few suggestions, a commiseratory handshake, and an afternoon to kill in Kyoto. I didn't care too much, as it was a great excuse to try out the shinkansen (mmm... like flying at ground level, but with bigger seats, vending machines (see, they're everywhere!) and a smoking section) and to nose around Kyoto for awhile. After escaping from the sticks, which is where the school was, to the comforts of the big city, I spent some time exploring the architectural marvel that is Kyoto Station. I tried and failed to find a decent cafe on the upper levels, so I returned to the bowels of the station down a vertigo inducing 10 storey escalator. The pic comes from about halfway down.

Turning to my trusty Lonely Planet guide, I searched for something interesting to see and in a place like Kyoto, that makes for a very long list, so I chose the castle (Nijo-jou) and braved the Kyoto subway system. Unfortunately, while there are some impressive outer walls, the castle itself doesn't exist anymore, which made the experience somewhat disappointing. However, the palace does, in all its original glory, so it wasn't a wasted effort. This is the main entrance to the Honmaru palace, which was a fascinating experience, walking across the squeaky floors (the height of sixteenth century anti-ninja technology) in my socks in sub-zero temperatures. I enjoyed the gardens, too, until the shivering became uncontrollable and the snow started falling, and I decided to call it a day and return home. I thought about saving a few yen and taking the regular train back, but after a few (rather difficult) enquiries, I found out that there are no regular trains anymore and humping it on the local trains would take about 5 hours. I decided to pay the extra 20 bucks and was back in Nagoya inside an hour.