Kyoto Botanical Gardens

No real story to tell.... Except perhaps my dress was far too short for cycling which led to me hopping on one foot, attempting to put leggings on in the middle of the street. Of course, no-one saw me (*everyone pretended they couldn't see me).

I just wanted to share some of the beautiful things in Kyoto Botanial Gardens. The city is getting really autumnal now and the leaves are changing to glorious colours yet there are still so many flowers!

This last picture reminds me of the New Forest.....

Around the World in Half a Day

3rd November is yet another National Holiday in Japan. They have about 12 a year, more than most countries, and my theory is that it's because of their insane work ethic which leaves many people, some of my friends included, working 17 hours a day in Tokyo.

What to do with a holiday? Well, the answer was EAT.

Kyoto International Community Foundation is a large organisation not far from where I live and it's where I've just start taking Japanese lessons (for free!) They were holding an open day, promising food and entertainment from around the world. Well, we didn't get much past the food to be honest.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: food from stalls is never as good as it looks. I decided to visit Germany which was perhaps a mistake in itself, given my recollections of German food. However, they promised good quality looking sausages and potato salad. How could I resist? The two sausages in the picture were quite small but they looked so tasty and potato salad....mmm......

NOT. Firstly, when I went to buy the plate advertised for 400 円 they charged me an extra 100 円 for a second sausage. I believe that's called false advertising, and I believe it's illegal in the UK. Next, when I examined my potato salad, it looked very strange indeed. It didn't appear to have any potatoes in it. Nor did it seem to be covered in mayonnaise. Instead, I got some doughy pasta balls mixed in with sauerkraut. Not impressed.

Instead, we spent 25 minute queuing for a delicious mutton kebab which was sized for hungry two year-olds.

It was only later that we discovered more food stalls and some delicious looking burgers at Tom's Burger Bar. But hang on...Tom's Burger Bar rings a bell.......I realised I was looking at Tom of Tom's Burger Bar and Tom's English School which I'd applied to the day before! I even wrote that should I not be the teacher he was looking for, I'd stop by and try what he promised were the best burgers in Kyoto. And here he was......packing up his stand! He looked pretty busy so I didn't stop to say "Hello, I applied for your job yesterday, and actually I'm really gutted that your burgers have sold out as I just ate some German mush." (*Tom actually emailed me the day after the fair and now I work for his English school!!)

Food disappointments aside, the open day had a wonderfully lively atmosphere and was packed full of people, and mega cute kids (Japanese kids seem so much cuter than British kids!) Check out Calle's photos of the varieties of human life:

(Yes of course it makes perfect sense to have a Japanese man dressed as Santa, playing some kind of Asian instrument, in EARLY NOVEMBER).

Needless to say, we were still hungry and we decided to cycle down to Yamashina station area to do some shopping and take tea at the cake palace, mentioned in this previous post here. You can see more amazing photos of probably the weirdest café in the world and read the review on my brand new blog.

Cultural Affairs

Last week saw us on a bold and brave quest. After salivating over the delicious burgers we'd eaten one time at J.S. Burgers near Shinjuku Gyoen (park), Calle and I were in search of the best burger in Kyoto. We needed a slice, or in my case, a large plateful of Western food after staring at stir-fries and noodles for far too long.

After Internet-trawling, we found a recommended place called Speak Easy in the north of Kyoto, but only ~1.5km away from Kyoto University's main campus. It was gorgeous day and so Calle and I set off, accompanied by James and Victor, his classmates (it made it two all for the Brits v Swedes).

Nearly an hour later, we were wondering why we had failed to cover 1.5km. To this day, I am still fairly confused as to how that happened.

Let me set the scene. It's hot. There is no shade. We're almost too late for lunch time. The turning is still not in sight. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I'm tired. I see Obama. And a friendly pet shop.

Eventually we find Speak Easy. It looks small, brown, shabby and.... closed. On Thursdays only. Hurrah. Cue awful meal at a coffee cafeteria place. Sigh.

Nevertheless, on Friday night, I decided it was time we hit the town. The crew plus Marco, our Italian neighbour, settled ourselves into an izakaya which had delicious food at really amazing prices....even if the food pictures on the menu didn't exactly look like what was brought to us. When they say stir-fry containing cow, apparently it means any part of the cow they fancy. That didn't go down so well.

The evening ended with another desperate grasp for western food. Sadly Baskin-Robbins isn't a patch on Haagen Dazs but the guys enjoyed it!

Having been failed so utterly in our western outreach program, the weekend was a time for Japan, Japan, Japan. Heading south in the city, we stopped by Tofukuji, a Zen Buddhist temple complex which dates from 1236 but has naturally been rebuilt many times since. Slightly underwhelming, Lonely Planet sold it to us as a beauty with an amazing moss-covered garden with chessboard squares. How they should have described it was "Think Zen spartanism and minimalism combined with stone and moss." Still, I did manage to take a trippy picture of the "wonderful" chessboard garden....

And I got to be Mistress of the Torii (stone gate):

Next we headed straight to Fushimi-Inari Taisha lunch. I was starving. And I found my hamburger. Japanese-style. You can tell that because it got served on a bed of spaghetti, with a creamy brown and mushroom sauce, fried pork, Caesar salad, rice, and cream of sweetcorn soup. It was delicious. You can check out my review on my all new food blog.

Next, we really did make it to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a truly amazing shrine with torii (big orange gates) that stretch 4km up the mountain, with cemeteries stretching out into the woods. The torii are packed so closely together that it's like walking through a tunnel in places. It was a lovely experience even if we did decide to take the narrow forest path back which did take us down, just that "down" can mean down on any side of the mountain. Oh and it was pouring with rain. Not the best time to get lost.

Check these photos to get a feel for the place. It really is worth a visit if you're ever in Kyoto (I've actually been there twice now!)

Couldn't resist the token shot of the spider. Although I spent ages trying to make my camera focus on him. And then Calle pointed out - he is a crippled spider. Why did I choose a spider with only 7 legs?!

Interview terror; Afternoon tea; Giant brooms

Last Friday, I went for an interview as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) within Kyoto City schools. Most (all?) junior high schools and high schools in Japan will have an ALT come to help out with teaching the classes. The position started in under two weeks so I guessed they were desperate - an ALT must have dropped out. It was also the dream job.

Perhaps I should back-track here. I turned down Berlitz because of the hours - 3 evenings a week and 12 hours on Saturday would leave little time to see Calle, who studies 8:30am - 18:30 on some days. This ALT position with 7 hour weekday working hours was therefore like a dream come true.

And the interview was a nightmare come true.

Calle navigated me to this council building next to a huge, imposing Victorian-style building that stood out like sore thumbs amongst the ugly, modern buildings which dominate central Kyoto. Turns out the council building was somehow joined to it because I ended up inside it. By going to the 5th floor of the council building, following labyrinthine passages down a ramp and ta-dah! There I was on the 4th floor of the creepy mansion place.

As to the interview itself, I guess I can only describe it as one of those "lost in translation" moments. I was sat in front of a panel of 5 Japanese men who spoke little-to-no English and an American interpreter, who looked a little to smug at this position of power. Perhaps that's because I have a bone to pick with him over the fact he didn't translate my answers in the great depth and length with which I gave them. But perhaps that was the least of my worries.

They asked me very few questions about my experience. In fact, they seemed more bothered with things like this: "What types of people do you get on with?", "Who do you not get on with?" and "A lot of taxpayers money will be going on your salary. How will you be a good public servant?"

To which my answer was, "Not go out and wreck the city?"

Unsurprisingly, I haven't heard back.....

After being thoroughly traumatised by the psuedo-psychological test, I need a good dose of British culture. And so Calle and I set off to the Kobe Afternoon Tea Club!

Kobe Afternoon Tea Club was founded by Richard Mort, an English Afternoon Tea lover. He originally ran the group in Tokyo but since life has brought him to Kobe, the club came too. I met him back in August 2009 as he is a CouchSurfer. We shared a sophisticated tea and cake session.

This month's club was held at the Oriental Hotel, a modern yet swanky affair which provided us with a fancy yet restrained function room.

The menu included a variety of British

"delicacies", such as scones with clotted cream and jam, Cornish pasties and flapjacks. Yet they were not quite British: they were distinctly Japanese in size. The most interesting interpretation had to be the Cornish Pasty - it was minuscule, shaped like a gyoza, with very thin pastry and neatly layered meat, carrots and potato. It was pretty tasty though!

On the way back, we discovered a cake palace on a quiet street. Can't wait to go there for cake!

Sunday was the Kyoto Jidai Matsuri. One of the three largest festivals in Kyoto, it was created in the late 19th century in response to fears of Kyoto's declining glory after it lost its status as capital to Tokyo. The festival features a procession of historical costumes from each era in Kyoto's history, from 794 to the more recent Meiji period.

It takes over two hours to go past. And the participants look far more bored than the spectators. Many are teenage boys who clearly look coerced into it and carry their swords without the relish one expects from males when presented with a weapon.

My second favourite part was the giant brooms, which were tossed in the air. It prompted me to remark クリーニングをします！(I do cleaning!) which turned a few heads in the nearby crowd.

My favourite part was the horses, which no-one had trained. The very first horse in the parade refused to pull the carriage and the other carriages had to overtake. Others had to be continually calmed down and a few kept whinnying and tried to bolt! Given that this festival happens annually, I wonder how no-one thought to bring in trained horses?!

Check out more below:

Excuse me Officer, there's a Buddha and 4 dragons in my parking space!

In this post: mega-cool video of over 500 people dancing! Plus BONDAGE DOG COLLAR! What more could you want?

What would you do if you innocently pulled into a parking lot and found a Buddha and four dragons in your parking space? Well fortunately for you, Buddha only hangs out where there are plenty of other spaces. But just what on earth was the Buddha doing? He's definitely a wannabe Bond villain, stroking his white dragons whilst talking arrogantly in a Russian accent about his plans to destroy ze world.

Actually, Buddha wasn't the first interesting thing I saw yesterday. I opened my door and there was a mini matsuri (festival) bang outside.

Being such a gorgeous day, Calle and I decided to stroll around some of the temples and shrines around Kyoto. We headed over to Heian Jingu Shrine at just the right time. Suddenly, about 500 old people wearing white tops filed in front of the shrine. They were carrying signs with a variety of interesting words, such as friend, one hundred, and white. Then they did some tai chi style dance moves to slow, majestic music.

*Video coming soon if I can get it to work* :-(

We then paid a hefty 600円 to check out the gardens. But wow, they were worth it. The design and painstaking maintenance makes Japanese gardens unlike anything I've ever seen. Have a look yourselves:

We then walked over to Kurodani, a large temple and graveyard complex, which stretched out over an entire hillside. These blob tombstones are my favourite - the look a bit like nail varnish bottles.

To top the whole day off, we found a bondage dog collar in the top of our wardrobe. Now I don't want to say anything about people who go to live in Japan but.....given some of the other inhabitants I've met in this apartment block, and given this new discovery, I'm definitely making some judgements about the majority....

I overcame my fear of germs and where it may have been in order to model it for you. So here I am being a crazy bitch in need of taming:

Bike, Mobile....Job?

It was my second day in Japan and I had my mobile. But I sorely lacked two things: the job and the bike to get to the job.

Kyoto public transport is expensive and changing lines can cost you twice as much. Hence the bike. Its something which everyone seems to have.

THE BIKE

This mission was swift and successful, like my entire morning. Venturing out with my broken Japanese, I managed to get a second key cut for the apartment and photocopy my passport. On a roll, I decided to catch the subway just two stops and walk the 2km to Kyoto University, without any regard for the humidity. Sweaty but still as bouncy as usual, I met Calle and two other students on the scholarship program: James, the ultimate stereotype of the Oxford undergraduate, and a Swede, Victor, who I want to call Jacob for no apparent reason. (I decided to tell him this to avoid any future embarrassing mistakes by advance preparation).

We lunched and approached a new and second-hand bike store around the corner from the uni. I eyed up the specimens before selecting the biggest beast of them all (from within the price range). I can proudly declare that my bike has 27 inch wheels, not 26 inch wheels like all the other commoners! Sadly bikes in Japan don't seem to have gears. And sadly, my pride was sorely diminished after the events of today. I shall elaborate below.

However, my bike did lead me to this rather fine fellow here:

THE JOBS (and the mini-saga)

Being anxious to find work, I applied to EREV English school who match students with teachers for private one-one lessons. Before I'd even arrived, they hooked me up with three different students. I was to meet the first on Friday.

I also had a group interview session with Berlitz arranged for Thursday. I trekked over an hour to Osaka, and despite waiting longer for my trains than expected, made it with a cool 5 minutes to spare. The four of us were given a presentation, talked through the contracts available, and asked to fill in a post-interview questionnaire.

The trek back became more like an epic quest, a quest in which the protagonist's actions are thwarted at every turn. First, the subway train decided to stop halfway to the station I needed to get to. I had to abandon it and get on the next. Then at the station, the signs to the JR line took me out into the middle of nowhere. I whipped out some broken Japannese and a lady directed me to where I needed to go: 50m down the road, up three flights of stairs, double-back on myself, cross an underpass, go down some stairs, walk for another 10 minutes. Finally I saw steps ascending to the JR line. I came to the barriers - barriers with no ticket machines! Turns out tickets are only sold on the other side of the station. FML. I then hop on the first available train, which I read as a "rapid service". Nope. It was local and it stopped everywhere!

The only good news on my arrival home was that I had got an interview for the next day at the Kyoto language centr. Hurrah! Oh, and Calle cooked me dinner :)

THE SAGA: BIKING TO THE JOBS

Friday morning: Prepared for my interview and for my private lesson, I hoisted my rucksack onto my back. It was far too heavy, but as I don't have access to a printer, my laptop was the next best way of using teaching resources for my student.

One trouser leg rolled up, I glided down the hill, feeling like a じてんしゃひめ (bike princess). However, normally princesses don't have to navigate their way.....so I wasn't paying slightest attention at all to where I was going, I realised I'd turned off before I hit the river. The result: I sweated more than I would have liked to getting to that interview. I then found that the street where Berlitz is located had plague of no bike signs. However, being encouraged by the other bike outside the building, I parked it and rushed on up to the ninth floor.

The interview could have started better. It could have started without me knocking three books off the shelf as the interviewers walked into the room. However, I felt like it went really well and quite enjoyed myself (where did my nerves go?) As I was leaving, however, they gave me a warning about the council who go around impounding bikes. Under no circumstances should I leave the bike outside this building, especially as the owner of the building is a big wig in the local Shijo community and always campaigning against the bikes.

I bade them goodbye rather too hastily and ran to my bike. It had a notice stuck to it. Praying it wasn't a fine, I ripped it off and spun my bike round. CRACK. The bottom of the saddle snapped, leaving it only attached by one spring. My fearsome beast had failed me already. Still in a panic, I mounted my bike and kicked the stand back, slicing my ankle open in the process. Bleeding, and sweating again, I focussed any sense of direction on making it to my next engagement without cycling down a narrow side street full of temples.

Target: located. But where the hell do I put my bike? Yet again, the roads were filled with anti-bike signs. I ended up detouring down a side street and parking it outside someone's house like it belonged to them. With 15 minutes to spare, I entered the station in search of the Lotteria burger bar, and through some more broken Japanese, I found my student and launched into a "Getting To Know You"-style lesson.

The saga continued however. I received a call from Calle, who had neither a bike nore the money to get the train into town. He has had a rather unfortunate accident with his credit card which means that it doesn't give him money now it's snapped in half. He had to walk. For over an hour in the pouring rain.

Nevertheless, he made it and we returned to the bike store, where they replaced my saddle without any fuss. Phew.

We then had to walk home. In even heavier rain. Then Berlitz rang whilst I was walking down a very busy street in very heavy rain. So we stood in a doorway. Which apparently greatly offended the man who worked inside. He decided to shoo us, then drag a heavy sign out to where we were standing and finally resorted to trying to sweep us away with a broom, at the precise moment when I finished my phonecall. No love and shelter thy neighbour there.

But that doesn't matter. BECAUSE I HAVE A JOB. (If I do the unpaid 9.15 - 5.30 training in Osaka next week. There's always catch, isn't there?)

SHE'S BACK (yet again)

It's official. I have arrived in Japan. The blog title needs updating though....I'm not in Tokyo.

I'm in Kyoto!! Check out the obligatory, boastful picture, which I obviously didn't take.

First of all - the journey:

I am proud to say that for once in my life I didn't get stopped for questioning and I didn't get searched. My concern was more for the state of Rome airport, where I was changing flights. Did no-one tell the Italians that if you're going to shove a load of ridiculous designer shops into an airport, you should probably secure the roof and keep out the pigeons? Still, I wonder if designer handbags and pigeons could make a classic combination yet...

The journey was really marred by the fact that my body seems to have broken. Over the past month, I have been living with a permanent cold and flu-like symptoms. Except I'm not contagious. I have something stupid known as allergies. To what? Well if you can answer that, I'd call you God and bow down five times daily, kiss your feet or whatever.

So I spent the 12 hour flight, semi-conscious and depleting my tissue collection. THANKFULLY, there was no-one sat next to me. However, maybe I made too much noise sneezing as when I did get up, there did seem an over-abundance of face masks, even on a plane full of Japanese.

Skip forward in time, and at 1pm Japanese time (3am English time) I arrive at the apartment. It smells.... musty. It has damaged walls. But it is cheap and it is clean. There is a natural spring outside and steps up a path to the mountains. But better than the view is a gorgeous futon. I collapse into sleep.

Calle wakes me up. He's ill. We walk to the shops, coughing and sneezing like a pair of TB sufferers. It's very romantic.

SAGA OF THE DAY: KEITAI SHOPPING

I need a keitai (Japanese mobile phone). Why? Cos I was a little too keen on finding work before I came to Japan. Result: I have two students this week who want private lessons. Oh and an interview at Berlitz (fingers crossed for me, please!!)

First of all, Calle and I go to get my alien registration card so I can join the Japanese National Association of Alien Spotters reside legally in Japan. This takes three weeks so we pay 350 yen for a certificate to say I've applied. This way I can get a phone. So the theory goes.

We go to Softbank, one of Japan's largest providers of mobile phones. We go through the laborious process, listening to all the details and explanations, Calle translating the whole time. Finally, we find out how much a monthly deal costs. It's very reasonable. We go to the phones page. I select the cheapest-looking one. She turns to the price list. Yes it's the cheapest. But it's also 23,000 yen (£192.76!!!) For a phone I'll be using for 10 months??!!! I don't think so!

OK, let's get pre-paid. A pre-paid phone costs no more than £42. ....Wait! Could she have a landline number for us? Any number at all. Wait! Now my passport and alien certificate aren't enough. She needs the actual alien card.

The woman bows and apologises us out of the shop.

Screw you Softbank! We went to AU and they sold me a phone. It's the nastiest pink phone that ever existed but it's a phone!

_______________________________________________________

And the report from this morning: I conquered jetlag! I slept from 11.30pm to 8.30am! WIN!

....Not quite. I did wake up. Or rather, I woke myself up as I fell off the step into the front door, sending a sharp pain down my ankle. I then continued to throw myself against the door, tugging on the handle, demanding that Calle fetch the key as we had to go out. At this point, Calle asked why we needed to go out, and I realised that I hadn't got the faintest clue.

I leave you all with the picture of my new shower friend. Sadly, his wriggly manner meant he was put outside.