Hi de ho Kmart shoppers. I'm sitting in Osaka, Japan as tired as a big ole Southern boy can be after hoofing it all over hell and half of Kyoto today. The ship said sayonara to us today and let us off in Osaka. The taxi we took from the ship's terminal to the hotel was driven by a Dale Earnhardt wannabe and succeeded in scaring the pants off me. We dropped our bags at the hotel in Osaka and were joined by The Nice Canadian Couple, and met our Goodwill Guides Kiyoe and Yoko. Kiyoe and Yoko spent the day showing us around Kyoto which is about fifty miles from Osaka. In Kyoto we visited a shrine or temple (I ain't even sure which type it was) that dated back to 765AD but was rebuilt in the 1700s, likely because some woman didn't unplug her hair curling iron and burnt the building to the ground. I'm not sure how the temple burned down, but the curling iron idea sounds feasible to me having been married for fifteen years to a woman that uses a hair curling iron. Anyway, there is a cliff of sorts on the grounds of the shrine or temple (whatever) that overlooked a natural spring. The spring had all kinds of legends associated with it that I won't go into now, but the reason I mentioned it is because it was at the base of the little cliff that is next to the temple. The cliff was about seventy-five feet straight down which wasn't really much of a cliff but enough for idiots to jump off of. Kiyoe told us that it was illegal to jump off this cliff-- like I was contemplating it. When she said that we all looked at her like she was a democrat, until she explained that the locals used to jump off the cliff for sin cleansing or somesuch and eighty percent survived the fall. A pessimist might say twenty percent broke their stupid necks, but I tend to look at the bright side and say eighty percent of the idiots survived. Well duh, with odds like that I wanted to give cliff jumping a go, but after finding out the act was illegal poof goes all my aspirations of being a cliff jumper and cleansing me of all those evil thoughts of pushing democrats off that cliff. I think the democrats need a cliff like that in Washington except a little higher, oh let's say 750 feet so they can test out firsthand BO's and Nancy Perogi's socialized medicine. Anyway, I didn't fall or jump off that stupid cliff. The shrine and the surrounding city were spectacular and worthy of Alsan's, Debsan's, and Nice Canadian Couplesan's time.
We had lunch at a stereotypical Japanese restaurant that had short tables without chairs. Before we sat we had to take our shoes off, and I watched Kioyo take off her shoes and put them together with the heals together and toes pointing away from the table. Mr Nice Canadian Couple took his shoes off and didn't line them up the same way and the waitress lady corrected that mistake after we sat down. Man there are so many rules of this nature to follow in Japan. The waitress should have considered herself lucky as I mimicked Kiyoe's shoe placement, and had the waitress tried to move Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy's (my) shoes, she would have had to call one of those little guys in the back to come help her lift them. Lunch was fun right up to the point we had to use chopsticks again. Can somebody please introduce Japan and China to forks please? Thank you.
We rode The Bullet Train today, and it was faster than John Edwards at a skank chasing contest. The Bullet Train moved along at 180 MPH which is almost as fast as the first taxi we took in Osaka, but the train was much smoother. The fare for The Bullet Train was ten times more expensive than the regular train ($30 vs. $3) and took a quarter of the ride time. I've ridden on bullet trains for years in NC, but you would call it Deb driving her car--kind of like our kamikaze taxi driver earlier in the day. During the day, we rode in a ship, several taxis, a few buses, subway, and The Bullet train, and good times were had by all.
Our hotel was interesting and full of fun games. First, after checking in at the main desk, we spent several minutes playing where is the elevator. The lobby of the hotel was under construction and the elevator was camouflaged. Inside the elevator, we played how do we operate the elevator as the room key card had to be put into a slot to make the elevator buttons work. That little option was fun. Just before the elevator doors closed a female voice on the intercom would say something in Japanese that sounded like "money, money, money". She repeated "money, money, money" on each floor and like clockwork the elevator doors would close. Good Lord I have no idea what "money, money, money" meant in Japanese, but the voice got me to saying "money, money, money" on the elevator. Anyway, after arriving on our floor (money, money, money) we played where is our room after stumbling around in the dark hallway (painted black BTW) with very little lighting for some reason. After we finally found the room door, we played how do we open the door since the door opened magically with the plastic room key, but the key didn't want to cooperate, Well duh, this door wasn't your everyday card reader door like our No Tell Motels at home. After opening the room door, we played where is the light switch which we never did find, and where is the bathroom as the bathroom door was camouflaged to be cutesy or something architecturally idiotic. At home we are allowed to backhand architects that design stupid buildings like this hotel, but in Japan it is artistic. Whatever. And last but not least, we played how do we flush the toilet which was my personal favorite of all the games we played. It turns out the toilet had a written instructional manual with an electronic control board with wall mounted pushbutton switches that flushed the toilet. Yes I said it had pushbuttons to flush the stupid thing with different buttons to change the intensity of the flush. I'll bet a democrat invented that thing. Oh, it had the same electronic, heated, butt washing and drying toilet seat the Shanghai hotel had. This toilet was like playing a juke box. I was afraid that if I sat on it and pushed the wrong button the woman would announce "money, money, money", and I would loose something vital to the closing doors hidden under the toilet seat. "Money, money, money" and I would sing in the Vienna Boys Choir the rest of my life. Oh, believe me in saying that I will have fond memories of that hotel for years to come. Money, money, money.
Tomorrow, we leave for home and will see The Puppies again. Oh boy.
Al
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